Card #296: 2006 Upper Deck Special FX Green #677

YEAR: 2006
BRAND: Upper Deck
SET: Special FX
NUMBER: 677
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: Green
TEAM: Los Angeles Dodgers

This was just my second card of Alomar with the Dodgers.  Unfortunately there are not a lot to choose from.  Pretty much just variations on this card.  The scan does not show the green color of this card well unfortunately.  It really is a pretty nice card.   And it is serial-numbered to 99.  There are a few other colors of this card in Special FX.  I still need the red and the purple.

Card #295: 2005 Topps Total Silver #326

YEAR: 2005
BRAND: Topps
SET: Total
NUMBER: 326
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: Silver
TEAM: Texas Rangers

This card is a perfect demonstration of why I loved Topps Total.  Alomar was a backup catcher by this point in his career and simply did not appear in many sets.  This is one of his very few cards with the Texas Rangers.  Unfortunately, 2005 was the end of the road for Total.  If it had held on for a couple more years we may have had another card of Alomar with the Dodgers in 2006 and maybe a Mets card in 2007.

Card #294: 2005 Fleer Tradition Gray Back #34

YEAR: 2005
BRAND: Fleer
SET: Tradition
NUMBER: 34
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: Gray Back
TEAM: Chicago White Sox

Yet another example of an extreme close-up of Alomar's face in his mask, this card features Alomar with the White Sox, one of the few such examples of this theme with a team other than the Indians.  This is the parallel from the 2005 Fleer Tradition set and the only difference is that the border is gray, as opposed to some weird cream color. 

Card #293: 2003 Topps Heritage #424

YEAR: 2003
BRAND: Topps
SET: Heritage
NUMBER: 424
SUBSET: SP
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Colorado Rockies

To date, this is the last Rockies card I have gotten of Alomar.  There is one more card out there that I am aware of, but it has proven to be difficult to find.  This card is one of the short-printed cards from the 2003 set.  It is the nicest-looking Rockies card in my Alomar collection, although I would have preferred the action shot to show him in his catchers' gear.

Card #292: 2002 Topps Traded Gold #T68

YEAR: 2002
BRAND: Topps
SET: Traded
NUMBER: T68
SUBSET: SP
INSERT: Gold
TEAM: Colorado Rockies

The gold parallels re-emerged in Topps sets as a serial-numbered insert in 2001.  The 2002 parallels are one of my favorites.  The gold border was not outlandishly bright, and it actually looked better than the regular borders.  This is again, one of the very few Rockies cards of Alomar out there.

Card #291: 1990 O-Pee-Chee #353

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: O-Pee-Chee
SET: O-Pee-Chee
NUMBER: 353
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: San Diego Padres

I preferred the O-Pee-Chee cards that updated the team logo with the change in teams that are present on the update text on the front.  So here we have a Padres card but some text showing that Alomar was traded to the Indians.  That and the French translations on the back are the differences between this card and the regular 1990 Topps card.

Card #290: 2002 Topps Traded #T68

YEAR: 2002
BRAND: Topps
SET: Traded
NUMBER: T68
SUBSET: SP
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Colorado Rockies

The Rockies are one of the teams for which Alomar played only a partial season.  This is the first card released of him with the team.  He was acquired in a trade from the White Sox for Enemencio Pacheco, who never made it to the Majors.  Not that it mattered because Alomar returned to the White Sox after 2002.  This card, like all other veteran cards in the 2002 Topps Traded set is a short print.

One Card Closer to 1,000

I received the 1996 Upper Deck All Star Jumbo card recently.  Here it is:

Again, this is another larger card, measuring 3.5x5 inches.  The card is basically the same as the base 1996 Upper Deck card except it is obviously larger and it features the 1996 All Star Game logo in the bottom left corner.

RESOLUTION TRACKER:

1.  4/5 previously achieved.

2.  One card to go!

3.  Previously achieved.

4.  No progress.

Card #289: 1997 Pinnacle Fanfest #FF21

YEAR: 1997
BRAND: Pinnacle
SET: Fanfest
NUMBER: FF21
SUBSET: SP
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

This card was only available via a redemption, and you had to take the redemption card to one of several different card stores around Cleveland.  So these are not particularly common.  First you had to buy the set to get the redemption, and the set was only available at the All Star Fanfest celebration, then you had to take the redemption to a certain store to get the card.  That makes this a very interesting card.

