Sets You Forget About... 2002 UD Authentics!
Back in 2002, Upper Deck released a set that grabbed my attention and funneled the dollars from my wallet at a far faster rate than I should have allowed... 1989 Upper Deck was one of my favorite sets of all time. It was the first set I ever collected by hand from packs. 2002 UD Authentics was a tribute to the 1989 set, that I was hooked on back in the day...
Soon after it hit the stores, I looked up singles on ebay and liked what I saw. This was the 1989 set, but much smaller. That same green and brown baseline, position noted over "first base", the same font used for names... This could be a really fun set to collect. I immediately decided that this would be my main collecting focus for 2002....
From the outside, this was an excellent tribute to their debut set. But where the 1989 set came out with 15 cards in a pack, with 36 packs in a box, at $.99/pack retail, 2002 UD Authentics was a much different beast...
Only 5 cards per pack, in an 18 pack box, with a $6.99/pack retail price. These would be distributed through hobby shops only. Even though it was only a 200 card set (vs 800), at those prices, completing the set didn't seem too plausible...
The wrappers were made from the same foil that all of Upper Deck's first few year's sets were. (A very nice touch.) Once you opened the packs however, and looked at the cards, it was clear they spent most of their efforts on the packaging... They did use the same card stock as the 1989 set, the same fonts as well. But in areas they could have gone to make this a great tribute set, they kind of took short cuts that made it seem like they lost interest in the set...
Out of the very first pack I opened, I pulled Ken Griffey Jr.'s base card. That's cool... Flipping it over, Griffey has card #162 in the set...
Okay, that's not right at all... Card #1 in the set should have been Ken Griffey Jr. PERIOD.
I would have forgiven Upper Deck if they used an action shot of Griffey (At Coors Field in Denver no less... I may have been at this game?), which they did, as long he was card #1... He should have been... It's right there!
Bonus points would have been awarded had they used a mug shot that looked anything like this...
Come on, this is arguably to most iconic card of the past 30 years. And you own the rights to it's design! If you are making a set of cards, to tribute your first set of cards, down to the design and packaging, how can you not put Ken Griffey Jr. as the #1 card?
A former Expo, dressed as a Blue Jay, featured on a card having him play for the Disney Cartoon Angels of Los Angeles by Anaheim California. Or whatever that team calls itself now... Or then...
Not enough to sour me, but this set should never have been led off by Brad Fullmer... No offense Brad. You were an Expo, I collect your cards...
UD Authentics was released in mid-March 2002, so it would have been impossible to feature free agents and traded players with their new teams. I can understand that... But when a set comes out with a price point of well over $1 per card, I expect a little more when it comes to dealing with recent player moves. Slapping a Royals logo and transaction tagline to the photo of Knoblauch, clearly as a Yankee, seems rather poor. Even in 2002, they could have photoshopped something.
Well...
I don’t know, this is a tough thing to complain about as there are no good answers as how to deal with traded players. Maybe wait to release the set until you can adequately cover offseason transactions? Especially for a set as expensive as this? I guess I really hoped for a Kansas City Royals Knoblauch card, as there wasn’t too many of them made during his one season stay in KC.
Upper Deck did a great job on the card backs, they look very close to the set they are mimicking.
Here's the rest of the Twins team set. They got seven cards out of the 200, which is a pretty fair representation.
And I can still spell Mientkiewicz by memory...
The inclusion of Frederick as a star rookie is a real head scratcher... He made his major league debut after this set came out, and was never considered a top prospect for Minnesota. Michael Cuddyer (Former #1 pick, 23 years old and still eligible for rookie status and one of Minnesota's top prospects heading into the 2002 season.) would have been a much better choice.
Frederick only pitched in 8 games with the Twins, to an unsightly 10.03 ERA... Two years later, he pitched in 22 games with the Toronto Blue Jays, mustering a 6.59 ERA. Frederick never returned to the Majors.
Cuddyer was inducted into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame this weekend. I watched his speech live on my phone in Colorado. (Something that was impossible in 1989, and barely on the horizon in 2002...) He played 15 seasons in the major leagues, was a 2-time All Star, and won the 2013 National League Batting Championship, with a .331 average. He retired after the 2015 season, with a career .805 OPS
As long as I'm in the mood to cover how my teams were represented, here's the 2002 UD Authentics Colorado Rockies...
