Have you ever felt like you missed out on something? I’m sure you have. We can miss out on a lot of things if we aren’t following the right channels or people on social media. Sometimes we don’t really miss out, but we miss out on that initial buzz because we aren’t the first in on it. That’s why some people would wait in line for a new Madden game the first day it came out. These days that’s just an online purpose and maybe you pay a little more for early access. Or maybe you’ll wait in line this winter when the new Star Wars movie comes out. Oh and those folks love to tell you that they were “one of the first” which at some point becomes a fish story and they were the first.
I’ve never done any those things but it hasn’t stopped me from feeling a little bit like I missed the buzz. For me, laziness and a dislike of dealing with crowds keep me from being the first to be some place or the first to buy something. In general, that’s fine with me. But in the back of my mind I still feel a little twinge that I missed something.
Those first Stadium Club years are a bit like that for me. In reality though I am just feeling it now. I was on my way out of baseball card collecting in the early to mid-90’s. I was collecting in 1991 and even up to 1993, but I was really only getting into the flagship versions of any product. Some of that because it’s probably what I could afford, but some of it was also what my local hobby shop would carry. Our local shop was “hobby” and not “cards” as it was a lot of model cars and RC cars and boats and things like that. They stuck to the main products for cards back them.
I know these are ’93 Stadium Club and not the inaugural offering in ’91, but it made me think back to how I missed these sets and what the circumstances were on that. A part of me wishes I was a in on these from the beginning.
1993 Topps Stadium Club
I went ahead and picked up a hobby box back on National Baseball Card Day. No I didn’t wait this long to open, just to write this post. I do try to stretch opening out as much as I can though so I don’t keep buying to open more. I definitely liked what I found. Even in my collecting in later years, I don’t have two much of 1993 Stadium Club so these were some nice adds.
One thing you can count on over the years with Stadium Club is the picture quality and it all started back in these years. Yes, it’s the pictures, but it was also the gloss and the gold and the full bleed. Some of the pictures aren’t really that different than a flagship picture (like these pictured above), but the cards themselves make it feel better.
Of these three favorites from the box was the Jim Thome given him getting into the hall and all that. For the other two they were obviously top players back then, but what I realized is that they had stars in the graphics and others, like Thome, didn’t. I couldn’t figure out if that was because they were an All-Star or not, but some of the guys I would have expected it on didn’t have it.
Now I Am The Master
I had no clue these existed, but I also had no clue that one of these would be in the box. I like that I pulled the regular Baerga card on top of the Master Photo card. It’s supposed to be “larger” than the regular card but in reality it’s probably just the bleed before they print something like this. But it is adorned with all the “Master Photo” logos and the rainbow foil edges and all that. I definitely like that it was in there and it was at the bottom of the box so I was really surprised when I got to the bottom.
Did I Win?
You’ll see that I took an interest in the “info” cards that you find in the packs. This one covers the “Master Photo” cards like the Baerga you saw above. But not only that, back then I would’ve won this Kirby Puckett one back-in-the-day. That looks like a pretty sweet card and I would’ve loved to have pulled it, but I really hate seeing this stuff and then seeing the expiration date. I’m not expecting it to not have an expiration date, it just makes me wonder what I wouldn’t have given for it back then. Maybe not a lot given I was on the downside of collecting in 1993.
First Day On The Job
The “1st Day Issue” parallels were basically 1:24 packs. That was pretty accurate as I got just the one in the box. You can see how the informational card explains what these First Day cards are. The print run on these was 2000 and they considered that “extremely limited edition.” Nowadays that would mean something a lot less than that. The only time I can think of something even being marked when it’s in the thousands are the flagship gold cards for each year’s release.
Ooooo, Member’s Choice!
I actually learned a lot about Member’s Choice cards. I thought that these were another set of parallels or that they were an insert. In reality they are not really either, but kind of closer to an insert. What they really are are the last ten cards in each series and they have “Members Choice” on the cards. Again, you can see the stars on Eckersley’s card and not on Ventura’s.
Catcher In The Rye
As I opened the packs I happened to notice a few catcher-themed pictures in the set. The Tackett and Wilkins cards are their cards, the Roberts card just features a play at the plate. Maybe I happened to have a thing for catchers when I opened these but for some reason it stuck out to me that this was a theme in the packs.
Need The Info
I told you there were a ton of “Info Cards” that came out of the packs. It felt like there was one for each aspect of the set. While I don’t want a filler card in my packs, I did like learning about the set and what you should find. Sometimes I open sets these days and I can’t tell what one parallel or insert is over another. These days we have the interwebs and back then we didn’t. It’s not like its hard for me to look up but, you know, laziness.
Missed A Chance At Da Club
Damn! I wanted to be a member. I immediately thought of Mitch Hedberg’s bit about the Club Sandwich.
Another great time opening an old product. This time it was even better because it wasn’t opening a box I would’ve had packs from back then, it was a product I hardly ever opened. And given that 2018 Stadium Club came out not that long ago, it was fun thinking about the evolution of the product.