Ripping Some Junk Wax Packs

What to do? What to do?

I've got a handful of junk wax packs laying around from repacks I've opened recently and I'm at a loss on what to do with them. Should I rip them and put them in individual posts? Or should I just tear into them and then show off the findings all in one post.

I know, these are troubling times, right?

I think probably for the better part of my sanity, I'll rip them and share the findings all in one post here. I do have some hockey ones as well but I'll save those for another time, these will be all baseball and, boy, do I have some winners here ... 1991 Fleer Ultra, 1991 Donruss Series 2, and 1988 Donruss.

Let's go from least intriguing to most intriguing and start with 1988 Donruss

I have a supposed complete set of this I picked up at the community yard sales last year for a mere three bucks that I have yet to go through. Not even a Danny Tartabull Diamond Kings card can save this batch of five. The borders and posed shots just make this feel dark. Give me the gaudiness of 1990 Donruss over this any day.

Things improve a little bit here with Mike Witt and Juan Samuel. One positive thing I always liked about this set was the use of the team logo in the bottom right.

And the last six of this pack, probably the most interesting batch. Take a close look at Mickey Tettleton, he's got a hung hunk of chaw in his mouth. This batch was very Brewers heavy with Robin Yount, Bill Wegman, and Dan Plesac. I always like the picture on the Jerry Hairston card, even as a kid.

As you can see, not much to get excited about since it's 1988 Donruss. Moving on, one of my personal favorites of the junk wax era, it's 1991 Donruss!

I've said before that I much prefer the blue border series 1 over the green border series 2. However, I'm slowly warming up to series 2 and I like that Donruss tried something new by giving each series a different border color. The photos are also much improved from 1988. The team logo is still there too, albeit in the bottom left corner. I also feel there is more star power here in general, even if the cards aren't worth the paper they're printed on, case in point Dave Justice and Will Clark as the first two cards out of the gate. 

Oh cool, Ozzie Guillen and Curt Schilling cards! Plus, it's Schilling in a bright orange Orioles uniform. 

The final five of the pack and look, there a Mo Vaughn Rated Rookie plus another cool Orioles card of Randy Milligan. That's some 1991 Donruss series 2. Overall, not a bad pack and I got some pretty neat cards. If I'd had opened this pack in 1991, I think I would've been satisfied.

Now, onto the final break, a pack of a product I've never opened before, that being 1991 Fleer Ultra.

So Fleer tried to get into the "premium offering" game in 1991 by debuting Fleer Ultra and I'll admit, I'm a little underwhelmed. Sure, the design is worlds better than the main set that year but the nameplate at the bottom reminds me of 1991 Fleer football and it still feels a little bland.

So far, Kirby Puckett is the best card of the pack. The Barry Bonds card is part of the ten-card Ultra Team insert set. 

Nothing here to get excited about really.

Again, still nothing to get overly excited about although I guess a Rick Aguilera card is better than nothing. There was also a sticker included in the pack although I forgot to photograph it.

So it turns out that the pack I was most excited about was the pack that yielded some of the least fun. In order of worst to best, I'd put these as 88 Donruss, 91 Ultra, and then 91 Donruss as the best. I guess this could be considered a pack war of sorts but I don't see it that way. I just see it as a excuse to rip some old junk wax packs. This was fun though.

April 9, 1994

You may have noticed a change around the blog recently, mainly in the background photo. I forget where I found the picture above (I think it was on Twitter) but when I saw it, I thought it was really neat. It's a view of inside old Riverfront Stadium, the place where I saw my first live baseball game. I liked the photo so much that I ended up making it the background of my laptop as well, along with a few other devices I use mainly because every time I see it, it bring back a warm feeling of nostalgia and being a kid again. 

A few days ago, I had the thought to see if I was able to find the game or the day on which this picture was taken. Since I couldn't make out any of the players on the field, I had to look other places in the picture for help. First, I noticed that those in the stands had rain gear and ponchos on. That's my first clue, the weather.

Here's a zoomed in portion of the photo focusing on the scoreboard. This is where I had to look to get most of my clues. First, look at the time on the clock. It reads 1:12, therefore telling me this is a day game. Next, look at the records of the pitchers, each one reads 0-0. Another clue is who the pitchers actually are. I know it's terribly hard to read (believe me, I did the best I could to enhance it) but the board to the left of the NBC5 sign reads "Starting Pitchers Smiley vs. Schilling". That's the biggest clue. So far, I've deciphered that it's an early season day game against the Phillies where it was raining. That should be plenty good enough to start some digging on Baseball Reference.

Oh, in case you are wondering, the text on the other scoreboard reads:

City of Cincinnati municipal code prohibits smoking in all seating areas, in restrooms, while in concession stand lines, and in all other posted "no smoking" locations. Stadium guests wishing to smoke may feel free to do so on any of the stadium concourses.

Once on Baseball Reference, I cross checked the years where John Smiley pitched for the Reds and Curt Schilling pitched for the Phillies. Smiley was with the Reds from 1993-1997 and Schilling threw for the Phillies from 1992-2000. Ok, so I know to look in Reds results from 1993-1997.

There's a nice little function on Baseball Reference where you can click the team abbreviation (example "CIN" for Cincinnati) next to a particular year and it will pull up the team page from that season. From there, if you click the "Schedule & Results" section, it will give you the results from every game that particular team played that year along with the box score. 

I just went year by year. I clicked 1993 first, nothing there. The Reds didn't play the Phillies at home that year until May 31. Ok, so I moved on to 1994. And wait, what's this?

Look at Saturday, April 9. The opponent matches up (Phillies), the starting pitchers match up (Smiley and Schilling), time of day matches up (day). I think we have a winner. The last thing to check is the weather at the bottom of the box score:

Bingo! The field condition was "wet" and it was overcast! There it is, this picture was taken on Saturday, April 9, 1994! Just for the heck of it, here's the rest of the box score from that day.

It's nice to see as well that the Reds won that day 2-1. That was their second win in a row as they had also bested the Phillies the prior night in extra innings. The Reds would continue on and ended up with a six-game winning streak, the first of three six-game winning streaks they would have that year. But, as everyone knows, the season abruptly ended in August with the players strike that cancelled the post season and lingered on into the beginnings of the 1995 season. Seeing this photo though, from a game so early in the season, really makes you wonder if the players knew what would lie ahead of them in that oh so troubled season.