Cam Esslinger pitched to below average numbers throughout his minor league career, and never spent a day in the major leagues. It's cool that he got a card, but to call him a Star Rookie...
Reyes managed to get into 81 games with Colorado over the 2003-04 seasons. He hit a weak .220/.261/.316, and never made it back to the major leagues. I always seemed to pull Reyes cards in the early 2000's. While searching for a Joe Mauer autograph in a box of 2002 Bowman's Best, I pulled 3 different color Reyes autograph parallels... May go for the rainbow at some point...
As a Rockies fan, it hurts that I really like that Mike Hampton card. Colorado signed Hampton to an 8 year, $121 million dollar contract prior to the 2001 season. Colorado had to overpay in order to bring in the ace pitcher the team needed, due to the difficulty of pitching at altitude.
And over pay we did... In an interview after signing, Hampton deflected the subject of money by saying he chose to sign with the Rockies because "of the school system" for his kids.
Yeeeeeeeeaaaaahhhh....
I was excited by the Rockeis signing Hampton in 2001. He wasn't a slouch, and widely regarded as one of the best pitchers in the National League entering 2001. With the exception of not being a strikeout pitcher, he put up great numbers during the offensive explosion of the steroid era.
Until he got to Colorado....
Hampton imploded... Bad...
He went 21-28, 5.75 ERA, with 464 hits and 176 walks allowed in 381 and 2/3 innings, during his two seasons in Colorado. After the 2002 season, the Rockies ate a giant portion of the last 6 years of his contract and traded him to the Florida Marlins, who then ate another portion of his contract and traded him to the Atlanta Braves. To rub salt in the wound, Hampton turned in a pretty good season for the Braves in 2003, before regressing and losing full seasons of time to injury. Still getting paid by the Rockies, through the 2009 season...
Cirillo was acquired by Colorado in a complicated 3 team trade from Milwaukee, by way of Oakland, prior to the 2000 season. He put in two really good years for the Rockies, before getting traded to Seattle, where his game quickly deteriorated.
Colorado got closer Brian Fuentes in the trade, who became a minor star with the Rockies.
Montreal only got a disappointing five cards in the set (I'm missing #180, Ron Calloway). And they are all kind of bland road action shots. Vladimir is probably the best, but they are all pretty weak...
Which is a complaint I have with the photos in general. 1989 Upper Deck used a mix of mug shots, posed shots and action shots. This set gave you nearly all action shots, that are generally cropped tight to the frame. After looking through a stack of these, they become redundant. Zooming out on some shots to show more background, or zooming in tighter on the action would have helped.
Since the whole set kind of blends together, it's hard to find cards that stand out to me. Even some of the brightest stars of the day have photos that are barely interesting. After combing my album for singles I liked for this post, this crop was about the best I could come up with...
I like this photo. It fits well within the frame of the card and shows some great action. Even if it's another damn Yankee...
With all the card sets Upper Deck was putting out in the early 2000's, they had to have a minimum of 20 different pictures of every star player in baseball, during any given year to choose from. Put a better effort into photo selection. It goes a long way... Jason Kendall is a good example of a nice action shot that stands out amongst all the bland action shots.
I hated Bonds as a player. There’s not a whole lot more I can add to that. But there’s something about this card that I do like… I'm chalking it up to the Dodger Stadium blue fences, which always looked nice in the background of cards.
As Minnesota’s natural rival in the American League Central, I do not like the Cleveland Indians. But how can you not like Bartolo Colon? There aren’t a whole lot of players in this set still going in 2017, but Colon is one of them… 44 years old and pumping upper 80’s fastballs with great control for the Minnesota Twins.
Never would have predicted that in 2002…
Colon picked up career win 238 earlier today for Minnesota. It was his first career win over the Arizona Diamonbacks. Bartolo is now the 18th player in Major League history to have wins against all 30 franchises. He has not been dominant for the Twins, but he's been better than some of their other options... AahhhchhooooKyleGibson...
So congratulations are in order for Big Sexy!
I'm a big fan of this photo, but please zoom out for some better context... A home plate celebration featuring Herb Perry, Paul Konerko (I think) and the home plate umpire.
