- Was a bit surprised to find when I pulled this card out of the binder page that a bit of warping had started. This isn't Topps Chrome!
- The background design reminds me of someone spilling water on a card (or a countertop, take your pick). Wonder why UD chose to use the night vision green on the circle insert of the front.
- Career homer #198 was hit 4/7/00, off of former Blue Jay Juan Guzman who was pitching at that time for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Indians were already up 7-1 when Thome hit his solo shot, and the Tribe would cruise to an easy 14-5 victory.
- Robert
- Simple card design, which probably for me makes it one of the best that Donruss ever released for hockey. Like the star inside the circle at the bottom that holds everything but Joe's name.
- This is the 2nd card that I've shown from 96-97 that is the #1 card of the set. The Summit set was the other #1 featuring Joe.
- Career goal #198 was the 11th of the 93-94 season for Joe, scored 12/11/93 against the Ottawa Senators. It was scored at home against Craig Billington in a 5-2 win. It also broke a 6 game goalless drought for Joe.
- Robert
- Another card that I had to turn the brightness settings up in order to get some of the design shown on the scan. Foil proves to be a scanner's enemy more often than not.
- Bio on the back: "In '98, he put in his third straight 30-homer season, finishing tied for eighth on the club's career list, and raised his career slugging percentage to .540, third best in club history." At least somebody found something different for Jim's accomplishments to write about.
- Career homer #197 was Jim's first of the 2000 season, hit 4/5/00 off of Baltimore's Sidney Ponson. It was a solo shot that extended the Indians lead in the game to 6-4. Baltimore ended up turning the game around and scoring 4 in the eighth inning for an 11-7 win.
- Robert
- Had to lighten up the brightness a bit in order for the "face 2 face" to show up on the scan. Not a bad insert if you ask me...
- I think that this is the first serial #'d McCutchen card that I have scanned. I thought that the Bowman Chrome Green refractor from '13 was SN #'d, but it wasn't.
- Had to look up the head 2 head stats for these two. The numbers surprised me a bit. Cutch is 9 for 27 against Kershaw in his career, 2 2b, 1 HR and 4 RBI. 4 strikeouts and 2 walks round out the stats...
- Robert
- Had a hard time lining this up on the scanner bed, so I decided to use a white piece of cardboard in behind it to try and help. As you can see I still struggled a bit...
- Spent too much time in Canada: any Canadians reading this will know that you see CTC in Canada, you associate it with Canadian Tire Corporation (at least I always have).
- I really like these die cut cards, one of the few inserts I enjoyed pulling out of packs over the past few years. Noticed for the first time when I scanned this card the little drops in behind the photo that look like rain spots. Cool.
- Robert
- How humiliating it was last night when I updated my PC pages, only to find out that I accidentally put the wrong card on a post title for Cutch. Guess that people either didn't look close enough or just didn't bother telling me.
- Bio on the back: back of the card compares the Pirates making the playoffs in 2013 and Cutch taking MVP to the last time the Pirates made the playoffs in '92 and Bonds was chosen MVP.
- Andrew off to a much better start in April this year, hitting .261 so far. I think moving him to the 2 hole last year to start the season blew up in the Pirates' faces, and this year we'll see the "normal" McCutchen stats.
- Robert
- I'll say this to my dying day, Fleer made a big mistake by switching to the "Gold Medallion Edition" stamp instead of the traditional gold background on these parallels. It most certainly wasn't the same as in past years, where pulling a GM was "special"
- I mentioned this earlier today, but seeing a gold medallion parallel of this card sell for less than the base card on COMC is really wrong. Ultra is no longer listed in the Beckett hockey magazine, but I'm sure that the parallels were roughly 3-5x the base card. Someone correct me if my memory is wrong (which it usually is).
- Plan on hitting card #200 for both Sakic and Thome this week. Will probably feature a jersey card for Joe and either a jersey or bat card for Jim.
- Robert
- I've always been a fan of the Ultra product. Don't know if anyone has plans to bring it back, but I would purchase it if they do.
- The scan doesn't do the script writing justice. It almost looks as if the blue is spray painted on the card. In hand the blue looks much tighter and the silver foil is much more prominent.
- Tonight's post of the gold medallion parallel will discuss this more, but on COMC right now, the base card is selling for more than the GM parallel. That shouldn't happen...
- Robert
- No contest, I prefer the Electric Ice parallels to the Electric Diamond. I loved how UD incorporated the Electric Ice wording on the cards, more so than the small home plate for the baseball parallels.
- The demand for the hockey version seems to be apparent in the pricing in Beckett. 94-95 UD hockey Electric Ice still holding at a 10 to 20x multiplier. Baseball nowhere near that.
