Pack Nine

Pack 9 +12
339 Tim Leary
277 Dion James
316 Eric Davis
154 Tim Laudner
116 Charlie Leibrandt
311 Barry Larkin
358 Dave Wainhouse
221 Drew Hall
327 Alan Ashby
139 Dale Sveum
211 Tino Martinez
115 Tom Gordon

Today's reprint card is nice. Hall of Fame center fielder and Phillies broadcasting legend, Richie Ashburn. Shown here on a 1949 Bowman card.


The original '49 Bowman set featured a color background with "colorized" black and white photographs. It was a 240 card set and sold in five card packs. Inserted into packs of 1949 Bowman in certain regions were cards of Pacific Coast League players. There were 30 PCL cards and they were all in color.


Here's the second card of a future Hall of Famer that I've shown today.

Barry has a very nice signature that's partially obscured by the shadows of the dugout wall, but this is another one that has no better place for a signature. If this card were produced today, the signature would most likely be in foil or silver ink.

Now let's have a look at two rookie prospects.


Here we see a young Tino Martinez. As we saw yesterday with Ed Sprague, this is another player who signed in 1988 and hadn't yet seen professional action at the time the cards were printed. The background looks rocky, which makes me think Arizona. But for this to be spring training it would have to be 1989 and that's not very likely. The Arizona League Mariners play in Peoria, AZ, but if Martinez didn't make his professional debut until 1989, what's he doing in Peoria in '88?

I'm really curious about when this set was printed. Early in '89 to be released with base Topps, or later in the year? I'm not really sure where to go to find these thigns out.

Moving right along to another prospect.


Who? I've never heard of this guy, but he stuck around off and on until 2000. He was drafted in the first round by the Expos in June 1988 and made his Major League debut in August 1991. He pitched in 85 games in parts of seven seasons between '91 and 2000, a grand total of 105 innings with a poor strike out to walk ratio, 66K - 61BB. All that with a 7.37 ERA. Oops. 1998 was his only season with an ERA+ above 100, but he only pitched in ten games. His career ERA+ was 66. Oops, again.

But he gets lots of points in my book for the old school Expos uniform.

I'm now over 100 cards into the set and no doubles have shown up yet.