I like the photo on Piazza, but this is also a card that should have pulled back a bit on the photo... Crouching catchers need to breathe, and Piazza looks trapped by the borders. Zoom out a bit and this becomes one of my favorite cards in the set...
Former Expo and future MLB Network analyst, pictured towards the end of his run with the Florida Marlins. Nothing notable, Cliff Floyd being a player I collect, I just wanted to show this card.
In 2001, the Mariners signed Ichiro Suzuki to replace the traded Ken Griffey Jr., after 9 seasons as Japan's top hitter. A speedy slap hitter, Ichiro has been a machine. In 26 seasons between Japan and the Major Leagues, Ichiro has over 4300 base hits. Second only to Pete Rose in professional baseball history. Ichiro is still going strong at age 43, for the Miami Marlins. After debuting for the Orix Blue Wave in 1992 at age 18, Ichiro has said he wants to play until he is 50.
When they got away from using game action photos, the set could breathe a little. While their numbers are few, the pre-game, warmup pictures are among my favorites in the set...
Behind Pudge is noted lying steroid user Rafael Palmeiro, one of my least favorite players in major league history. But this is still a nice card...
I don't like you Palmeiro.
As long as I'm feeling salty... Let criticize this set some more...
My biggest problem with the set still comes down to the team logos on the front.
For their iconic 1989 set, Upper Deck made 3D team logos. Designed with shadows and reflections, giving the logos the appearance of depth. They looked really cool!
In 2002, you probably couldn’t find a more widely collected player than Jeter, and this is a nice photo...
Dale Murphy's card in the 1989 set had a small amount printed with the negative flipped on the plate, causing his picture to appear reversed. The Braves logo on his jersey was backwards, and his bat was on his opposite shoulder. Weather this was an intentional error or not is a subject I'm not getting into...
(I do not own that card, it's an internet picture. I've never added it to my collection, despite wanting it.)
For the 2002 set, Upper Deck chose to replicate the Murphy error on every card, short printed them, and now it's a parallel set. Okay, that's fine... I get it... But why did you then airbrush the logos off the cards before reversing them? With logos, they would look cool. Without logos, you've just turned your licensed card set into an unlicensed parallel. I wanted to like these cards, but the poor execution means I can't stand them...
2002 UD Authentics did remember to bring back the Rookie Stars subset... But they forgot to include the stars... In 1989, you had nearly a full roster of prospects that would go on to All Star careers (Gary Sheffield, Gregg Jefferies, Ramon Martinez, Sandy Alomar Jr., etc…), with several Hall of Famers in Randy Johnson, John Smoltz and of course Griffey.
The 30 card 2002 crop of Rookie Stars left much to be desired… I remember Kazuhisa Ishii being the only player listed in Beckett as anything above a common. And that was more due to the novelty of him coming over from Japan, than what he did in the major leagues. The rest of the 30 card set was filled with such household legends as So Taguchi, John Ennis, Doug Devore, Adrian Burnside and Brandon Puffer...
Not to say anything bad about them, I'm sure they are all great human beings...
The photos used for the Star Rookies are at least a bit more random. Here is where Upper Deck saved it's mug shots and fake baseball poses...
More of this! These guys may not have been rookie stars, but these photos are at least interesting!
The big selling point of UD Authentics was to bring attention to Upper Deck Authenticated. It was basically an advertising gimmick involving a small set of cards, to get people to buy autographed memorabilia from their website. At the price point they were marketing ($7/pack), it was obviously not meant for a set collector.
Unfortunately for me, I wanted the set, not caring about the whole memorabilia angle. I was going to keep buying pack after pack, just so I could get the damn set!
The incredibly complex rules were listed on the box bottom for the set's various promotions and multiple prize layers.
Well... After far too much money on something not worth it, I tapped out on buying 2002 UD Authentics. I loved opening this stuff, but had still fallen short on the set.
To this day, I still need cards: 2, 4, 15, 80, 86, 112, 168, 174, 177, 180, 193, 196, to complete my set.
Mike (at Mike's Sports Cards) never charged me the full retail of $7/pack for these when I would buy them. And he helped get single cards for me from others that opened packs in the store. The set wasn't a big seller, but it had it's tiny niche audience. But unlike myself, a lot of people liked it for the readily available relic cards.
