1994 Topps Traded Set

Rickey Henderson was back with the Oakland A's again in 1994, fresh off a World Series championship with the Toronto Blue Jays. When the Topps Traded set was printed, the season was in full swing, but Topps did not know that it would end just a month later.  No World Series winner, no Wild Card playoff (it was the first year with the 6 division alignment), and several players had promising seasons cut short.

The 1994 Traded Set was not a big rookie class, but it did yield a few interesting draft picks, and an overseas sensation, Chan Ho Park from Korea.

Long before the major card manufacturers started using an "official" Rookie Card logo, there was this much more understated text underneath the Topps logo on the back of the card.

Included in the set was a Topps Finest preview set- with 3 MVP candidates from each league and a rookie of the year candidate. The backs had the 1994 stats for each player through July 10th (awkward!). Frank Thomas ran away with the award in the AL, he was hitting nearly .400 for the season at the All-Star Break (he finished at .353), and rattled off 101 RBI, scored 106 runs, drew 109 walks, and hit 38 homers in just 113 games. The NL MVP was missing, but Matt Williams would have been a solid bet. He was the NL leader in homers (43), won a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger.  Maddux wasn't really in the running for MVP, but he was the NL Cy Young Winner.

There were more Hall of Famers in the set, including a 2 card retrospective for the definitely permanently retired Ryne Sandberg.

2019 Inductee Lee Smith joined the Baltimore Orioles, and Pedro Martinez headed north to join the Expos. The team would finish with the best record in baseball, but were unable to prove their mettle in the post season due to the strike.

Twins! Walbeck and Stevens came over from the Cubs in the Willie Banks deal, and Stevens would ultimately become the team's closer. Alex Cole joined the team as a free agent as Kirby Puckett moved to Right Field. The one homegrown product? Utility infielder Jeff Reboulet!

Hall of famers were not the only ones making moves, some familiar faces also found new digs (or, in the case of Bip Roberts, returned to old ones). Ron Gant is modeling the awesome 1869 Red Stockings patch the Reds wore all season long. The rest of the MLB teams had "125th Anniversary" patches, and the Pirates wore patches for hosting the All-Star game.

A handful more transactions, including Will Clark leaving San Francisco, Bo Jackson heading out West, and Omar Vizquel serving as the final piece of the puzzle to jump start a mini Cleveland Dynasty in the mid to late 90s.

A PC PWE ASAP

Scott, a fan of Florida baseball, followed up a great bubble mailer with an impressively stuffed PWE.

My junk wax want lists only go up to 1996 at the moment, but Scott found some great stuff to send that reached beyond the lists. I wonder who the hand model is for the Pedro pitch grips?

Larry Walker might never get a fair hearing as a Hall of Famer, but he's easily one of my favorites from the 1990s.

Some horizontal heroes

Here's a MEME - More Eddie Murray, Everybody!

Can't go wrong with Kirby Puckett.

The greatest leadoff hitter of all-time, and a guy who might have been the best leadoff hitter in the 90s not named Rickey or Raines.

Thanks again Scott! 

COM(P)C

I've taken to hitting up COMC every few months or so and scraping the bottom of the barrel for some affordable cards from all over the map - in the past I focused on Twins, and this time I extended it to all Player Collection guys:

We still start with a Minnesota Twin, in this case Fan Favorite Kent Hrbek. Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Kent's audition for the WWF, Braves fans avert your eyes:

sorrynotsorry

Moving along... Here's another guy I collect, the future Hall of Famer Adrian Beltre.

Beltre's first homer was against the Rangers!

Another Lock for Cooperstown, the Pride of Peoria, IL, Jim Thome!

I've always thought that Eddie Murray was the #1 Bad-Ass of the 80s.

Big Bart wasn't always so big, and did you recall his stint on the South Side? Rickey remembers when Rickey played in San Diego, even if he couldn't remember playing with John Olerud (*that's a fun, if not entirely true, story) .

Pedro's been all over both leagues.

And we finish where we started -  with two franchise Center Fielders for the Twins. Nothing on this post cost me more than a buck, most of them were under 50 cents!

Winning on eBay

Sometimes, it is a fun game to pick the low hanging fruit, other times you want to strike quickly.

 I won all of these with the filters of "Free Shipping" and number of bids "0" - I sort the list by lowest price, then pick my max bid (under a buck for each of these) and just wait it out. I win a little less than half the time, but the bargains, friends, the bargains.

 Here's a fun little oddball

 Coca Cola and Sonic team up to bring us the Minnie. I hadn't heard that Mickey and Minnie factoid before, that's neat.

 I actually lost this auction, but the seller had a second copy and offered it to me to Buy Now for the max bid I entered. SOLD.

 Pedro had just started his dominance there - 82 Ks in 77 innings? The best is yet to come...

 This one was not an auction at all - I was looking for the Kennys Vargas version of this card, but Perkins was on sale for $15. I snapped it up real quick.

It's the first Topps Clear in my collection, and I agree with everyone else that has stated that these are probably the coolest parallels that Topps puts out.

I Miss Youppi, Too.

 Maybe it was the pack of Bill and Ted movie cards I opened this weekend, but I'm feeling nostalgic. I think I'm going to spend a little time on the forgotten this week.

 I miss the Expos! I miss the awesome logo, and having two teams in Canada.

 Greats like Gary Carter behind the plate and Andre Dawson patrolling the outfield.

 Tim Raines deserves some more hall of fame votes, and so does Larry Walker. I always get a kick out of the J in "Pedro J. Martinez" - makes me think of Homer J. Simpson.

 Some of my favorite Expos cards - including Vlad!

One of my favorite cards of the 1980s - some awesome action, and the grin on Speier's portrait is just amazing.

I'd love to have the Expos back again, to travel to Montreal to watch them play a game... heck, I wouldn't even mind Youppi. Anyone have a Youppi card to send me? I miss the old son of a gun.