Ancient Relics

The early 2000s saw an explosion of new designs and card manufacturers trying to find all kinds of ways to "bring collectors closer to the game" especially if that meant bringing collectors closer to cleaning out their companies' warehouses of products.

2001 Upper Deck SP Game Used Edition Authentic Fabric - KL Kenny Lofton
How long can the name of one card be? This one is just a single color swatch from a road uniform. The Upper Deck Relic backs frequently would include this text from the CEO, telling you what was in your hands.

2000 Fleer Tradition Lumberjacks Moises Alou
I am a big fan of the Alou Brothers, and by extension that includes Felipe Alou's son, Moises. Alou was best known to me for his time playing for his dad in Montreal, but he had a long and successful MLB career for a ton of different teams. He was a World Series Champion with the Marlins in 1997, and had some memorable moments with the Astros and with the Cubs. I really like this design, which has what looks like pine needles arranged to make a baseball diamond.

2001 Upper Deck SPX Winning Materials Jeff Kent, Barry Bonds, Rich Aurilia
Sometimes the card companies would get especially ambitious, and try to jam several players at once onto the same card. It's cool that these guys are all teammates, though selfishly I would have liked a better variety on the jersey swatches. This card could potentially have 2 Hall of Famers on it someday!

2002 Fleer Triple Crown rbi kings Manny Ramirez
Other times the company would go crazy on the design elements, and of course it's Fleer bringing out the crazy lines and loops. It's hard to tell from the scans, but many of those lines are raised from the card surface, giving the card a mottled texture. Manny had an ignominious final few seasons with injuries and a PED suspension, but that will never take away from my own memories of the fantastic hitter he was in his prime.

2003 Fleer Showcase Thundersticks Vladimir Guerrero
This card is a combo of classy and cheesy - the design is very subtle, with clean lines and muted colors, even though the name of the subset is "Thundersticks" which is fairly stupid, frankly. The relic piece is modest, but then there's also that weird designation of "TF0130" It's not the card number, and it doesn't seem to apply to, say, the bat model that Guerrero used. It's the same on all of the Thundersticks cards I've seen, so it seems completely random. But hey, Completely Arbitrary is my jam.

2002 Flair Power Tools Doug Mientkiewicz
I couldn't complete this post without including at least one of the early 2000s Twins players. They weren't the most glamorous guys, but they were superstars in eyes of Twins fans. Mientkiewicz ultimately was traded away to make room for Justin Morneau, who was a much needed source of power for the Twins. Mientkiewicz of course, went from the Twins to the Boston Red Sox and caught the final out of the 2004 World Series to "Break the Curse."

2003 Topps T205 Game Used Bat Jim Thome
I love these framed cards. I think part of it is that I really like minis however I hate trying to collect minis because of their awkward size. This has the best of both worlds, a mini with a full size frame.

Topps of course has been in the relic game just as long as the rest of the companies, but in the early 2000s there was still a fair amount of competition, and for the purposes of this post, I'd rather let Topps take a back seat to those scrappy underdogs from Fleer and Upper Deck. I picked up all the cards in this post on COMC, just by searching Memorabilia in the 2000s and sorting from the lowest price.

Day Twenty Eight - 2002 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts Minnie Minoso #S-MMi

Day 28: A Favorite Relic / Manufactured Relic Card

Taking the lead from Tony at Off-Hiatus Baseball Cards this will be the twenty-eighth of 30 posts, using the prompts provided. I won't necessarily post one every day, but I will do one for each card, toss in a few "insights" (as insightful as I can be, anyway), and usually include an honorable mention or two, just because I'm like that.

Here's my pick- in my opinion, a "relic" should be from a bygone era. The older, the more relic-y it is. Minoso played his last MLB game (the first time) back in 1964. Then in 1977. Then in 1980. He even suited up for the Minor League Saint Paul Saints as recently as 2003. He's the only player to play in the 21st Century that also played in the Negro Leagues. This card isn't a "sick patch" or laundry tag or a book with buttons or anything like that - just a simple design that features a relic of an all-time great.

Since these are basically one card posts, why not share the backs? If the back of the card is accurate, the relic is at least from 1959, if not older. Cleveland was the first team Minoso played for in the big leagues, back in 1949, and he returned for two more seasons in the late 50s. I miss Upper Deck baseball, I hope they get another chance to make some cards in the future.


Honorable mentions!

I like a clean design most of the time, but a little craziness can be welcome as well. I like to pretend that the relic on the Kirby Puckett card is from the bat he hit the home run with in Game 6.

Topps Lineage was fun as well- every pack had a fun insert- there were some pretty heavy hitters in there as well as relics. Kennys Vargas is an example of how Panini is able to stay competitive - if you can't show the logo, might as well have a swatch that features as much as you can get away with. Murray, Jackson, and Oliva are all cards that meet my personal criteria for a good relic. A retired player, an interesting design, and the relic itself is featured without overwhelming the card.