For the money they were charging for packs and boxes, Upper Deck was going to be generous with the relic cards. (Which were still a fairly big draw in 2002.) You would average 3 relics per box, and they showed up at a rate of 1 in 6 packs.
And I got a bunch of them. I guess there are different themed sets, but they all look alike to me. There's a bunch of big name stars represented, not common players. I was just left feeling unimpressed...
Of course, each of the relic cards had to have a numbered gold parallel. As well as an even rarer autographed and serial numbered parallel. Of which I never got any, so I can't scan them for you...
Continuing with a design theme that dates back to 1990 and Reggie Jackson, a 9 card set was made for Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Ichiro Suzuki, to commemorate their career highlights. Each is numbered out of 1989, and each has a small number of autographed parallels. Never got any of those either... Not that I wasn't looking for an Ichiro autograph...
The final insert set was called 1989 Flashbacks. I liked these. They took a photo of players that were still active from the 1989 set, and placed a "today" photo alongside. These were numbered out of a random 4225.
As I said, I was interested in strictly the base set. I knew I would get a bunch of relics and other inserts, but I likely wasn't going to see any autographed cards as there were precious few inserted in packs. I figured that the redemption prizes were still at such ridiculous odds that I would never see those, so the "prizes" were out of mind as I spent hundreds of dollars chasing the base set.
My dismissal of winning a prize didn't take into account the field I was playing on. Yes, the odds are astronomical on $2.50/pack cards. But I was in the 3 times that price territory... That price point would drastically lower the odds of hitting a big prize all the way down to 1 in 108 packs. Card companies sometimes rewarded collectors with better stuff than you get in the cheap packs...
As I opened the box pictured at the top of the post, I pulled a redemption card for official Upper Deck Authenticated merchandise.
I fired that redemption card off in the mail the next day, and a couple months later, Fedex delivered the Ken Griffey Jr. bat to my front door. After admiring it, I went online and registered the serial number on the official Upper Deck Hologram to myself. Still in disbelief that I owned it... Number 381 of the 400 bat series belonged to me!
Less than and hour later, I put the Griffey bat in my car and gave it a ride up to Mike's, to show him...
No matter what stupid amount I spent chasing the 2002 Upper Deck Authentics set, I will forever say it was worth it. Even though I never finished the stupid base set...
I don't dip my toes into the high end card market often, because I'm used to getting burned...
At least this time it brought me a near complete set that I really like, and a beautiful autographed bat of my favorite player during the time I've spent in the hobby!
Soon after it hit the stores, I looked up singles on ebay and liked what I saw. This was the 1989 set, but much smaller. That same green and brown baseline, position noted over "first base", the same font used for names... This could be a really fun set to collect. I immediately decided that this would be my main collecting focus for 2002....
Yeah, those boxes are damn cool!
Only 5 cards per pack, in an 18 pack box, with a $6.99/pack retail price. These would be distributed through hobby shops only. Even though it was only a 200 card set (vs 800), at those prices, completing the set didn't seem too plausible...
The wrappers were made from the same foil that all of Upper Deck's first few year's sets were. (A very nice touch.) Once you opened the packs however, and looked at the cards, it was clear they spent most of their efforts on the packaging... They did use the same card stock as the 1989 set, the same fonts as well. But in areas they could have gone to make this a great tribute set, they kind of took short cuts that made it seem like they lost interest in the set...
Let me get picky for a bit...
Okay, that's not right at all... Card #1 in the set should have been Ken Griffey Jr. PERIOD.
I would have forgiven Upper Deck if they used an action shot of Griffey (At Coors Field in Denver no less... I may have been at this game?), which they did, as long he was card #1... He should have been... It's right there!
Bonus points would have been awarded had they used a mug shot that looked anything like this...
Come on, this is arguably to most iconic card of the past 30 years. And you own the rights to it's design! If you are making a set of cards, to tribute your first set of cards, down to the design and packaging, how can you not put Ken Griffey Jr. as the #1 card?
Okay, so who did get the #1 slot in 2002 UD Authentics?
Really?
