A few weeks ago my son and I opened a pair of 1992 Upper Deck baseball boxes in search of one of the legendary Ted Williams certified autographs. While we did not pull any of the signed cards, we did complete a full Baseball Heroes insert set (sans the short printed Header card) of the Splended Splinter.
Over the last two weeks, the boxes of base cards had been sitting around and earlier today I decided to take another look at them before putting them into another box I’ll likely donate. While checking the contents, I started to noticed that 1992 Upper Deck captured something other brands from the era seemed to routinely gloss over. Upper Deck captured various fun moments at the ball park, specifically the interaction with fans and players signing autographs.
This is not to say that other sets didn’t even capture this. But Upper Deck’s design allowed for two photos to be used per player, the dominant image on the front, and the one on the back. And while looking at the fronts and backs, enjoying various images I came across 18 different cards from the boxes that showed this pre-game interaction between fan and players, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this type of thing would ever be common place again given the way COVID-19 has changed the world.
What’s sort of fun in these images is to see which players were captured signing, what items were being offered and in one case it looked like someone was trying to give a $1 bill for a signature.
We start with a pair of Hall of Famers in Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn.
Ripken was still about three of so years away from breaking Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played streak, but he was an established star and on the front of his card he is shown signing a large poster that’s been rolled up and brought to the ball park.
The front of Tony Gwynn’s card is a action game image, but the back is where we see Gwynn signing for fans, several of whom appear to be offering an Upper Deck promotional piece.
One could argue that Dale Murphy deserves to be in the Hall of Fame however he still remains on the outside looking in. But if there was an autograph HOF, Murphy would be a first-ballot member as his flowing, loopy signature is a favorite among fans. Here we see Murphy signing autos with his left and — which is opposite of his throwing hand — and there is no shortage of demand. My favorite person here? The person in the center in the Hard Rock Cafe shirt, totally geeking out as he looks to be placing his signed card back inside his binder page.
At the start of 1992, Darryl Strawberry was still a major star in the game, coming off a 28-homer performance in his first season as a Dodger. On the rear of his card, he’s shown signing a few autographs down the right field line. It’s worth noting that Darryl appears to be signing baseballs with a black marker, which is not really the preferred method. But would you complain? Not I.
The following 14 cards showcase MLBers who weren’t exactly of the same caliber of those mentioned above, but it’s worth noting that fans are fans, they’ll seek a signature from whomever is in uniform offering to ink their collectibles. The first seven will be cards with signing occurring on the front, while the second set will show the interaction on the backs.
Here’s Brewers pitcher Chris Bosio signing what appears to be a baseball.
Former prospect Ben McDonald is shown on his card conducting an interview while signing a baseball in blue marker. What’s comical here is the fan shouting in the background and the Diet Pepsi logo in the foreground as it was on the side of what looks to be a promotion Orioles baseball cap.
Phillies pitcher Mike Hartley is shown here signing the underside of a Phillies cap with some sort of marker.
Mets pitcher Anthony Young appears to be signing some sort of flat — probably a card — as it rests on the wall along the first base side of the field.
Angels reliever Mark Eichhorn appears to be enjoying himself as he signs for several members of the US Military. I wonder if those guys ever learned they were featured on a baseball card.
Braves reliever Marvin Freeman took his signing session to the next level and sat on the dugout pregame signing for fans using the ever popular blue ballpoint pen to make memories.
White Sox pitcher Melido Perez is shown signing autographs, specifically what looks to be a game-day lineup sheet from a Program. What caught my eye here is the fan in the background holding a $1 bill. It’s not clear if the fan is offering to pay him for a signature or if they wanted him to sign the money.
Blue Jays star pitcher Dave Stieb looks to me making friends as he sits on the tarp at what I believe is Angels Stadium.
Brewers closer Doug Henry is shown on his card preparing to sign a glove with a collectible team ballpoint pen.
