Card #76: 1992 Stadium Club #740

YEAR: 1992
BRAND: Topps
SET: Stadium Club
NUMBER: 740
SUBSET: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Stadium Club became known for its incredible photography.  Unfortunately Sandy Alomar Jr. was not a subject of that great photography early on.  His card in 1991 was a simple batting shot.  And then there is this one.  To be fair, Alomar barely played in 1991, so there were probably not a ton of options here, but this is just a very uninspired photo.

Beaumont Golden Gators

I have found that I really enjoy tracking down the minor league cards from Sandy Alomar Jr.'s career.  I have most of them now, I think.  This is from the Texas League team Beaumont Golden Gators, and man, these uniforms are ugly.  I bought the entire team set to get this one card, which was actually cheaper to do than many of the individual cards I have seen for sale.  Unfortunately, now I have a bunch of unwanted minor league cards on my hands.  What to do.

Card #75: 1991 Post #6

YEAR: 1991
BRAND: Post
SET: Post
NUMBER: 6
SUBSET: Rookie Star
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

I really wish that I had been more actively collecting when food issues were prevalent.  I picked up a few here and there, but for the most part, I missed out on it.  I would have loved to pull something like this card out of a box of cereal.  Unfortunately I had to get it at a card show.  That is nowhere near as interesting of a story.

Tek Progress

I had been having problems with getting Tek deals closed and getting the cards in lately.  However it appears my luck has started to change.  I lamented the fact that I was unable to get patterns 29 and 90 from one forum member a few weeks ago after seemingly coming to an agreement.  Well that member did get back to me and we were able to work it out after all.  So here are patterns 29 and 90.

Card #74: 1992 Triple Play #227

YEAR: 1992
BRAND: Donruss
SET: Triple Play
NUMBER: 227
SUBSET: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

This is a cute card.  I think that is Sandy's son there that Sandy is teaching to swing a big toy bat.  Triple Play was Donruss's attempt at creating a kid-friendly set and it succeeded for a little while.  The colors were vibrant and it included a lot of fun photography, such as this card here.

Card #73: 1992 Leaf #9

YEAR: 1992
BRAND: Leaf
SET: Leaf
NUMBER: 9
SUBSET: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Just a few cards later came the base card from 1992 Leaf.  I kind of prefer the black border.  The silver border is kind of boring.  I do still like the photo though.  This still came in the same card show trip as the last several cards.

Three Parallels

There are not a ton of base cards out there that I still need.  So picking off the litany of parallels out there is what I am down to, for the most part.  Here are three recent pickups:

1.  1998 Zenith Z-Silver.  Zenith was a short-lived set by Pinnacle in the mid 1990's that re-emerged as a set from Donruss/Leaf in 2005.  So it came out at the end of the run by two different companies.  It was supposed to be a higher-end set in the mid 1990's with no more than 150 base cards in any of the sets.  This is the more common parallel from the 1998 set.

2.  1999 Stadium Club One of a Kind.  Kind of a misnomer as it was numbered to 150.  This remains one of my favorite photos of Alomar of all time.

3.  1998 Topps Gold Label Class 2 Red.  This is the rarest of the three, numbered to just 50.  I was actually unaware of the Red Label parallel before getting back into my Alomar collection and had not seen one before this one popped up.

Card #72: 1991 Panini Stickers #172

YEAR: 1991
BRAND: Panini
SET: Stickers
NUMBER: 172
SUBSET: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

This card is about an inch shorter and and inch thinner than a normal card.  It is yet another oddball from the same trip but was one that I had quite a few reservations about buying.  It is clearly a sticker card and I was really not sure about its inclusion in my collection.  I had not had any of these even in my Red Sox collection at this point.  I have a few now though and of course I picked up this one.

Gold Mail

1.  2001 Topps Gold.  Quick Ebay grab.  I liked these gold cards the best of all of the Topps Gold parallels over the years.  The border just looked better, and it looked nice with the green.

Card #71: 1992 Topps Kids #71

YEAR: 1992
BRAND: Topps
SET: Kids
NUMBER: 71
SUBSET: NA
TEAM: Cleveland Indians

Another day, another oddball from that trip.  I was never quite as excited about this card.  I have generally not cared as much for cards that are clearly for kids.  Even when I was a kid.  This one is not as bad as some of the other cards from this set which were much more cartoonish.  Still though, it was an Alomar card and I did not have it.  That is all it really takes for me to want it.