Not enough to sour me, but this set should never have been led off by Brad Fullmer... No offense Brad. You were an Expo, I collect your cards...
UD Authentics was released in mid-March 2002, so it would have been impossible to feature free agents and traded players with their new teams. I can understand that... But when a set comes out with a price point of well over $1 per card, I expect a little more when it comes to dealing with recent player moves. Slapping a Royals logo and transaction tagline to the photo of Knoblauch, clearly as a Yankee, seems rather poor. Even in 2002, they could have photoshopped something.
Well...
I don’t know, this is a tough thing to complain about as there are no good answers as how to deal with traded players. Maybe wait to release the set until you can adequately cover offseason transactions? Especially for a set as expensive as this? I guess I really hoped for a Kansas City Royals Knoblauch card, as there wasn’t too many of them made during his one season stay in KC.
Upper Deck did a great job on the card backs, they look very close to the set they are mimicking.
Here's the rest of the Twins team set. They got seven cards out of the 200, which is a pretty fair representation.
And I can still spell Mientkiewicz by memory...
The inclusion of Frederick as a star rookie is a real head scratcher... He made his major league debut after this set came out, and was never considered a top prospect for Minnesota. Michael Cuddyer (Former #1 pick, 23 years old and still eligible for rookie status and one of Minnesota's top prospects heading into the 2002 season.) would have been a much better choice.
Frederick only pitched in 8 games with the Twins, to an unsightly 10.03 ERA... Two years later, he pitched in 22 games with the Toronto Blue Jays, mustering a 6.59 ERA. Frederick never returned to the Majors.
Cuddyer was inducted into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame this weekend. I watched his speech live on my phone in Colorado. (Something that was impossible in 1989, and barely on the horizon in 2002...) He played 15 seasons in the major leagues, was a 2-time All Star, and won the 2013 National League Batting Championship, with a .331 average. He retired after the 2015 season, with a career .805 OPS
As long as I'm in the mood to cover how my teams were represented, here's the 2002 UD Authentics Colorado Rockies...
I'm missing Larry Walker (#168) in my set...
Reyes managed to get into 81 games with Colorado over the 2003-04 seasons. He hit a weak .220/.261/.316, and never made it back to the major leagues. I always seemed to pull Reyes cards in the early 2000's. While searching for a Joe Mauer autograph in a box of 2002 Bowman's Best, I pulled 3 different color Reyes autograph parallels... May go for the rainbow at some point...
As a Rockies fan, it hurts that I really like that Mike Hampton card. Colorado signed Hampton to an 8 year, $121 million dollar contract prior to the 2001 season. Colorado had to overpay in order to bring in the ace pitcher the team needed, due to the difficulty of pitching at altitude.
And over pay we did... In an interview after signing, Hampton deflected the subject of money by saying he chose to sign with the Rockies because "of the school system" for his kids.
Yeeeeeeeeaaaaahhhh....
I was excited by the Rockeis signing Hampton in 2001. He wasn't a slouch, and widely regarded as one of the best pitchers in the National League entering 2001. With the exception of not being a strikeout pitcher, he put up great numbers during the offensive explosion of the steroid era.
Until he got to Colorado....
Hampton imploded... Bad...
He went 21-28, 5.75 ERA, with 464 hits and 176 walks allowed in 381 and 2/3 innings, during his two seasons in Colorado. After the 2002 season, the Rockies ate a giant portion of the last 6 years of his contract and traded him to the Florida Marlins, who then ate another portion of his contract and traded him to the Atlanta Braves. To rub salt in the wound, Hampton turned in a pretty good season for the Braves in 2003, before regressing and losing full seasons of time to injury. Still getting paid by the Rockies, through the 2009 season...
Another of those logo/uniform mismatches...
Colorado got closer Brian Fuentes in the trade, who became a minor star with the Rockies.
Montreal only got a disappointing five cards in the set (I'm missing #180, Ron Calloway). And they are all kind of bland road action shots. Vladimir is probably the best, but they are all pretty weak...
Which is a complaint I have with the photos in general. 1989 Upper Deck used a mix of mug shots, posed shots and action shots. This set gave you nearly all action shots, that are generally cropped tight to the frame. After looking through a stack of these, they become redundant. Zooming out on some shots to show more background, or zooming in tighter on the action would have helped.
