1992 - 1995 Sportsprint New York Yankees postcard set (update)

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UPDATE - 20 January 2017

A Bernie Williams postcard has surfaced featuring Bernie at the bat, wearing a jersey featuring the "7" on the sleeve, memorializing Mickey Mantle who had died in August 1995.   That means the "1993" list is probably a mix of postcards from 1993, 1994 and 1995 (or even 1996 given how the #7 was only used late in the season).  Thanks to eagle-eyed Kid4hof03 on FreedomCardboard who pointed this out.

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UPDATE - 31 December 2015

    Thanks to Michael over at New York Yankees baseball cards, we now have solid information for splitting these postcards into individual 1992 & 1993 sets.  The list below has been updated accordingly.

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UPDATE - 25 June 2015

     I'm now thinking this is actually two or three separate sets, or the set was issued continuously over two or three years.  This morning on eBay I caught an auction with previously unseen cards of Danny Tartabull in a portrait shot, another Kevin Maas with a different photo and a Roberto Kelly.  Kelly wasn't even on my radar for some reason, even though he was an All-Star for the Yankees in 1992, so I don't know why I was surprised.  Checking the same seller's completed auctions turned up another lot that included Buck Showalter, Mark Conner and new-to-me cards of Clete Boyer and Yankee Stadium.

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UPDATE - 15 January 2013

I saw the Maas postcard on eBay, so the set is now up to 26.  I'm going to start posting images of each postcard as I find them so collectors might have a slightly better chance of recognizing them.  I suspect the black & white cards are copies of the originals, but until I find color versions, these are all I have to work with.
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UPDATE - 09 December 2011

     A couple more of these showed up on eBay recently, but they are no help in narrowing the set down to a single year as all six individuals were with the team from 1992-93.

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UPDATE - 04 December 2012

A much larger assortment of these has hit eBay, bring the checklist up to 25.  I finally have verification of most of the starters of the team.

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     The postcard arrived today, all the way from Los Angeles. It was interesting to see that as soon as I got my shipping notice, the seller immediately had a second one posted for sale. Considering he said he was given these as a gift, and he only had the Meulens, Showalter and Howe, he probably has a stack of them from an in-person signing from way back when. I have to revise my date estimate to either 1992 or 1993 as those were the only years Meulens and Howe were on the team together with Showalter at the helm. By 1994, Meulens would be playing in Japan and out of the Yankees system altogether.

Here are the front and back together:

  

     No joy on Googling SPORTSPRINT/ATLANTA aside from more references to that 1994 Greenville Braves set. Ditto for the photographers and what was presumably the outfit that provided the photos.

1988 New York Yankees Press Player Identification Photo

     I'm not sure what the technical term for this item would be, but for the price, I couldn't pass it up as an addition to both my Hensley Meulens and Roberto Kelly collections.  I've seen lots of these popup on eBay in the last year, mostly priced beyond what I'd want to spend, but this is the only one that has featured two players I collect with a starting bid of under $10.  It's just too bad it didn't also have Dave Winfield on it!

     Presumably, sets of these were available to the media as a way to help identify the players on the teams, and given the inclusion of Meulens on this one in 1988, I have to conclude it was distributed during Spring Training, as Bam Bam wouldn't see big league playing time until August 1989.

A signature and a surplus of silk...starring Dave Winfield

      I try not to do it very often, but this past week I picked up a larger lot for a single item.   I was unaware of the existence of the above piece until I saw this lot, so I dropped the minimum $9.99 bid.  I'm not really sure what the proper terminology is for this, but it is the "postcard" version of the Z Silk cachet for the 9th Freehold Classic Sports Memorabilia Show.  A little Googling turns up several similar cards for other players, connected to other "Sports Memorabilia Shows" such as:

Good Ideas Super Star Action Pop-Ups (1988-1989)

     I caught this a month or so ago in the course of my usual daily eBay Winfield hunt. Having no idea what it was or from whence it came, upon its arrival in the daily post, I plunged deep into the murky depths of the web seeking enlightenment. As happens more often than not, ManOfSteal over at Rickey Henderson Collectibles had the scoop. He'd picked up his 1988 Rickey Pop-Up years before. A few questions back and forth over on the Freedom Card Board Rickey Henderson Collectors Thread didn't reveal too much more aside from the fact that there are 1988 & 1989 series.

