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. 

You've Got Mail #28: The Junior Junkie

Before the birth of his new baby, TJ (aka The Junior Junkie), unleashed a massive mailing upon the cardsphere universe the likes of which I've never seen. I was the lucky recipient of one of the packages and it was loaded with lots of Reds goodies.

I'll start off with some Gypsy Queen from last year. The sad thing is that two of the five active players  shown aren't with the club anymore and Mesoraco is done for the season, again, after having surgery on a torn labrum in his shoulder. The Tony Perez card reminds me of an old Diamond Kings card from way back in the day with the artwork.

I don't buy a lot of Bowman so getting them in trade packages is pretty much the only way I get these cards. Nick Howard is one of the Reds top pitching prospects but he's still a few years away from the majors as he just made it High-A Daytona this season. I like Bowman cards but the one thing that bothers me about them is the way uniforms are photoshopped on the prospects.

Here's a batch of mid-90s Reds from Pacific Crown Royale. All three of these guys were mainstays for the Reds, especially Reggie Sanders, who played the first 8 years of his career with the Reds and then bounced around for another seven before calling it quits in 2007. Boone and Casey provided nice stability on the right side of the infield. After they left, it was a free for all until Phillips and Votto came around.

Behold Brandon Szymanski, the Reds second round pick of the June 2004 amateur draft. He's one of many in a long line of Reds prospects that flamed out. He never reached the majors in five pro seasons and the highest level he attained was 22 games at AAA Louisville. According to the awesome Baseball Reference, he had a .240 career average in 422 games with 53 home runs. Basically, here didn't really tear it up down in the bush leagues. Still, this is a pretty interesting piece.

Here's a couple of cool inserts from recent Topps sets. The "timeless talents" set is something I really like, especially since it shows both Joe Morgan and Brandon Phillips. I'm sure it does the same with other teams as well.

The rest of the package was a proverbial grab bag, which I actually enjoy. Here's another Johnny Bench card for my growing PC of his. I've slowly been accumulating Vada Pinson cards for some reason, perhaps the cardboard gods are telling me to add him to my PC list?  I'll have to mull that over as there are certainly worse players I could add.

As I said, there was a little bit of everything in the package. I surprisingly didn't have this Sabo card in my collection so it's a nice addition.

Now these are cool! First a Pete Rose all-time Diamond Kings card. It's pretty cool that Panini has decided to put Pete on their cards since Topps can't/won't/whatever. The Griffey card is one of the odd side projects I collect, cards from defunct retail chains. Kaybee (or K-B Toys) was a toy shop in malls during the heyday of mall but went out of business in 2009 and their assets were sold off to Toys R Us. I have fond memories of going to the local K-B Toys and searching through the aisles at wrestling figures and other assorted items.

Finally, some 1994 Topps Gold. John Roper was doing an autograph signing at the local mall in 1994 in conjunction with a card show one time. I purchased a 1994 Pinnacle card from a dealer for a quarter and went over and got it signed by him. Since then, I've lost that card as I'm pretty sure it was in my initial purge of my childhood collection about 10-12 years ago.

A big thanks to T.J. for sending these out. Best of luck with the new baby T.J. and I'll have some Mariners out to you as appreciation.