Since the whole set kind of blends together, it's hard to find cards that stand out to me. Even some of the brightest stars of the day have photos that are barely interesting. After combing my album for singles I liked for this post, this crop was about the best I could come up with...
I like this photo. It fits well within the frame of the card and shows some great action. Even if it's another damn Yankee...
With all the card sets Upper Deck was putting out in the early 2000's, they had to have a minimum of 20 different pictures of every star player in baseball, during any given year to choose from. Put a better effort into photo selection. It goes a long way... Jason Kendall is a good example of a nice action shot that stands out amongst all the bland action shots.
I hated Bonds as a player. There’s not a whole lot more I can add to that. But there’s something about this card that I do like… I'm chalking it up to the Dodger Stadium blue fences, which always looked nice in the background of cards.
As Minnesota’s natural rival in the American League Central, I do not like the Cleveland Indians. But how can you not like Bartolo Colon? There aren’t a whole lot of players in this set still going in 2017, but Colon is one of them… 44 years old and pumping upper 80’s fastballs with great control for the Minnesota Twins.
Never would have predicted that in 2002…
Colon picked up career win 238 earlier today for Minnesota. It was his first career win over the Arizona Diamonbacks. Bartolo is now the 18th player in Major League history to have wins against all 30 franchises. He has not been dominant for the Twins, but he's been better than some of their other options... AahhhchhooooKyleGibson...
So congratulations are in order for Big Sexy!
I'm a big fan of this photo, but please zoom out for some better context... A home plate celebration featuring Herb Perry, Paul Konerko (I think) and the home plate umpire.
But that logo really needs help...
I like the photo on Piazza, but this is also a card that should have pulled back a bit on the photo... Crouching catchers need to breathe, and Piazza looks trapped by the borders. Zoom out a bit and this becomes one of my favorite cards in the set...
Former Expo and future MLB Network analyst, pictured towards the end of his run with the Florida Marlins. Nothing notable, Cliff Floyd being a player I collect, I just wanted to show this card.
In 2001, the Mariners signed Ichiro Suzuki to replace the traded Ken Griffey Jr., after 9 seasons as Japan's top hitter. A speedy slap hitter, Ichiro has been a machine. In 26 seasons between Japan and the Major Leagues, Ichiro has over 4300 base hits. Second only to Pete Rose in professional baseball history. Ichiro is still going strong at age 43, for the Miami Marlins. After debuting for the Orix Blue Wave in 1992 at age 18, Ichiro has said he wants to play until he is 50.
And I want to see that happen.
When they got away from using game action photos, the set could breathe a little. While their numbers are few, the pre-game, warmup pictures are among my favorites in the set...
Behind Pudge is noted lying steroid user Rafael Palmeiro, one of my least favorite players in major league history. But this is still a nice card...
I don't like you Palmeiro.
As long as I'm feeling salty... Let criticize this set some more...
My biggest problem with the set still comes down to the team logos on the front.
For their iconic 1989 set, Upper Deck made 3D team logos. Designed with shadows and reflections, giving the logos the appearance of depth. They looked really cool!
The 2002 set... Blah....
In 2002, you probably couldn’t find a more widely collected player than Jeter, and this is a nice photo...
But wouldn't this have looked so much better?
Answer: Yes.
Speaking of failing where winning was so close...
Dale Murphy's card in the 1989 set had a small amount printed with the negative flipped on the plate, causing his picture to appear reversed. The Braves logo on his jersey was backwards, and his bat was on his opposite shoulder. Weather this was an intentional error or not is a subject I'm not getting into...
(I do not own that card, it's an internet picture. I've never added it to my collection, despite wanting it.)
For the 2002 set, Upper Deck chose to replicate the Murphy error on every card, short printed them, and now it's a parallel set. Okay, that's fine... I get it... But why did you then airbrush the logos off the cards before reversing them? With logos, they would look cool. Without logos, you've just turned your licensed card set into an unlicensed parallel. I wanted to like these cards, but the poor execution means I can't stand them...