Cubs catcher Rick Wilkins is pictured using a purple Sharpie to sign a program. It’s worth noting that the autograph probably turned out upside down.
Phillies shortstop Kim Batiste was captured signing autographs at Spring Training.
Cubs starter Frank Castillo is shown signing before a game at Dodger Stadium. A couple fun things of note: Castillo is going to sign a baseball with what looks like a scented (blueberry?!) blue marker and someone is holding a poster featuring Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan, possibly offering for that to be signed by Castillo.
Orioles relief pitcher Todd Frowirth was captured pausing between signatures at the old Memorial Stadium … and there are those pesky Diet Pepsi logos again.
And lastly t here is veteran outfielder Mike Deveraux returning a hat after signing it. And given by the looks of things, it is probably one of those promotional Diet Pepsi/Orioles hats. Fitting.
I don’t own every card of this set, but that seems to be a lot of fan interaction for the 72 packs that my son and I opened. It’s an 800-card set so there’s probably more that I’ve missed.
Have one from this set that I missed? Leave it in the comments, or share it over on Twitter.
About a week and a half ago I sent out a tweet mentioning that I planned to write a piece about how I generally no longer chase autographs of the guys I personally collect. In my case that’s Roger Clemens and Clayton Kershaw.
No less than 24 hours I sent the tweet, and much before I sat down to write anything, I received a message from my Good Friend Tom out of Las Vegas.
Of course he hit area of my Kershaw collection I had failed to cover: a 2005 Team USA autograph.
The price tag said $75, and before I could even really respond, Tom said he’d already worked the shop down to $60.
Of course I had to own it at that price.
I would have preferred a single-signed Team USA Kershaw autograph but for the price It was good — and it doesn’t exactly hurt that the other player on the card is an all-star, Yankees reliever Dellin Betances.
I’ve still not written my autograph piece, and I will cover all of my philosophical thoughts here, but even though I feel somewhat hypocritical based on my tweet, I’m happy to have added this one to my collection — and really happiness is all that matters.
It’s now one of three Kershaw autos that I consider to be head and shoulders above the rest.
The others?
The 2006 Bowman Chrome Draft Refractor /500 that I personally pulled from a blaster at WalMart that year, and the 2016 Stadium Club because the moment depicted in that autograph card is one I experienced in person — I was there the night Kershaw tossed a 1-hitter in San Francisco in 2015 to clinch the National League West title.
Sometime last summer one of my friends brought to my attention that Dave and Adam’s Card World was selling original artwork used to create some iconic Upper Deck cards from the early 1990s.
The pieces were used on the Heroes inserts and the team checklist subsets. Among the artwork available was that of Vernon Wells — renowned sports artist and father of the professional baseball player — who’d created a single piece that depicted Roger Clemens in two different poses. The image is one that I remember vividly from my youth as a collector of 1990 Upper Deck cards.
I first saw the piece on the Web site over the summer but did not buy it. Around that same time Ryan Cracknell of Beckett Media wrote about his acquisition of the Joe Montana “Football Heroes” piece, which is gorgeous.
I wanted the Clemens but really wasn’t in a position to acquire it. Then recently former Beckett Media editor Chris Olds, the one who first alerted me to the piece, told me the Clemens was now on sale, for 50% off. I toyed with the idea of owning it and even checked with Ryan about whether he ever regretted buying his Montana. (hint: He still loves it.)
So after about 12 hours of debate — and making a sale on eBay to free up some funds — I took the plunge and made the purchase using the profits from a thrift flip.
And no less than five days later the piece arrived, professionally framed as it likely had been so that the art work could hang in the Upper Deck offices.
I was excited to receive the piece and actually had my son record my unboxing because that’s what we do when we make big acquisitions for our personal collections. (https://youtu.be/7aRJ-12pRJc)
Thanks Chris for the heads up, and Ryan for offering insight.
I was poking around COMC on Wednesday and I spied a 1992 Upper Deck Cecil Fielder Card, a single I had seen many times over the last 27 years. But it was not u til today that I realized the unintentional sexual innuendo here.