Card #288: 1990 Star Silver Series #63

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 63
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Finally we have reached the end of this Star set.  This card simply features the Indians logo on the back.  For those keeping track, and if you aren't I am telling you anyway, there are seven cards from this set that feature photos of Alomar in a Padres uniform and just two with the Indians.  Even though all the cards feature Indians logos.

Card #287: 1990 Star Silver Series #62

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 62
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

That's a nice bubble there.  I never could blow bubbles with gum.  I don't know why.  This card features "Personal Info" which just means they are some completely random facts that did not fit on any other cards.

Card #286: 1990 Star Silver Series #61

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 61
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Ho hum.  More of the same.  We are getting closer to the end of this set.  This card features some biographical information about Alomar.

Card #285: 1990 Star Silver Series #60

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 60
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Yes, there are a lot of these cards featuring Alomar in Padres uniform and catching equipment in this set.  It really is a shame.  It is not that I dislike getting cards of Alomar with the Indians.  Obviously the Indians are the team for which Alomar made his most indelible mark, to use language that the Hall of Fame uses.  I just like a little bit of variety too.  This card features Alomar's 1989 highlights when Alomar was the Minor League Player of the Year and made it into a few more games with the big league squad.

1998 Donruss Signature Preview

Awhile ago I was pretty excited to add the blue version of the 1998 Donruss Signature Series autograph set because I thought I had all of the colors.  I was informed by Matt that there was a yellow Preview version still.  I was disappointed because I had never heard of this card and never seen one.  Well, recently it popped up on Ebay:

There.  Now I have all of the colors.  This card was apparently limited to just 96 copies.

RESOLUTION TRACKER:
1.  4/5 previously achieved.

2.  Just two more to go.

3.  Previously achieved.

4.  No progress.

Card #284: 1990 Star Silver Series #59

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 59
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Here is yet another of the Star Silver Series cards.  This is the fifth card from the nine-card set and features highlights from Alomar's season with the Las Vegas Stars, which solidified his place among the elite prospects in the game.  1988 was also the season Alomar made his Major League debut with the Padres.  I love the picture.  Again, there are just not enough cards featuring Alomar in his catching equipment with the Padres, even though this has an Indians logo.

Card #283: 1990 Star Silver Series #58

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 58
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Here we have the fourth card from this Star set.  I don't really understand why companies do these horizontal pictures like this.  Not so much the horizontal shot in general, although this one does not really necessitate the horizontal shot, but when they don't adjust the border to go with the shot.  Oh well.  This one features

Card #282: 1990 Star Silver Series #57

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 57
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Here is the third card from the 1990 Star Silver Series set.  This is yet another card featuring Alomar in a Padres uniform with an Indians logo.  This card features highlights from his 1987 season with the Wichita Pilots.  It was with the Pilots that Alomar began reaching his potential in the Minor Leagues. 

Card #281: 1990 Star Silver Series #56

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 56
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

This is the second card from the Star Silver Series set.  This is the only thing that I did not like about this set.  The photo features Alomar in his catchers' gear and his Padres uniform.  Unfortunately, for me, the logo controls.  The logo is on the back and is the Indians logo.  I don't much care for that.  Some people probably don't care, but it is something that bothers me.  This card features Alomar's minor league highlights from 1984 to 1986 when he played for the Spokane Indians, Charlston Rainbows, and Beaumont Golden Gators in the Padres system.

Card #280: 1990 Star Silver Series #55

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: 55
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

This is the second Star set I bought after getting back into my Sandy Alomar Jr. collection.  This is the first card of a nine-card set.  This one features Alomar's career stats on the back. 

Spectralite Promo

Nothing too exciting here, it's a pretty hard-to-find promo from 1995 Topps:

In 1994, Topps released a set of nine pre-production cards in special 1994 factory complete sets.  This nine-card set included Alomar.  But, you would receive ten cards in the sets with the last card being a Spectralite promo similar to the Topps Cyberstats parallels that would be the primary parallel for the 1995 set.  So, this is a somewhat hard to find card.  It is not especially unique-looking, the front resembles the Cyberstats parallels while the back resembles the regular Pre-Production samples.  But it is another card off of the Master Wantlist.  So, there's that.

