30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, December 9, 2019

Mad Monday

Mondays are typically a little crazy for me.

1992 Lime Rock Mad: Series 2 Hologram #2

I have an IEP meeting this afternoon.  Progress reports are due tomorrow morning.  And I'm starting my anti-bullying unit today and I didn't even touch my work laptop this weekend.

Why not?  Well... usually I do my lesson planning on Sunday afternoon.  However yesterday, I spent almost over 7 hours in my office cleaning my desk and reorganizing my card binders.  The bad news is I didn't finish.  My back just couldn't take me sitting on the floor crouched over staring at cards anymore.

The good news is I discovered some cool cards that I completely forgot about, so I scanned them and decided to share them with you.

1997 Bowman Chrome Refractor #227

There was a time when this was one of the hottest products on the planet.  I can't remember if I ever opened any of this product, but I do remember back in 2000 Todd Helton flirted with .400 all the way into September.  

1984 Smokey the Bear Angels #NNO

No idea where I picked this up, but I remember growing up Smokey the Bear would always tell us "only you can prevent forest fires".  According to Beckett, this card along with 31 others were given away to kids 15 years or younger at an Angels game back in the Summer of 1984.

1996 Ultra Rawhide #6
1996 Ultra Rawhide Gold Medallion #6

While sorting my Maddux binder, I noticed the Fleer Ultra logos in the bottom lefthand corner were a little different.  The card on the left is the regular insert (1:8 packs) while the one on the right is the Gold Medallion version (1:80 packs).

Both were produced during a time when Fleer flooded the hobby with a ton of different inserts sets along with parallels for their insert sets... which resulted in them being quarter bin fodder.  Maybe Topps should take some notes.

2019 Topps Chrome Green Wave Refractor #139 (#'d 99/99)

This Goldschmidt was buried within one of the collections I purchased off of my buddy.  And after a month or two of sitting in a box gathering dust, I finally put it where it belongs...in my Prime Number PC.

1993 Stadium Club Inserts #NNO

This is the card that actually inspired this post.  I found this card sitting in the binder housing my McGwires.  I've obviously seen this card before, because I'm the one who inserted it into the binder.  But I don't remember it.

I like really like it though, because it took me back to a time when the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's rivalry was at its peak and fans supported either Will the Thrill or Bic Mac.

What about you...

Who's your favorite 80's or 90's first baseman?

Happy Monday and sayonara!

19 comments:

Trevor P said...

It's rare when I see a blog post that I have one of the cards, bit I have three of these. I've got the two Maddux Rawhides and the McGwire/Clark.

IEPs can be rough. I feel you.

And to answer your question, Mark Grace was far and away my favorite. The 90s hit king!

gcrl said...

I didn't realize there were mad magazine cards/stickers!
My fave 1b from the 80s is steve garvey. From the 90s I should probably say Eric Karros but I was also a fan of the crime dog.

Lee Hero said...

That "sitting on the floor crouched over staring at cards" hit home, lol. Why must we sit in the floor to do this when we have desks? Simple answer is the desk is nowhere near as big as the floor.

sg488 said...

Eddie Murray,nice Reggie oddball.

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

I had never seen the 93' TSC inserts before, cool.

Peter K Steinberg said...

I think I have to go with Fred McGriff as my favorite first baseman in the 80s and 90s.

I have the Griffey Jr/Strawberry one of these. It's a neat card. As is the McGwire/Clark.

night owl said...

It sure isn't Will Clark!

Garvey by default, I guess. I consider him more a '70s guy.

Chris said...

For a second I thought the Goldschmidt was a holiday edition parallel.

My older brother got me into baseball around 1986 and he was a Yankee fan so Don Mattingly was my favorite first baseman of that era.

Adam Kaningher said...

I'd have to go with Andres Galarraga.

Mike said...

John Olerud. A lot of the big guns (Bagwell, McGwire, Thomas) were fun to watch hit, though.

Laurens said...

I like to remember I hit a softball PE home run mimicking Andres Galarraga's open stance circa 1993, but I didn't consider him quite a star that he would become through the end of the decade.

I'll go with a no brainer - Frank Thomas, even though he was probably destined to be a DH.

SumoMenkoMan said...

Has to be Don Mattingly for me.

Matt said...

Favorite 1st baseman would probably be Mo Vaughn.

Brett Alan said...

Either him or Keith Hernandez for me.

GCA said...

Didn't watch a lot of ball in the 90's, so I have to go with Murray along with my player collection guys Keith Hernandez and Cecil Cooper.

Ah, the dreaded IEP meeting. A few years ago, when us technicians actually visited the schools a lot, IEP meetings would shut down a service call to a front office user. (For those that don't know, they're special ed student meetings with the parents to work out the legal requirements for that student's instruction). You don't mess with IEP meetings. Those people just aren't available. Come back tomorrow.

Matt said...

I had never seen that hologram before. Cool!

gregory said...

Tough call between Keith Hernandez and Don Mattingly. Oh, and Andres Galarraga.

Also, whenever I see Reggie in that Angels uniform I think of Leslie Nielsen and the Naked Gun movie.

Alan Deakins said...

-I always liked Will Clark even if he played on the Giants, but Mark Grace is my favorite..Had more hits than anyone in the 90s, should get more HoF votes in my opinion...The Mississippi State U. Bulldog teams with Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro, Jeff Brantley, Bobby Thigpen and others were a lot of fun to watch in the mid 80s and hold a lot of early memories for me moving to MS and growing up there thru high school....

Fuji said...

Survey says...

Mark Grace 2
Steve Garvey 1.5
Eric Karros .5
Eddie Murray 1.5
Fred McGriff 1
Don Mattingly 2.5
Andres Galarraga 1.5
John Olerud 1.5
Keith Hernandez 1.5
Frank Thomas 1
Mo Vaughn 1
Cecil Cooper .5

Lots of variety... and not exactly an official vote, but it looks like Mattingly wins the most popular award.

Trevor P - Interesting piece of Grace trivia. Crazy that he had more hits than Gwynn in the 90's

gcrl - According to the internet, there were 3 different sets produced by Lime Rock in the early 90's.

Lee Hero - Exactly. I had card spread out all over the place

sg488 - I would have guessed that Murray would walk away with the title. Everyone loved him back in the day.

Johnnys Trading Spot - Yeah. There looks like there were three other dual player cards produced for that set.

Peter K Steinberg - I need to add a copy to my Griffey binder.

night owl - I remember Garvey during the 80's. But then again... that's when my fanfare for baseball and baseball cards really blossomed.

Chris - By 1986, I had already started disliking the Yankees. Mattingly was one of my least favorite players. Lol. I was always rooting for Boggs to beat him out for the batting titles.

Adam Kaningher - I can go for that. I like Galarraga too.

Mike & Brett Alan - There was a brief period where I was stockpiling Olerud rookie cards. Probably right around the time he won that batting title.

Laurens - Nice. I wonder how many of your classmates recognized Galarraga's stance. Frank Thomas was my favorite 1st baseman not named McGwire.

SumoMenkoMan - Lol. I couldn't stand Mattingly. He was so darn good.

Matt - Dang that guy could hit the ball.

GCA - I'm pretty lucky. Our specialists usually let the general ed teachers talk first and leave.

Sport Card Collectors - A nice addition to any presidential pc.

gregory - Nice call on the Naked Gun movie. It immediately popped into my head.

Alan Deakins - Wow. Mississippi State was loaded back in the 80's.