Back Packs: 1995 Donruss Series 2

Pardon the horrible picture here. I realized after I opened the pack that I had forgotten to take a beauty shot of the pack. Quite the beauty, huh Marge. Anyway, this is 1995 Donruss, a set that took foil to a new extreme as pretty much everything that wasn't part of the picture done in foil. This fine pack from series 2 yields 18 cards. Let's see what awaits us.

#548 Scott Brosius

#348 David West

#357 Rafael Palmiero

The design on these is definitely well, interesting. You've got a full bleed photo with the Donruss logo in foil in the upper left. The bottom has another shot of the player in an inset shaped like home plate with ... *cough, cough* ... more foil, this time with a stripe featuring the team name and the players name. Above the plate inset, the position is listed with some stars creating an arch above it. All the foil, makes the player name incredibly hard to read. So much so in fact that I had to zoom in like crazy to make them out in the scan.

As far as the first batch of players here, I remember Brosius catching the final out of a World Series (I think it was the 1998 Series) for the Yankees. Looking up his career stats, 1995 looked to be his first season as the A's primary third baseman hitting .262/.342/.452 in 123 games. His most notable years though as mentioned were with the Yankees, where he was an All-Star in 1998 and won a gold glove in 1999. 

#368 Mike Devereaux

#386 Rusty Meacham

#498 Don Slaught

Rusty Meacham I have zero remembrance of. Probably the most notable player here is Don Slaught who carved out a pretty decent season in 1995 in what would be his last season with Pittsburgh.

#396 Eric Plunk

#477 Chuck Finley

#493 Cris Carpenter

The action shots on these look like they were taken from the same vantage point. Chuck Finley played for longer than I thought he did, retiring after the 2002 season. He spent 14 years with the Angels, winning 165 games for them over those seasons. After departing Anaheim, he had stints with the Indians and Cardinals. 

#403 Tim Salmon

#442 John Roper

#468 Tony Tarasco

I may have told this story before here but John Roper was the first player I ever got an in person autograph from. He was doing an autograph signing at the local mall during a card show once but I didn't have anything for him to sign. Lucky for me, one of the vendors had extra Reds cards for 25 cents, one of which was a 1994 Pinnacle John Roper. I bought the card and took it over to the center of the mall to have it signed. I'm not sure whatever happened to that card now though.

#457 Zane Smith

#450 Bip Roberts

#550 Chili Davis checklist

Bip Roberts was on his second stint with the Padres in 1995, having resigned with them after leaving the Reds via free agency. After the season, he was traded to the Royals for Wally Joyner and would hang around for a few more seasons before retiring after the 1998 season. He is perhaps best remember for his time with the Padres, but his best season was 1992 for the Reds in which he was an All-Star, finished 8th in MVP voting, and hit .323/.393/.432 in 147 games for a Reds team that won 90 games that season.

#522 Joe Carter

#380 Kirby Puckett

The last two cards in the pack and two pretty solid players. The 1995 season was Kirby's last but he went out with a bang, being named an All-Star, walloping 23 homers, with a .314 average in 137 games. I guess that this could be classified as a sunset card as well, unless he had cards in the 1996 releases, which he very well could. Carter had a pretty good season in 1995 as well, despite being on the backside of his career. For a Blue Jays team that only won 56 games that year, Carter hit .253/.300/.428 in 139 games.

That's it for this pack. This was the last of the packs I had in reserve that were worth sharing. The other packs I opened were literally nothing special so I felt like there was nothing worth talking about.