Card #20: 1992 Score 100 Superstars #49

YEAR: 1992
BRAND: Score
SET: 100 Superstars
NUMBER: 49
SUBSET: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

I never really knew where these cards came from.  I don't think they are inserts because I have never known anyone to pull one from a pack.  I suspect they were a factory set thing kind of like Fleer used to do a lot in the 1980's.  All of the brands did really.  All I really knew is that I had the Alomar and a few from the Red Sox.  I never really cared about any of the other ones and definitely never looked at the checklist.  I like this shot quite a bit.  Nice follow through on the swing.

Oddballs and Mirrors

I have a lot of Alomars coming in soon.  I wanted to slow down, but I went on another binge recently.  That will slow down again soon.  In the meantime, here are the most recent additions:

I have no idea what that first card is, some type of oddball.  The second card is a Broder card that came from Mark Hoyle, one of my favorite trade partners with Red Sox cards.  We regularly exchange Red Sox duplicates.  This time, he found an Alomar I had never seen before.  Thanks Mark!

The next two are Pinnacle Certified parallels that look really nice and shiny.

Card #19: 1991 U.S. Playing Cards All Stars #11D

YEAR: 1991
BRAND: U.S. Playing Card Co.
SET: All Stars
NUMBER: 11D
SUBSET: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

This is the point where my Sandy Alomar Jr. collection went completely crazy.  I was getting oddball cards of Red Sox, but this is the first oddball card I got of Alomar.  I used to frequent a card shop that had tons of boxes of oddballs, so there would definitely be more to come.  This one is from a card deck that just happened to have player pictures on it.  It is also a picture that will be seen later.

More Variations and Team Cards

Okay, this is probably where my OCD really kicks in.  Recently I was doing some more research on errors and variations after discovering the variation on the 1989 Topps rookie card and I found a very helpful thread on the Beckett forums discussing errors and variations.  That thread listed a number of print run variations on cards from the late 1980's/early 1990's, extremely minor changes.  Yet most of the collectors in the thread treated these minor variations as separate cards, so of course I had to as well.

Here is the first one, from 1989 Donruss:

Note the "*Denotes" on the left and the "*Denotes*" on the right next to performance?  That is the variation.  Like I said, it is extremely small, but my brain tells me it is a different card.  So there you go.

Here is the next two from 1992 Donruss:

You can probably barely see it on the first card, but the second card is better.  The copyright lists "Leaf Inc" or "Leaf Inc."  Again, so minor, most people would barely register it, but I am not most people.  And I am a supercollector these days, so these are treated as different cards.

The same thing with the missing period can be seen in the 1991 Donruss cards below:

Finally, on this 1991 Stadium Club, there is either a "*A" or "*B".  This is likely to differentiate print runs, I think:

I justify this madness by pointing out that the 1990 Fleer set has a Canadian version whose sole difference is that the copyright is either in the U.S. or Canada.  So there is some precedent for this.  I do need the 1990 Fleer Canadian card, especially since the 1990 Fleer was one of my early favorites.

I will probably not seek these out, but if I have doubles and there is a variation, I will count the card as a separate card.

Now after all of that madness, I have been kicking myself lately trying to decide whether to include team cards that Alomar appears on.  I finally decided this weekend to include those cards, mostly due to the fact that I count them with my Red Sox collection.  So here are the three team cards I have with Sandy on them:

The Topps Heritage is important because Alomar is actually a coach on that card, seating right next to the manager.

Here are some of the closeups of Alomar on each card, which did not come out terrifically well:

Again, like the variations, I am not going to seek these out, but it is nice to have them.

Card #18: 1992 Fleer #698

YEAR: 1992
BRAND: Fleer
SET: Fleer
NUMBER: 698
SUBSET: Super Star Specials
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

This is the first of several cards in my collection that also feature Sandy's more famous, Hall of Fame brother Roberto.  Roberto Alomar was an extremely talented second baseman for a number of teams, including the Toronto Blue Jays.  My little brother was a big fan of Roberto as he was a Blue Jays collector.  He and I had a standing agreement that any time he got a Sandy I needed, I would give him a Roberto he needed.   Obviously I was not going to part with this one though.  It is kind of amazing how much bigger Sandy is than his brother.  That will be even more pronounced on some of the upcoming cards featuring the brothers.