Cecil Fielder seated, with a water bottle between his legs and a chicken on its knees before him, and of course the cropping doesn’t help.
Yeah, it’s a bit immature, but it is what it is. Is it not?
One day we’re all going to laugh at what has transpired over the last week — Us card collectors venturing past checkout lanes, where the cards are usually sold, and speed walking to the clothing department to hunt our wears.
I laughed last week when I saw people on Twitter filling shopping cards with new packages of Hanes underwear and shirts, most of which were solely purchased for the bonus item — a pack of five Fleer Michael Jordan cards with a 1 in a 100,000 chance at obtaining his autograph.
When I saw the cards were live and there was a frenzy, I immediately figured people would go into stores and find a way to rip the card packs off the packages or buy the item and then return the clothing without the cards. Sadly, I did not buy the notion that so many folks were actually going to donate any of the clothing to persons in need.
I digress, I managed to stay away from the stores this weekend, so I didn’t partake in the first rush that seemed to be taking place at the end of last week. But then Monday rolled around and there I was doing groceries at Target … and I decided “just to see” if any of the Jordan cards had made it to the store.
Sure enough there were a few mixed in among the standard Hanes merchandise. While I didn’t need any of the wears for myself — I did just buy new undergarments about a month ago — I was faced with a decision: Does my SON need any new underwear or shirts?
The answer, of course, was yes. On both. And truthfully, I would have just bought one package, but the wrapper said to buy a red pack and a blue pack to complete the set.
And the smirk on Mike’s face here says it all. Because little did I know that we’d need much more than just a red and a blue pack to complete this set …
I bought a pack of underwear and shirts for my son and then ripped the card packs open in the car. The very first card front I laid eye upon was this glorious screen grab from a commercial. The picture was apropos as it looks like Mike just got a whiff of some rancid milk — or in my case, a brilliant marketing scheme to sell more undergarments.
Because we all know that we needed cards of Michael Jordan palming a football helmet …
And palming a pumpkin …
And wearing a bright white Hanes t-shirt, probably tagless for comfort, under a black vest — all presented within a holofoil insert to make us feel like we got something special.
This whole Jordan-Hanes-Upper Deck campaign is magnificent. It got us talking about undergarments; it got us collectors who would rather spend money on cards than lunch to go buy clothes. It got us to again talk about a company without a basketball card license. And they seem to have done it without even showing the greatest basketball player in history doing anything basketball related. Hell, the closest I got in my packs was him carrying golf clubs.
cardboardicons.com 
Upper Deck captured the fun of the ballpark in 1992
Posted in Commentary, Misc. with tags autographs, baseball, baseball cards, Cal Ripken Jr., Dale Murphy, Dave Stieb, Marvin Freeman, Tony Gwynn, Upper Deck on January 3, 2021 by Cardboard IconsA few weeks ago my son and I opened a pair of 1992 Upper Deck baseball boxes in search of one of the legendary Ted Williams certified autographs. While we did not pull any of the signed cards, we did complete a full Baseball Heroes insert set (sans the short printed Header card) of the Splended Splinter.
Over the last two weeks, the boxes of base cards had been sitting around and earlier today I decided to take another look at them before putting them into another box I’ll likely donate. While checking the contents, I started to noticed that 1992 Upper Deck captured something other brands from the era seemed to routinely gloss over. Upper Deck captured various fun moments at the ball park, specifically the interaction with fans and players signing autographs.
This is not to say that other sets didn’t even capture this. But Upper Deck’s design allowed for two photos to be used per player, the dominant image on the front, and the one on the back. And while looking at the fronts and backs, enjoying various images I came across 18 different cards from the boxes that showed this pre-game interaction between fan and players, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this type of thing would ever be common place again given the way COVID-19 has changed the world.
