You've Got Mail #55: Waiting 'Til Next Year

Everyone's favorite blogger from P-Town, Tom, was doing a cardboard clearance of sorts recently. I happened to be the beneficiary of some his unwanted cardboard of both Reds and Indians, to which I was elated. While I won't show everything that was included, because if I did, you'd be here until next Tuesday reading this, I'll hit the highlights.

Here are some cards from the early 2000s in the form of 2002 Diamond Kings and 2000 UD Ionix. The number of sets that were out back then was mind boggling and most, if not all of the sets like these, I'd forgotten about. The Diamond Kings cards are everything you expect them to be with the artistic look and the white border. The most interesting thing that I noticed on these is that the artist is not Dick Perez, it's someone named Tano, which I couldn't find any information on after a quick search. Perhaps someone out there knows about this mysterious Tano?

UD Ionix is a set I barely remember as it showed up at the tail end of my initial collecting barrage. Come the late 90s/early 2000s I wasn't into cards as much as I had been before as I was in high school and I started working so cards sort of fell to the background. These cards are pretty cool though with the filmstrip deal at the bottom. The backgrounds seem very busy though with weird designs behind the players and being red on one half and white on the other. Regardless, I'm very happy to add these to my collection, especially considering they're of two of my favorite players from the era, Aaron Boone and Sean Casey.

These horizontals are really nice, the Larkin card especially with the big MLB logo in the background and the All-Star Game stamp on the front. However, the card I really want to talk about there is the managers card with Buck Rodgers and Tony Perez. One of these two didn't make it through the 1993 season. I'll give you a hint, it wasn't Buck Rodgers. Perez was hired to replace Lou Piniella who departed for Seattle after the 1992 season. After 44 games and a respectable 20-24 record, Perez was given the boot and replaced with Davey Johnson. To this day, no one is really quite sure what happened to cause Perez to be unceremoniously canned but as far as I know, this might be the only card that shows Perez as the Reds manager. In 2001, he got a second chance as manager of the Marlins going 54-60 in 114 games at the helm.

Since word has gotten out that I collect the Indians as well as the Reds, people have been more than happy to dump off their unwanted Indians cards to me and I've been more than happy to accept them. Everything from 1980s Sportflics cards to 2016 Heritage minors was included. With the Ramirez Donruss rookie, I think I now have every Manny rookie card there is to be had from the 90s. 

Now the three really, really cool things that were in this package. First, this from the 1981 Perma-Graphics credit card line. At first, I though it was some sort of membership card to a fan club or something. It's definitely a really cool oddball from a season where the Reds missed the playoffs despite having the best overall record in the National League.

Finally, my two favorite cards of the package. First up this Tony Perez card from the 1992 Kellogg's All-Star line. These would come out of boxes of Corn Flakes and I clearly remember having the Willie Stargell and the Mike Schmidt from this set as well. Sure, it didn't scan all that great but you'll just have to take my word for it that it's an awesome cards. Seeing this card (still in it's wrapper by the way), has inspired me to eventually chase down the other nine cards from the set, especially the two I had way back when. Oh, the times I wish I still had my childhood collection. 

Then there was this, a Nap Lajoie card from the 2014 Panini Hall of Fame 75th Anniversary set. The Crusade cards were an insert set in the product and came in many different colors and some, in fact, were die cut. The blue cards were just the basic cards of that insert set and I'm just happy to have it. I don't care that its not one of the colored parallels, it's just a nice card of a turn of the century star that you definitely don't come across every day. I might actually take this card and stick it in a penny sleeve and top loader and drop it in my box of "good stuff".

A big thanks to Tom for clearing out his closet and sending these my way. These were some great additions to my collection.