One more thing that it does though is that it is the last 1995 card of Alomar I needed.  Nice to mark off an entire year's worth of cards.

RESOLUTION TRACKER:
1.  4/5 previously achieved.

2.  Three more to go.

3.  Previously achieved.

4.  No progress.

Card #279: 1990 Star Silver Series Promo #NNO

YEAR: 1990
BRAND: Star
SET: Silver Series
NUMBER: NNO
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: Promo
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

The Star cards are kind of unique.  Typically they were just released in small sets of nine or so cards.  But there would be promos as well.  This was the first Star promo in my collection, but certainly not the last.  The promos had nothing on the back and a similar design to the set.  Unfortunately, since Beckett's listings are incomplete for the Star cards, I have no idea how many promos there are.  I received this one along with a set that will be featured over the next several days.

Card #278: 1998 Topps Tek #27 Pattern 28

YEAR: 1998
BRAND: Topps
SET: Tek
NUMBER: 27
SUBSET: Pattern 28
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

My first Tek card was this pattern, which I will call the chain-link fence pattern.  This is the card that got me started down the Tek whirlpool that I am still on.  I still have 17 patterns yet to find and have not had much luck lately finding them.  

Card #277: 1994 Stadium Club #144

YEAR: 1994
BRAND: Topps
SET: Stadium Club
NUMBER: 144
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

This is one of my favorite action shots of Sandy Alomar, and it is no real surprise that it comes from Stadium Club.  The premium Topps brand made its name with terrific photography.  Here we have Alomar reacting to a runner attempting to steal with Robin Ventura of the White Sox ducking down so as not to impede the throw.  The violent reaction caused Alomar's mask to shift to the side.  This was a card sent to me by The Junior Junkie.  I had the Golden Rainbow version previously.  It took quite a while to get the base version.

Card #276: 1998 Pacific Crown Collection Latinos of the Major Leagues #9

YEAR: 1998
BRAND: Pacific
SET: Crown Collection
NUMBER: 9
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: Latinos of the Major Leagues
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Pacific was well-known for its focus on Latino players.  Besides having lesser-known Latinos show up in their base sets, they also did a number of inserts focusing on Latino stars.  1997 was a big year for Sandy Alomar Jr. so he was showing up in a number of sets and inserts.  And he was a big Latino star, so it was only natural for Pacific to include him in its insert set dedicated to Latino star players.  I picked this card up in a lot that also gave me the Omar Vizquel and the Pedro Martinez.  I do like the design with the team logo and the player's home country flag in the background.  This was kind of a nice-looking insert set.

Card #275: 2003 Danbury Mint #95

YEAR: 2003
BRAND: Danbury Mint
SET: Danbury Mint
NUMBER: 95
SUBSET: NA
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Colorado Rockies

I started picking up the occasional Danbury Mint card for my Red Sox collection in the early 2000's.  This was the first Sandy Alomar Jr. card that I have picked up and it was the first one of which I was aware.  I jumped on it initially because there are so very few Colorado Rockies cards of Alomar out there.  He only spent the last part of the 2002 season with them.  Oddly, I would learn later that there are other versions of this card out there featuring Alomar with other teams.  I still wonder if I dug deep enough if I would find cards showing him with the Rangers, Dodgers, or hopefully the Mets.  Somehow I doubt it though.

Card #274: 2004 Fleer Tradition #428

YEAR: 2004
BRAND: Fleer
SET: Tradition
NUMBER: 428
SUBSET: SP
INSERT: NA
TEAM: Chicago White Sox

Here we arrive at the very first card that was posted about on this blog.  Alomar appeared seldomly in sets from 2001 forward.  So this was a rare time when Alomar appeared in a set in 2004, when he was mostly a backup catcher.  This is a high-numbered short-printed card, something that Fleer did to capitalize on the success Topps was having with Heritage.  The design was very similar to the 1990 Fleer design.  One more thing about this card: this is one of the rare moments when Alomar is pictured in a throwback uniform.  He is clearly wearing a White Sox uniform from the 1980's.  That combined with the hockey mask creates quite the interesting dichotomy.