Junk Wax Spotlight - 1994 Classic Minor League Baseball
The Junk Wax Era pretty much died in 1994 with the MLB players strike. It was already trending downward from it's peak around 1992, but the strike put a huge dent into the overproduction issues that proceeded it... While never as popular as the major leagues, minor league baseball cards had a quick spike of sudden interest in 1994, thanks entirely to this guy...
Classic had been producing minor league team sets for years, along with their Major League Baseball Trivia Card and Board Games. They never got a license to produce major league cards in regular pack form, but did distribute a smaller set of minor league cards, apart from the team sets, in packs from 1991-1994. As great as this set was in terms of quality, I remember picking up tons of this stuff for way less than $1/pack...
The 1994 edition of Classic Minor League Baseball had the best design and photography of any of their previous sets. The cards are very clean and the full bleed photos pop with great action. Something minor league sets didn't offer all that often.
All your future stars that you'd expect to see were included. After two plus decades of perspective, it's funny to see a 19 year old Jeter and a 18 year old A-Rod playing A-Ball...
The early 1990's saw in increase in wacky minor league teams names and logos, a trend that goes on today. As strange as I thought naming a baseball team after a fat, slow, sea creature was in 1994, I had zero shock last year upon learning the Colorado Rockies named their AA team the Yard Goats...
The Expos were well represented, with 9 prospects getting single cards out of the 200 card set. Gabe White put in an 11 year career as a relief pitcher with the Expos, Reds, Rockies and others. But was shown here with the AAA Ottawa Lynx.
In 1993, I bought a Lynx hat as my new every day hat. That was all well and good, but then my apprentice, "Name Redacted" Star, went out and bought the same Lynx hat I wore. He didn't understand that we couldn't hang out wearing matching hats... I then replaced the Lynx with a Ft. Wayne Wizards hat, and we could be friends again.
Of course, not all of the players in the set panned out. Mr. Heberling never played a game in the major leagues, and was out of baseball by 1996. No word if that was due to his right knee bending the wrong way...
Minnesota managed to get 5 players in the set. Including Brad Radke, who was not a top ranked prospect in 1994, but pitched 12 very consistent seasons for the Twins.
Also getting a card was recent first round pick, and 18 year old Torii Hunter, who played 19 years in the major leagues.
Another great feature of Classic minor league sets was they added lotsa autographs into packs, years before that was an industry norm. To that point, I'd never pulled an autograph from a pack of Major League cards. But with Classic, it was always a possibility...
While hardly collector favorites, I was thrilled to pull these three from packs back in the day...
Kieschnick was a top prospect, and former first round pick, with the Cubs that didn't pan out. He seemed to hit well, just never played... He bounced from the Cubs to the Devil Rays to Reds to the Rockies to the Indians to the White Sox, before settling in as a pinch hitter, left fielder and relief pitcher with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2003-2004. He was the first player I'd seen to actively do both roles in the major leagues on a regular basis.
The 8th overall pick in the 1993 draft, Kirk Presley. Arm injuries ruined his career, and he never played in the major leagues. He is also the third cousin of Elvis Presley. That's pretty cool...
Kansas City's first round pick in 1992, Tucker had a solid 12 year major league career with the Royals, Reds, Braves, Giants and others.
I really liked this set, but at only 200 cards, I wanted more... 100 additional cards would have really made this set really special... So I was excited when I saw that a "series 2" was coming out late in the year. More of this set with 1994 Draft picks and some new emerging prospects would be really awesome!
Nope... Series 2 only had new insert cards, but no new base cards... That made zero sense. However, the inserts they added were fun. But, I already had the complete 200 card set, and no reason to buy it...
Unless I felt like playing the lotto...
Classic produced this card of Cal Ripken, saluting him for playing his 2000th consecutive game in early 1994. (Against the Twins, at the Metrodome, where this photo was taken...) Ripken also signed 2000 copies of this card, which were placed in packs. I've always wanted that card, but never got one...
The main insert series (besides autographs) in "series one" was a 24 card set titled Cream Of The Crop. The set honored 24 top prospects, with a foil card that came in a ratio of one per pack. The update sat had another 20 or so new cards, but this time with a rainbow foil background (that my scanner does not like). The Cream of the Crop update should have been the basis for an actual series 2, as it did feature the 1994 draft picks and new emerging prospects...
Like Florida Marlins 1st round pick Josh Booty...
Heheheheheh... Booty...
Another Series 2 insert set that I really liked were the Tri-Cards. Each of the 28 major league teams got a card featuring their top prospect at A ball, AA and AAA. The cards were perfed so you could rip them apart to make 3 small cards. But I've never once seen any that have been ripped. And I'm not about to do that to these three future Expos...The back of this card says it is limited to 8,000. Well, that's not really limited...
Another insert set was Bonus Baby. An outdated term slapped on some gold foil to highlight some more top prospects. Like Boston's 1993 first rounder Trot Nixon... The gimmick for this card was it's serial numbering to 9,994... Cut that by 9,000 and there's something worth collecting...
And that right there sums up the problem with sets like 1994 Classic Minor League. They are great cards in execution... It's a very attractive and well put together set. But the market for minor league card was shrinking (despite having a mega-draw in Jordan), and there was no where near the demand that Classic anticipated for these cards.
Factory sealed wax boxes were serial numbered, out of 99,940 (plus 12,000 boxes of "series 2"). Each box had 36 packs... Each pack had 10 cards... Those numbers add up to a total of 40,298,400 cards produced of just this set. Dividing that number by 200 (the size of the set), you get 201,492. Granted that included all insert cards, which are of unknown quantities printed. So even being generous, there were likely over 200,000 of each card in the set printed.
