93 Jon Perlman
58 Willie Hernandez
596 Benito Santiago
564 Ray Knight
513 Mariano Duncan
287 Dwayne Murphy
187 Vance Law
264 Bill Pecota
229 Dave Concepcion
472 Mike Loynd
149 Rafael Santana
490 Willie Fraser
304 Von Hayes
118 Fred McGriff
164 Mike Felder
New feature for the second half of the box: Pack Ripping Music.
For this pack I've chosen Solitude Aeturnus' 1990 debut album "Into the Depths of Sorrow." This is epic doom metal at its finest.
There has been a running debate in my head for years which album I like better, this one or Candlemass' debut "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus." Both are spectacular, and while later Candlemass is far superior, I have to give the nod to "Into the Depths of Sorrow," it's a truly bleak, beautiful record.
But of course, next week I could be liking "Epicus" better. That's the way it goes.
This song is from their 1994 album "Through The Darkest Hour."
Ok, how 'bout we look at some baseball cards?
The one thing really sticks out about that Braves dynasty of the 1990's is that they made very few big trade deadline deals. The biggest pickup of that era was an off season acquisition of a free agent pitcher named Greg Maddux.
Fred McGriff is the only superstar caliber player I can think of that the Braves picked up near the trade deadline. These days a club picks up a superstar player for the pennant run and then dumps him at the end of the season (cough Mark Teixeira cough), but McGriff is one that stuck around for a while and made an impact.
He hit 25+ home runs and drove in 90+ in each of his three full years in Atlanta and was an All Star.
The Braves got the best end of that deal. Of the three players the Padres got in the deal, only Melvin Nieves played in more than 100 games for his new team. Donnie Elliott pitched to an 0-1 record in 35 innings pitched out of the pen, his 3.09 ERA was pretty good though. And Vince Moore never made it to the majors.
As much as I liked Fred McGriff, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of him is the fire in the Fulton Country Stadium press box the day Crime Dog joined the Braves.
When I was flipping through the pack looking for a good looking card to scan I didn't pay much attention to the name. When I threw the cards on the scanner and sat down to put them together, I noticed who I had scanned and I thought "golly gee, some one was actually able to take a good picture of this guy."
Because let us not forget this beauty that Topps gave us the year before:
It's not the worst from '87 Topps, but it'll do. Let's see what Score did with ol' Mike...
Well... certainly it comes down to a battle between Score and Fleer. I'd estimate that in 95% of cases 1988 Score will win in the photography department, but I think I like the Fleer card better here.
Any idea where this picture was taken? Spring training? My first thought was Oakland because of the green fence, but Mariano shouldn't have played any games in Oakland in 1987. Did Dodger Stadium have green fences back then? It looks like he's wearing an away jersey. The guy to the left of the tubby guy in yellow looks to be wearing a Padres hat, but I can't tell for sure, it could also be a Giants hat. So Jack Murphy Stadium, maybe?
Looks like most Dodger cards that weren't taken in LA were taken in the same place as the Duncan card.
Wherever it was taken it looks like Duncan either hit a foul ball down the third base line or a line drive in that direction that was caught.
Hey hey, at least I can say for sure that this one was taken at old Comisky in Chicago.
I don't like to see batters bend that back leg so far on their swing. You can't generate much power when you knee bends that low. When Andruw Jones was struggling his last year in Atlanta, he'd take a lot of swings like that and either swing and miss or pop up somewhere on the infield.
What we see here is probably a swing and a miss judging by the upright position of the bat on the follow through, a very awkward swing and miss.
There you go. Come back tomorrow for pack 20 and see what kind of pack rippin' music I'm listening to.
7 comments:
Don't forget Loynd's 88 Topps card, which isn't any better. You might want to add the scan to your post above :)
yaaah... I feel bad for the guy. Score and Fleer seem to have done a pretty good job, but Topps puts him against some post-apocalyptic background and takes the worst picture they possibly can.
Here's the odd thing: Mariano was not an all-star in 1987, but that background looks almost identical to the background in the Eric Davis shot. So either that's not the All-Star game, or there's something else going on here - what are the odds of that guy sitting in the background at a game where both the Reds and the Dodgers were the away team?
Isn't the Murphy card from Anaheim?
damnit, don't tell me that. It very well could be now that I think about it. The helmet in the background looked like the old black and red White Sox hat and the railing looks like Comiskey. But I think you may be right.
0 for 2. I'll go sulk now.
haha I apologize for crushing the dream. It's just that the horrible orange railing has been burned into my retinas from many afternoons at the Big A.
Comiskey was more yellowish wasn't it.
Oh well.
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