- Picked this card up recently on COMC very cheaply, 69 cents to be exact. I know that hockey versions of Sakic EI cards from 95-96 are close to $2 for the base card, while the subset card can be had for a buck.
- Robert
- Scan came out quite dark, thus not doing any justice to the card. The design is not bad, although Jim's face looks a little flat. You can only see half of the Cleveland Indians as well...
- No bio on the back, just the usual stats and numbers you find on a card. The back doesn't even provide the standard height/weight/birthplace info. The 2nd photo of Jim catching a baseball in warmup clothing is ok.
- Career homer #195 came off of Yankees ace David Cone, 9/19/99. The Indians were down 6-0 at the time, and the homer cut the lead in half, but wasn't enough as the Yanks outslugged the Indians 11-7.
- Robert
- We finish up the Collectors Choice base cards from 96-97 with the core of the Avalanche's Stanley Cup winning team. Arguably the greatest 3 players in franchise history.
- Kind of interesting (to me) that they used shots of Forsberg and Sakic in their road jerseys, while Roy is in the home jersey. Hard to say if the card would have looked better if the 3 had matched.
- Tyler Bozak scored the winning goal in OT for the Leafs in game 3 while I was writing this post, inside of the first 2 minutes. Sakic did that 3 times in his post season career...
- Robert
- This post is #500 for this blog, probably far more than I ever thought would come to pass, as many "2nd blogs" that I've tried have failed miserably. I've really enjoyed showing off my PCs over the past 16 months, and slowly building an online checklist has actually become fun.
- Can't imagine a pair of stars from the Western Conference in the mid 90's bigger than Selanne and Gretzky to adorn this card with Joe.
- There are 8 ungraded copies of this on COMC, with a price range of 73 cents to $2.
- There is 1 graded copy (BGS 8.5) of this card on COMC, listed at $9.95. Never sure why people would bother to grade cards such as this, but what do I know?
- Robert
- It's the same as this morning's card, only different. The AuSOME tag on the bottom right and the gold bars at the top and bottom are the only differences (at least that I can see) from the base.
- Bio on the back: "Thome is one of the steadier left-handed batters in the AL, hitting 108 homers the past three years combined." Yup
- Very little difference in prices between the base and parallel on COMC. The base has a range of 45 cents to $2.25. The parallel is between 75 cents and $2.74.
- Robert
- Card scanned very well, the orange background really popped out. It almost looks like a flannel shirt...
- I remember buying quite a few packs of these for the hockey release back in the day. Remember completing one set and working on another, wonder where those cards might be now.
- Career home run #193 was hit 9/16/99 off of the Yankees Hideki Irabu. The 2 run shot tied the game at 2, but the Yankees would go on to beat the Tribe 9-5
- Robert
- One thing I always enjoyed about the Paramount sets was their size; they were never a huge set like Topps or Fleer. Paramount in '99 was just 250 cards.
- Paramount was also a parallel collectors dream, as there was 7 different colorful variations for the player or team collector to chase after. I still need all 7...
- Only one copy of this card currently on COMC, it's listed at 99 cents. The Copper version has just one copy for sale as well, and that's at $3.55.
- Robert
- I believe it was the 95-96 edition of Collectors Choice that had a subset of cards featuring Mike Milbury and his views/opinions of certain players. I'm sure that most hockey fans will agree that getting Scotty Bowman was a much better choice for 96-97.
- The winning formula indeed, as Joe and the Avalanche had just come off their first Stanley Cup championship the year before.
- Since Beckett has removed this set from their listings, COMC is the go to location. 5 cards up for sale, lowest at 75 cents, highest at $1.24. Probably a little steep for a subset card, even of a star such as Sakic.
- Robert
- If Upper Deck had kept producing this set each year, I'm sure that I would have kept on buying it. Always great looking cards at a very affordable price point.
- Card detective: Pretty sure that the Edmonton Oiler in the faceoff circle with Joe is Doug Weight. He's the only center on the 95-96 Oilers whose jersey started with the number 3. Semi-educated guess at the player in the background is a very young looking Ryan Smyth, who would have been just 19 at the time.
- Career goal #192 was one of two that Joe scored against Pittsburgh, 10/28/93. Joe would have 4 points that night as the Avs beat the Pens 7-3 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. Tom Barrasso would be the victim that night.
- Robert
- Don't recall seeing many card from '99 Opening Day. Were the borders all off center?
- Took a look in Beckett to see if any pricing available, and it what may be the smallest blurb of all the sets, '99 Opening Day just has a price multiplier. .75 - 2x Topps. Why is that?
- Only one copy of this card on COMC, listed for 95 cents. I thought that there might be more of them. I'm guessing that Topps didn't print as many of these back in '99?