It's doubtful there were even half that many people buying the set...
But I still like it!
One and done, never heard from again...
The 1994 edition of Classic Minor League Baseball had the best design and photography of any of their previous sets. The cards are very clean and the full bleed photos pop with great action. Something minor league sets didn't offer all that often.
All your future stars that you'd expect to see were included. After two plus decades of perspective, it's funny to see a 19 year old Jeter and a 18 year old A-Rod playing A-Ball...
The early 1990's saw in increase in wacky minor league teams names and logos, a trend that goes on today. As strange as I thought naming a baseball team after a fat, slow, sea creature was in 1994, I had zero shock last year upon learning the Colorado Rockies named their AA team the Yard Goats...
The Expos were well represented, with 9 prospects getting single cards out of the 200 card set. Gabe White put in an 11 year career as a relief pitcher with the Expos, Reds, Rockies and others. But was shown here with the AAA Ottawa Lynx.
In 1993, I bought a Lynx hat as my new every day hat. That was all well and good, but then my apprentice, "Name Redacted" Star, went out and bought the same Lynx hat I wore. He didn't understand that we couldn't hang out wearing matching hats... I then replaced the Lynx with a Ft. Wayne Wizards hat, and we could be friends again.
Of course, not all of the players in the set panned out. Mr. Heberling never played a game in the major leagues, and was out of baseball by 1996. No word if that was due to his right knee bending the wrong way...
Minnesota managed to get 5 players in the set. Including Brad Radke, who was not a top ranked prospect in 1994, but pitched 12 very consistent seasons for the Twins.
Also getting a card was recent first round pick, and 18 year old Torii Hunter, who played 19 years in the major leagues.
Another great feature of Classic minor league sets was they added lotsa autographs into packs, years before that was an industry norm. To that point, I'd never pulled an autograph from a pack of Major League cards. But with Classic, it was always a possibility...
While hardly collector favorites, I was thrilled to pull these three from packs back in the day...
Kieschnick was a top prospect, and former first round pick, with the Cubs that didn't pan out. He seemed to hit well, just never played... He bounced from the Cubs to the Devil Rays to Reds to the Rockies to the Indians to the White Sox, before settling in as a pinch hitter, left fielder and relief pitcher with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2003-2004. He was the first player I'd seen to actively do both roles in the major leagues on a regular basis.
The 8th overall pick in the 1993 draft, Kirk Presley. Arm injuries ruined his career, and he never played in the major leagues. He is also the third cousin of Elvis Presley. That's pretty cool...
Kansas City's first round pick in 1992, Tucker had a solid 12 year major league career with the Royals, Reds, Braves, Giants and others.
*****
Nope... Series 2 only had new insert cards, but no new base cards... That made zero sense. However, the inserts they added were fun. But, I already had the complete 200 card set, and no reason to buy it...
Unless I felt like playing the lotto...
Classic produced this card of Cal Ripken, saluting him for playing his 2000th consecutive game in early 1994. (Against the Twins, at the Metrodome, where this photo was taken...) Ripken also signed 2000 copies of this card, which were placed in packs. I've always wanted that card, but never got one...
The main insert series (besides autographs) in "series one" was a 24 card set titled Cream Of The Crop. The set honored 24 top prospects, with a foil card that came in a ratio of one per pack. The update sat had another 20 or so new cards, but this time with a rainbow foil background (that my scanner does not like). The Cream of the Crop update should have been the basis for an actual series 2, as it did feature the 1994 draft picks and new emerging prospects...
Like Florida Marlins 1st round pick Josh Booty...
Heheheheheh... Booty...
Another Series 2 insert set that I really liked were the Tri-Cards. Each of the 28 major league teams got a card featuring their top prospect at A ball, AA and AAA. The cards were perfed so you could rip them apart to make 3 small cards. But I've never once seen any that have been ripped. And I'm not about to do that to these three future Expos...The back of this card says it is limited to 8,000. Well, that's not really limited...
Another insert set was Bonus Baby. An outdated term slapped on some gold foil to highlight some more top prospects. Like Boston's 1993 first rounder Trot Nixon... The gimmick for this card was it's serial numbering to 9,994... Cut that by 9,000 and there's something worth collecting...
And that right there sums up the problem with sets like 1994 Classic Minor League. They are great cards in execution... It's a very attractive and well put together set. But the market for minor league card was shrinking (despite having a mega-draw in Jordan), and there was no where near the demand that Classic anticipated for these cards.
Factory sealed wax boxes were serial numbered, out of 99,940 (plus 12,000 boxes of "series 2"). Each box had 36 packs... Each pack had 10 cards... Those numbers add up to a total of 40,298,400 cards produced of just this set. Dividing that number by 200 (the size of the set), you get 201,492. Granted that included all insert cards, which are of unknown quantities printed. So even being generous, there were likely over 200,000 of each card in the set printed.
It's doubtful there were even half that many people buying the set...
But I still like it!
Nice rundown of a set I didn't know much about. The one minor league set I collected was '91 Line Drive, still enjoy seeing cards from that one.
ReplyDeleteI remember the Line drive set well. Was it 1991 where they made a AA set and then a separate AAA set in packs? Either 1991 or 1992... They were common in gas stations around the Minneapolis area... I was more of a ProSet minor league guy, but have a few Line Drive cards of the players I collected.
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