Random Oddballs

One of the things I enjoy the most about having a single player collection is finding the random oddballs.  I bought the below two cards from the same seller:

The first card was a price guide insert.  I have a number of these that use old Topps designs.  I especially like this one because it is a Padres card.  The second card is an aftermarket stamped card from a show.  I never quite know what to think of these.  I will add them if I can get them cheap, and this one was.  But I am not going to pay a lot for them.

One of the Strangest Items Now in My Collection

I recently picked up this comic book, yes a comic book:

The caption in the upper right corner says "Unauthorized and Proud of It".  Great.  Even so, it was cheap and it came with these:

These are listed on Beckett and I figured it was unlikely I could add them otherwise.

I should mention that I now have 500 different cards of Alomar with these three.

Like I said, the comic is one of the odder things in my collection, which now consists of a few Staring Lineup figures, a coin, and a small ping pong ball with Alomar's face, along with those of Alex Cole and Mark Lewis.  Truly this is becoming a multi-faceted collection.  The cards are the central focus though.  I don't mind adding the occasional random oddball item, but it is unlikely that I will go out of my way to do so.  I mostly picked up this comic for the three cards.

I did read the comic though.  It mostly tells the story of the Alomar brothers on their path to the Major Leagues through the San Diego Padres system.  Sandy seemed like he was the more grounded among the two, at least from the comic.  Their personal lives seem to reflect this.  While Sandy got married and had children, Roberto had a number of relationships and had the disastrous public relations nightmare of being accused of spreading AIDS maliciously.

The comic shows Roberto as a bit of a dreamer, whereas Sandy was realistic and hard-working.  Roberto had significantly more natural talent, particularly as a hitter, but Sandy worked hard to hone his skills.  It was interesting, but I am not sure how true it is and it is likely not something I will pick up and read often.

The biggest issue I had with it was that it completely missed the two short stints Sandy had with the Padres before being traded to the Indians.  It did not even mention them.  Which is strange because it was a time that both brothers and their father, who was a coach for the Padres, were all in the big leagues with the same team.  I would have thought that would have merited at least a mention.

Topps Tek Project Progress and a Random Package

The 1998 Topps Tek cards are my number one priority within this collection.  I have picked up two previously and there are 90 variations.  I would like the Diffractor versions as well, but not as much as the regular versions.  Yesterday, I received two more cards toward my goal.  86 to go.

I now have patterns 28, 31, 65, and 81.

Today I received this Minted in Cooperstown parallel in the mail along with the 1958 Jackie Jensen AS card shown on my other blog:

Alomar likely would have been the World Series MVP had the Indians not blown it in Game 7.  He hit .367/.406/.600 with two home runs and 10 RBIs.

Card #17: 1991 Upper Deck #46

YEAR: 1991
BRAND: Upper Deck
SET: Upper Deck
NUMBER: 46
SUBSET: Team Checklists
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Oddly this was my first Upper Deck card of Alomar.  That took quite awhile for some reason.  I always liked the Team Checklist cards.  I liked the illustrations which were usually quite impressive and I liked having a checklist that had a player picture on them.  Made it less annoying to get a checklist.  This is a nice shot of Alomar's catching stance, similar to Tony Pena's.  Plus it gave me the number of his base card that I needed.  Upper Deck made some unusual decisions at times for the Team Checklist cards (1991 Mike Greenwell, 1992 Ellis Burks to name the Red Sox), but this was a no-doubter as Alomar had just burst upon the scene in 1990 and had not had one before.

Card #16: 1992 Donruss #29

YEAR: 1992
BRAND: Donruss
SET: Donruss
NUMBER: 29
SUBSET: All Stars
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Even though Sandy Alomar Jr. had a horrendous year in 1991, he was still elected to start the All Star game.  Likely this was due to a lack of a lot of compelling catchers that year, or he was still feeding off of his success in 1990.  All Star balloting has always been a rather controversial thing.  People vote for players they like, not players who deserve it.  What resulted is one of the worst starting selections of all time.  Alomar was hitting .241/.287/.305 with zero home runs and just four RBIs at the break.  His numbers would not actually get worse.  The major culprit was some nagging injuries.  But still, he did not deserve an All Star selection at all, much less the starting slot.