What’s sort of fun in these images is to see which players were captured signing, what items were being offered and in one case it looked like someone was trying to give a $1 bill for a signature.
We start with a pair of Hall of Famers in Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn.
Ripken was still about three of so years away from breaking Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played streak, but he was an established star and on the front of his card he is shown signing a large poster that’s been rolled up and brought to the ball park.
The front of Tony Gwynn’s card is a action game image, but the back is where we see Gwynn signing for fans, several of whom appear to be offering an Upper Deck promotional piece.
One could argue that Dale Murphy deserves to be in the Hall of Fame however he still remains on the outside looking in. But if there was an autograph HOF, Murphy would be a first-ballot member as his flowing, loopy signature is a favorite among fans. Here we see Murphy signing autos with his left and — which is opposite of his throwing hand — and there is no shortage of demand. My favorite person here? The person in the center in the Hard Rock Cafe shirt, totally geeking out as he looks to be placing his signed card back inside his binder page.
At the start of 1992, Darryl Strawberry was still a major star in the game, coming off a 28-homer performance in his first season as a Dodger. On the rear of his card, he’s shown signing a few autographs down the right field line. It’s worth noting that Darryl appears to be signing baseballs with a black marker, which is not really the preferred method. But would you complain? Not I.
The following 14 cards showcase MLBers who weren’t exactly of the same caliber of those mentioned above, but it’s worth noting that fans are fans, they’ll seek a signature from whomever is in uniform offering to ink their collectibles. The first seven will be cards with signing occurring on the front, while the second set will show the interaction on the backs.
Here’s Brewers pitcher Chris Bosio signing what appears to be a baseball.
Former prospect Ben McDonald is shown on his card conducting an interview while signing a baseball in blue marker. What’s comical here is the fan shouting in the background and the Diet Pepsi logo in the foreground as it was on the side of what looks to be a promotion Orioles baseball cap.
Phillies pitcher Mike Hartley is shown here signing the underside of a Phillies cap with some sort of marker.
Mets pitcher Anthony Young appears to be signing some sort of flat — probably a card — as it rests on the wall along the first base side of the field.
Angels reliever Mark Eichhorn appears to be enjoying himself as he signs for several members of the US Military. I wonder if those guys ever learned they were featured on a baseball card.
Braves reliever Marvin Freeman took his signing session to the next level and sat on the dugout pregame signing for fans using the ever popular blue ballpoint pen to make memories.
White Sox pitcher Melido Perez is shown signing autographs, specifically what looks to be a game-day lineup sheet from a Program. What caught my eye here is the fan in the background holding a $1 bill. It’s not clear if the fan is offering to pay him for a signature or if they wanted him to sign the money.
Blue Jays star pitcher Dave Stieb looks to me making friends as he sits on the tarp at what I believe is Angels Stadium.
Brewers closer Doug Henry is shown on his card preparing to sign a glove with a collectible team ballpoint pen.
Cubs catcher Rick Wilkins is pictured using a purple Sharpie to sign a program. It’s worth noting that the autograph probably turned out upside down.
Phillies shortstop Kim Batiste was captured signing autographs at Spring Training.
Cubs starter Frank Castillo is shown signing before a game at Dodger Stadium. A couple fun things of note: Castillo is going to sign a baseball with what looks like a scented (blueberry?!) blue marker and someone is holding a poster featuring Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan, possibly offering for that to be signed by Castillo.
Orioles relief pitcher Todd Frowirth was captured pausing between signatures at the old Memorial Stadium … and there are those pesky Diet Pepsi logos again.
And lastly t here is veteran outfielder Mike Deveraux returning a hat after signing it. And given by the looks of things, it is probably one of those promotional Diet Pepsi/Orioles hats. Fitting.
I don’t own every card of this set, but that seems to be a lot of fan interaction for the 72 packs that my son and I opened. It’s an 800-card set so there’s probably more that I’ve missed.
Have one from this set that I missed? Leave it in the comments, or share it over on Twitter.
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