I don’t know what this is all about but I have had quite a run of Fleer lately. It’s ok by me I like the Fleer name. I just learned today is that Fleer went bankrupt in 2005, and it’s name was bought by Upper Deck. So from now on if I stumble across a Fleer pack from 2005, I promise from now on I won’t complain about them designing their cards like Upper Deck, because they really are Upper Deck. This set 1993 Fleer baseball, is not listed in Beckett, just like the last 3 packs I have reviewed. I think that’s kind of weird, I can’t believe there isn’t one card worth anything. Here is what the pack looks like:
After a comprehensive review on eBay I found out that there really weren’t any cards of note in this set. On the back of the pack I learned that the chase cards are a 12 card highlight set of Tom Glavine’s career. Can you think of anything worse to put in as a insert? Also there are a few of his autographed cards thrown in there as well, but with odds of 1:29000, I think it’s a lock that I won’t be seeing one of those. The plus side is that there are 15 cards in the pack, and the pack is made of wax, so that’s cool. Anyways, here is the bad wax rip!
1. Tom Glavine – Career Highlights – 10 – It’s weird, there are no highlights on this card, just about 50 words, describing how success hasn’t gone to his head. I don’t understand how this is highlight 10, how is 4 people talking about how grounded he is a highlight to his career. Just goes to show you that he didn’t have too many highlights at that point.
2. Scott Bankhead – P – Reds – 386 – I don’t remember much about Bankhead other than he used to pitch on the Mariners, back when I went to a Mariner game and got his autograph. I don’t know if I still have that baseball he signed, but if I don’t I won’t be crushed.
3. Edwin Nunez – P – Rangers – 686 – Mariners, Yankees, Tigers, Brewers and Rangers . . . Question, “Which 5 teams were duped into believing that Edwin Nunez was going to be the crucial middle reliever they desperately need?” Middle relievers need no entry in this blog.
4. John Wehner – IF – Pirates – 506 – John Who? What’s nice about John is he was born and raised in Pittsburgh, in 1993 he still lived in Pittsburgh, and I am going to bet all of John’s career MLB money that he still lives there, and still goes to Pirate games. Do you think the people sitting next to him at the game know he was a former Pirate?
5. Kevin Wickander – P – Indians – 602 – I think now I know why this set is worthless. Who are these guys and what have they done? The picture of Kevin on the back of the card has him wearing a hat and if you look carefully the bill of the cap says Wick and there is an arrow pointing to the front of the bill. It’s funny and I’m sending this one to the Ugly Baseball Card Blog. At least I get get you to see this while I don’t have a scanner.
6. Scott Chiamparino – P Marlins – 422 – I am sure glad he didn’t make it in the bigs. I mean imagine all the kids in Florida walking around with his last name on his jersey. It’s sad when you can’t pronounce the last name of someone who is on the back of the jersey you are wearing.
7. Sam Horn – DH – Orioles – 542 – I think at one point there was Sam and Calvin Pickerling on the same team. I think if you put the two of them together you’d get someone who hit 0.190 but belted 75 home runs. Imagine how unproductive that middle of the lineup could be?
8. Damon Berryhill – C – Braves – 362 – I was a fan of Damon’s back when he was with the Cubbies. But this is past that point and at the end of his short career. I do remember having him on my fantasy team, so he couldn’t have been that bad.
9. Kelly Downs – P – A’s – 662 – Downs played a lot of years in the Bay either with the Giants or with the A’s. Some were good some were bad, none were fantastic. After 8 years he had a 52 – 43 record, so not exactly burning up the league. He’s from Utah, do you think he was mormon? I wonder what that was like with all those women and beer being thrown at you after the games. I bet it was tough for him. At least you know he wasn’t on any stimulants.
10. Chico Walker – IF/OF – Mets – 482 – I think his position pretty much sums up his career. The only position he didn’t play was C, but I bet he even tried to do that so he could get at bats.
11. David Hulse – OF – Rangers – 683 – He sucks, he was a pioneer league guy so you know he sucks. Much like John above he was born and raised in San Angelo, Texas. I bet he was excited to play for Texas. Even if it only was for 2 years.
12. Denny Neagle – Denny in back to back packs. This is his rookie card and something I didn’t know about him, was that he was a reliever. I guess I always thought he was a starter, I read that he was part of a deal that send John Smiley to the Twins. Can you think of two player’s cards you would want less, John Smiley and Denny Neagle?
13. Ed Pierce – P – Royals – 623 – Fleer was really on the stick when they caught a picture of him in a Royals uniform. He only pitched in 2 games for a total of 5.1 innings. Just think if the photographer got hungry and went to get a hot dog he might have missed him. The front picture has him after a delivery, the back picture was a picture of him in the middle of his windup. I bet they were from the same pitch. Actually we have a better picture of his back than his face. If you wanted to know what he looked like, you’d be out of luck.
14. John Candelaria – P – Dodgers – 443 – The Candy man. He was knuckleballer I believe, isn’t weird that there always seems to be one knuckleballer in the league, but as of recently only Time Wakefield is around, what happens when Tim retires, will there be someone else to take the torch? Or is it a lost art? It will be sad when Tim retires, there is no one to take the lead, at least with Candelaria, he had Tim Wakefield.
15. Tony Pena – C – Red Sox – Talk about consistency behind the plate. He is just a very dependable player, I remember him going to Boston and becoming the leader of that team. They played a lot better as a team after he showed up. So say what you will about how I usually rate Red Sox players, I give Pena the thumbs up.
This was classic bad wax! I mean I’ve heard of some of these guys but none with the only exception being Glavine could be considered stars. I think we all knew that going in but this pack was loaded to the gills with mediocrity. I don’t have a good feeling about this pack, but let’s have some fun and rate in anyways.
Cost of Pack – $1.59 – 2.5 stars – This immediately pushes this pack to 0.5 star status. The cost was pretty good considering that this was a bad couple of years for baseball cards.
Cards in Pack – 15 – 4.0 stars – Ah the good old days when you got alot for your money. Kinda makes the pack sucking, more digestable.
Stars in pack – 1 – 0.5 stars – Tom Glavine is long gone from his superstar days but he could be a future HOFer, so I’ll give him the nod here.
Value of Pack – worthless – 0.0 stars - Did you see the players I was getting in this last pack, could I really think it was worth anything?
Card Design – 2.5 stars – kinda digged back to the 1985 design and replaced the bottom strip with a side bar. The names are wierd to read because they run from the bottom to the top. It was done so you could rotate the card 90 degrees clockwise and read it perfectly, but since I dont like roting my cards (just my tires) this was just annoying me. On the back of the card, just in case the front was annoying you too, the player’s last name is spelt out in huge letters so I guess they make up for the front. The addition of a second picture on the back is nice, but I wish they would realize no one wants to see a player’s ass, so please stop putting that in as his picture. Here is a sample picture:
I must have been generous because I rated this one as 1.9 overall stars. I guess the cost and cards in pack helped this one out more than I thought it would. That Glavine highlight card really makes me laugh, for a highlight to be not letting success getting to him. Maybe I should make my career highlight cards, like when I graduated high school, then college, got my first job . . . This card goes to the first person who emails me at superbadwax@yahoo.com.