- Robert
- Not a bad card, nothing fancy on the front. Like the contrast of the color in the front photo with the black and white of the background photo.
- Even the photo on the back is solid; black and white showing Jim getting ready in the field. No bio at all on the back, just stats from the previous season and for Jim's career.
- Career home run #190 came 9/1/99 off of the Angels Mike Fyrhie (Fear-ee). The Indians were already ahead 6-0 at the time and would cruise to a 8-1 victory to give Dave Burba his 12th win of the season.
- Follow up on the last bullet point; Jim finished that game on September 1st with 87 RBI for the season. At the time, he was 4th best on the Indians! Sexson (93), R. Alomar (99) and Ramirez (136) all had driven in more runs than Jim.
- Robert
- Realized this evening that I hadn't shown a Potvin card since the 3rd week of January. Tonight is a good reason to start again as the Leafs are returning to the NHL playoffs after a 4 year wait.
- Speaking of playoffs, Felix had 25 career playoff wins for the Leafs, 35 for his career.
- Parkhurst hockey was a solid, if not spectacular set in the mid 90's. Nothing flashy design wise, but good photography and a decent price. I remember buying a lot of it back in the day.
- Robert
- A 2014 card describing McCutchen's break out 4 years prior on Opening Day in 2010, as the Pirates beat the Dodgers 11-5. Maybe something a little closer to 2014 might have been more timely?
- Not a bad insert though, I like the exploding rock/meteor along with the stenciled letters on the front. Something a little different.
- Tough start in the first two games at Fenway for Andrew, 0 for 9 with 3 K's. Still a long way to go in the season, and facing Porcello and Sale to start the season sure wasn't easy for any of the Buccos.
- Robert
- Just 10 more posts from 500 for this blog. Should get there sometime next week. I'll likely do a Sakic post as I hit that milestone.
- Really haven't a lot of Pacific cards on the blog for any of the players that I PC. This Prism isn't too overstated, the background is nice and shiny (always a plus) and the design doesn't take over the card.
- Career homer #189 finished off the month of August/99 for Jim. He hit it against Chuck Finley of the Angels, which tied the game at 1 in the 2nd. Almost 4 hours later, it would be an afterthought as the Indians came back to beat the Angels in a 14-12 slugfest, which included a 10 run 8th inning.
- Robert
- Finish off the trio of 96-97 Fleer Sakic cards that I own with this insert from the Art Ross Trophy set, which was 25 cards in size.
- As you might imagine, the set contains all the big name scorers of the time, including Lemieux, Gretzky, Hull, Jagr, Yzerman and of course Sakic. Joe's card is listed at $3 in Beckett.
- I would have preferred to have seen the photo that's on the back on the front. The back features a photo of the Art Ross Trophy with Joe directly above it. Much nicer than Joe breaking through a puck, which really doesn't look that good to me.
- Robert
- Talk about a mid 90's who's who on the front of this card! Joe was 3rd in the league in scoring in 95-96 with 120 points, 41 behind Lemieux.
- It's unbelievable that Jagr is still playing 20 years after this card was made. I'm pretty sure that he'll sign another one year deal with the Panthers for 17-18. Probably without the mullet...
- Love the 4 square league leader cards. Bring them back please.
- Robert
- If I had to complain about the card, it would be the team logo in the white circle. Somewhat unnecessary in my opinion. I do like the player's name in the gold plate though.
- No career totals on the back. You don't see a whole lot of cards that don't list the player's career stats. This card has just the previous 4 years.
- Joe's 189th career goal was the first of a 2 goal performance against the Penguins, 10/10/93. It would be a 4 point night for Burnaby Joe as the Nords would be the Penguins 7-4. Ken Wregget was the victim that evening...
- Robert
- Thought that this was an insert from the Upper Deck base set. Wrong, it's from the Challengers for 70 set, a little different.
- Not a bad looking card, the back is a little bland as it shows the slugging percentage of the top 1st basemen from the '98 season. Jim was 5th behind McGwire, Galarraga, Delgado and Vaughn.
- Career homer #188 was hit 8/25/99 in Oakland off of A's reliever Doug Jones. By the time he hit the homer in the 6th, the Indians already had enough runs on their way to a 12-4 romp.
- Robert
- One of the better scans I'd say. The gold background really stands out on this scan, I was worried that it was going to be dark.
- Bio on the back: "Jim is such a classy guy, on his 27th birthday, his teammates saluted him by copying his high-socks fashion style." Why doesn't everyone do this?
- Jim was once part of a trade that involved Gio Gonzalez. That was in 2005, over 3 years before Gio even saw a major league mound. Amazingly Gio was traded twice more, each time in the off season, before he finally landed with Oakland in 2008. Strange for a first round pick to be traded that often before hitting the majors...
- Robert