2002 UD Authentics did remember to bring back the Rookie Stars subset... But they forgot to include the stars... In 1989, you had nearly a full roster of prospects that would go on to All Star careers (Gary Sheffield, Gregg Jefferies, Ramon Martinez, Sandy Alomar Jr., etc…), with several Hall of Famers in Randy Johnson, John Smoltz and of course Griffey.
The 30 card 2002 crop of Rookie Stars left much to be desired… I remember Kazuhisa Ishii being the only player listed in Beckett as anything above a common. And that was more due to the novelty of him coming over from Japan, than what he did in the major leagues. The rest of the 30 card set was filled with such household legends as So Taguchi, John Ennis, Doug Devore, Adrian Burnside and Brandon Puffer...
Not to say anything bad about them, I'm sure they are all great human beings...
The photos used for the Star Rookies are at least a bit more random. Here is where Upper Deck saved it's mug shots and fake baseball poses...
Like Francis Beltran. All dressed up in his Cubs uniform to play at his little league field, all alone...
Or Jorge Nunez, getting ready to bat from the Pacific Ocean...
*****
2002 UD Authentics... The Meat, Potatoes and Relics of it...
Unfortunately for me, I wanted the set, not caring about the whole memorabilia angle. I was going to keep buying pack after pack, just so I could get the damn set!
The incredibly complex rules were listed on the box bottom for the set's various promotions and multiple prize layers.
Well... After far too much money on something not worth it, I tapped out on buying 2002 UD Authentics. I loved opening this stuff, but had still fallen short on the set.
To this day, I still need cards: 2, 4, 15, 80, 86, 112, 168, 174, 177, 180, 193, 196, to complete my set.
Mike (at Mike's Sports Cards) never charged me the full retail of $7/pack for these when I would buy them. And he helped get single cards for me from others that opened packs in the store. The set wasn't a big seller, but it had it's tiny niche audience. But unlike myself, a lot of people liked it for the readily available relic cards.
For the money they were charging for packs and boxes, Upper Deck was going to be generous with the relic cards. (Which were still a fairly big draw in 2002.) You would average 3 relics per box, and they showed up at a rate of 1 in 6 packs.
And I got a bunch of them. I guess there are different themed sets, but they all look alike to me. There's a bunch of big name stars represented, not common players. I was just left feeling unimpressed...
But I am a David Cone fan... And Red Sox Cone cards are not that common...
Of course, each of the relic cards had to have a numbered gold parallel. As well as an even rarer autographed and serial numbered parallel. Of which I never got any, so I can't scan them for you...
Continuing with a design theme that dates back to 1990 and Reggie Jackson, a 9 card set was made for Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Ichiro Suzuki, to commemorate their career highlights. Each is numbered out of 1989, and each has a small number of autographed parallels. Never got any of those either... Not that I wasn't looking for an Ichiro autograph...
The final insert set was called 1989 Flashbacks. I liked these. They took a photo of players that were still active from the 1989 set, and placed a "today" photo alongside. These were numbered out of a random 4225.
As I said, I was interested in strictly the base set. I knew I would get a bunch of relics and other inserts, but I likely wasn't going to see any autographed cards as there were precious few inserted in packs. I figured that the redemption prizes were still at such ridiculous odds that I would never see those, so the "prizes" were out of mind as I spent hundreds of dollars chasing the base set.
Until one day, when I shockingly hit a redemption card.
(Which is why card collecting has become such a lottery, but that's a rant for another day...)
And it wasn't for a low end prize...
I won an autographed Ken Griffey Jr. 400 Home Run commemorative bat.
I fired that redemption card off in the mail the next day, and a couple months later, Fedex delivered the Ken Griffey Jr. bat to my front door. After admiring it, I went online and registered the serial number on the official Upper Deck Hologram to myself. Still in disbelief that I owned it... Number 381 of the 400 bat series belonged to me!
Less than and hour later, I put the Griffey bat in my car and gave it a ride up to Mike's, to show him...
No matter what stupid amount I spent chasing the 2002 Upper Deck Authentics set, I will forever say it was worth it. Even though I never finished the stupid base set...
I don't dip my toes into the high end card market often, because I'm used to getting burned...
At least this time it brought me a near complete set that I really like, and a beautiful autographed bat of my favorite player during the time I've spent in the hobby!
I will chalk that up as a win!
Comments
Post a Comment