Shut up and deal! Playing cards and baseball

     Baseball and gambling. Two things that go together like, well, baseball and gambling. For nearly as along as there has been baseball, there has been gambling on baseball. And in an effort to combine the two in a more collector friendly way, for decades there have been baseball-themed decks of playing cards. Most teams have offered their own souvenir decks of cards adorned with the team emblem for awhile, but fortunately for the card collectors among us there have been several sets depicting actual players.

     Sadly, there was never a Columbus Clippers set of playing cards during Hensley Meulens three years with the club, but fortunately for me (and by proxy, for you) between Dave Winfield and Dave Henderson I have several to show off (Roberto Kelly has a couple, but I've not managed to pick them up yet). From 1990-1995, the U.S. Playing Card Company issued several sets of stars, rookies and teams (always with the disclaimer "Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball Players Association do not approve of any form of gambling." tacked under the top flap of the box), and also several sets for specific teams.

    I managed to snag some sets from 1990-1994 as they were released.  Not sure why I missed the 1991 set.

    In 1991, Dave Henderson made the starting lineup of the American League All-Star team, and that rated him inclusion in the U.S. Playing Card Co's 1991 All-Stars set:

    There were also two variations of this set. The first was a set with a silver edge, which doesn't really show up in a flat scan, but if you had a stack of them, the edge of the stack would be silver instead of white. The other variation was sold in Canada under the International Playing Card Co. brand. Both of those versions typically command about 2x-5x what the standard set goes for.  I have the silver version, I'm still hunting the International version.

    The U.S. Playing Card Co. continued the trend in 1992, issuing another All-Stars set, very similar to the previous years as represented by the New York Yankees' Roberto Kelly:

    In 1995, under their Bicycle brand, the U.S. Playing Card Co. issued a set for the Toronto Blue Jays featuring players from the previous 10 years. Somewhat surprising for a set covering that 10 year span is the absence of cards for Dave Stieb, Lloyd Moseby and George Bell considering the inclusion of Cecil Fielder and Fred McGriff and multiple cards of players from their 1992 & 1993 World Champion rosters.  However, that set included not just one, but two different cards of Dave Winfield.

    Fast forward to 2005, and a company called Parody Productions began producing "Hero" sets.  Now known as Hero Decks (you can see their site at HeroDecks.com), they have issued sets for multiple teams across several sports and all manner of other novelty sets covering different genres (military heroes, politics, entertainers, etc).  In 2005, one of their first sets was a Heroes of New York set featuring the best of the Yankees lineups from the team's history.  Dave Winfield scored a spot as the 7 of Hearts for one of the greats of their 1980s teams.

   The selection of Hero Decks was expanded greatly in 2008, adding sets for Seattle, Chicago, Minnesota, Cleveland and others, and along with the new teams came a new set for the Yankees.  Winfield was still seated in the 7 of Hearts slot and the set had been updated a bit to include more career details for each player and featured a new pinstripe design on the back.

    And as the Hero Decks sets were arranged in a sort of best of a certain decade format, Hendu was represented in the Seattle set, having been their starting center fielder for a good chunk of the 1980s.

Dave Winfield Cachets In on Induction Day 2001 (then things get hairy...)

     Another week, another cachet commemorating the induction of Dave Winfield into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. This is the sixth cachet for Winfield's HoF induction, with apparently no end in sight.   It has been 10 years since his induction, and I'm still finding new commemorative cachets dedicated to this one event.  For 30-something collectors, the art here probably looks a bit familiar, as it is the same giant-hatted, beaked depiction of Winfield that appeared on his 1987 Donruss Diamond King card, courtesy of artist Dick Perez, the man who basically put Donruss on the map in the early 1980s.  This rendition was perhaps a subtle shot at Winfield's 1983 Toronto Seagull Incident, or perhaps not.  You be the judge.

    This image would be used three times in 1987, in the main Donruss set, in the Super Diamond Kings set (note the slightly different cropping of the photo in the Super, as well as the completely different formatting on the back):

     And in the 1987 Leaf set (with the text on the reverse in both English and federally legislated French):

     Wait...what's that?  Is that a hair?

     It would appear we have a possible new variation discovery here.  I just checked and the hair is actually on the card, it was not just one of a billion stray cat hairs that I'm forever cleaning off my scanner.  It would appear the hair is only on the regular 1987 Donruss version of the card.  But a check of my voluminous box of Winfield duplicates reveals there are actually two versions of this card, both With Hair and Sans Hair (I found about 4 with the hair and about 12 without):

      And because everyone else was doing it, in 2001, Donruss saw the need to trot the card out again (without the hair) in it's Donruss Diamond Kings Reprints sets in honor of it's 20th anniversary:

Dave Winfield - Travelling Man (Part 2): California Bound

     Fast forward 10 years to 1990, and Dave Winfield is making his comeback to baseball after missing the entire 1989 season due to back problems. After a dismal start (hitting just .213 in 20 games) to what would undoubtedly be his last season in pinstripes, the Yankees decided to get something out of him before he became a free agent and in May, dealt him to California for Mike Witt.  Witt was once part of what should have been a great starting pitching staff for the Angels with Chuck Finley, Mark Langston and Jim Abbott, but was now decidedly on the downswing of a surprisingly short career. Witt would do very little for the 1990 Yankees, and even less in 1991. Witt would then miss all of his 1992 season and be released by the team in 1993 and be out of baseball.

     Winfield on the other hand, seemed to find some spring in his step with the move to California, out from under the influence of George Steinbrenner, and would turn his season around with the Angels, hitting .275 with 19HR over 112 games. That revival would earn him Comeback Player of the Year honors. Big Dave went on to sign with the Angels for the 1991 season and have his best power year since 1983, with 28 home runs. Not bad for someone who the Yankees had written off. By 1990, there were now several players in the baseball card market, so Winfield's only real trade was covered by all the major update sets; 1990 Fleer Update, 1990 Score Rookie & Traded, Topps Traded and Upper Deck's High # Series.

     Donruss, although not actually having an update or traded set in 1990, did produce the last of their Baseball's Best sets (which had evovled from the 1987 Opening Day set) in the form of separate Best of the American League and Best of the National League sets.  These sets were released mid-season and were updated to reflect team changes since the previous year.  As a result, Donruss also had a 1990 card showing Winfield in his new duds:

Dave Winfield - Travelling Man (Part 1)

       While Dave Winfield is probably most recognized as a San Diego Padre or a New York Yankee, he was no stranger to the late-season traded set. He first saw action in 1981, when Topps first set forth to formalize the "traded" set they had dabbled in over the course of the 1970s. His first mainstream card as a Yankee was in that inaugural Topps Traded set. Even at this point, Topps should have just called it an update set since a good chunk of the set were rookies who had shared cards with other rookies in the base set or free agents who were signing with new teams. Probably less than half of the set were players who were involved in actual trades. That would actually be the most common reason for Winfield's appearances in these sets, free agency. For this first official Traded set, Topps simply continued the card numbering where the base set left off. As a result, Winfield's card is #855, near the end of the set.

       In 1980, Dave Winfield was the most high profile free agent in baseball history. He signed with the Yankees for the highest salary in baseball history to that point, reported to be around $16 million for 10 years. Thanks to a cost of living clause, the contract would turn out to be worth closer to $23 million. Dave had an impressive decade for the Yankees, picking up a 8 consecutive All-Star appearances, 5 Gold Gloves and 5 Silver Slugger awards. However the 1980s would also be bittersweet for Winfield, as his post-season performaces were less than stellar and he would spend most of the decade feuding with Yankees owner George Steinbrenner over money and contract stipulations. He would also end the decade on the disabled list, missing all of 1989 to a back injury.

       20 years later, as Topps was completely running out of ideas for new sets, they were reprinting almost every card of every star player in their past inventory. As a result, this 1981 Topps Traded card resurfaced in no less than 4 new versions in the 2001 Topps Traded retread set:

     The first was a nice, clean reprint, on modern white card stock, with the "Topps 50 Years" logo in the upper left corner.  The white stock provided a medium that allowed for a slightly sharper photo than the original card.   The backs of all of these are nearly identical to the original, only much easier to read and having the 2001 copyright notice at the bottom, along with the new card numbering for the 2001 Topps Traded set.

     Next, Topps gave the same card the gold foil treatment around the border, and "limited" the production to 2001 pieces, as indicated by a gold stamped serial number on the back.

      Then, Topps went the next of their favorite gimmicks and issued the same card in Chrome, which was the style they pioneered with the Topps Finest set in 1993.  Chrome cards don't show up very well on LiDE (LED indirect Exposure) scanners, which don't actually shine light directly on the surface of the card, so most of the time, it just shows up as very dark, instead of demonstrating the silver, mirror finish of the background and border.

     Topps also issued the set in their other favorite gimmick, the chrome refractor, which bounces the reflected light back at different angles, resulting in the rainbow effect when looking at it.  Interestingly, refractors show up much better in scans on LiDE scanners but, alas, I have yet to find a copy of the refractor version of this card for my collection.