Spotlight on Cards:Jeff Conine

I am featuring an oddball Jeff Conine card I picked up years ago.  I am hoping someone might have some info on it.
It appears to be a card from 1992, because on the back it shows card values for 1991 cards (in the place where stats would usually be).  It is done using the card design of a 1973 Topps football card, which is odd considering it is a baseball card from the 1990's.  There is no card company logo or copyright marks on this card either.That is all I can tell you about this card.  If anyone knows anything about it or knows of any similar cards, let me know.

Spotlight on Cards:

In previous posts about Mike Squires, I listed my favorite cards of his and presented his little-known Toronto Blue Jays cards. Today, I am featuring my least favorite card of Squires.
The 1983 Topps card of Squires gets that honor. There is very little about this card that I like.
I don't mind the actual design of the card. Therefore that did not affect my decision. The striping color scheme works very well with the White Sox uniforms of that time.
Now the uniforms...there is one problem. I hated those uniforms. They replaced the softball uniforms the Sox had been wearing, but they were just as bad in their own way. Besides, Squires looks like his uniform is a bit too small for him. Squires wasn't a bulky, muscle guy either.
From the looks of the 'action' on the card, I am guessing Squires just walked and is jogging to 1st base. Other bloggers (like White Sox Cards and Night Owl Cards) are much better at the game of figuring out this type of stuff. In any case, it is a weak-looking shot, which is the main reason for my disdain.
This card does serve one purpose. At least it proves that everything Squires is not golden in my eyes (just most of it). So, Ed Mann, if you are reading this, this one is for you, buddy!

1983 Topps Mike Squires card.

Mike Squires:Blue Jay Way

My recent post on my top 5 favorite Mike Squires baseball cards included an 'Honorable Mention' for a local issue card of Squires from his time as a coach with the Toronto Blue Jays. A few people commented or emailed that they never knew those cards existed. Of course, as a big fan of Squires, I believe I have every Squires card produced.
A few seasons after Squires retired, he joined the coaching staff of the Blue Jays. As a result, he appeared on their multi-sponsored, local-issued cards for 3 years, 1989-91.

I like these cards, yet they don't have the classic baseball card look to them. They are very clean looking though. I don't particularly care for the 1990 card of Squires. It is an interesting shot, as you don't see many dugout shots, but it is a bit of a goofy shot. I like the '89 or '91 cards much better.

The Toronto Blue Jays local issue cards of White Sox legend Mike Squires.

Mike Squires Returns to Chicago

The Cincinnati Reds are in Chicago to play the Cubs. Special Assistant to the GM for the Reds is Mike Squires, who played his entire career (10 seasons) in Chicago, although on the south side with the White Sox.
I am not even sure if Squires travels with the team, but I am taking this opportunity to present my Top 5 favorite baseball cards of Squires, my all-time favorite White Sox player (borrowing the idea from Brian at 30-year old Cardboard, who presented his Andre Dawson Fab 5).

My Top 3 are all Fleer cards, 1981, 1983 & 1984.

The '81 Fleer comes from Fleer's first set. While many cards in this set are slightly blurry, the Squires card is crisp. Squires is seen apparently in the on deck circle, studying the pitcher. It's a clean full-view shot of Squires, highlighted by a bright unfocused background.
The '83 Fleer shows Squires poised to make a throw, presumably during infield practice. I don't believe the Sox ever used that jersey in a game. It's just a nice in-action shot.

The '84 Fleer card shows Squires (again in warmups) just after releasing the ball on a throw. Squires has some facial scruff, looking the part of the grizzled veteran. The visible #25 on the pant leg is a plus.

Rounding out the Top 5 are 1984 DonRuss and 1985 Topps, with an Honorable Mention to the 1989 Toronto Blue Jays local issue.

The '84 DR is a nice closeup of Squires leaning against the batting cage. This is a very colorful card. Although the 'White Sox' and 'DR 84' are somewhat hard to read, this is a very attractive card.
The '85 Topps card is the last year of cards for Squires, as he retired at the end of the season (technically, 1984 was his last real season, as he only came back in September of '85 for a few games to reach an mlb service point). Squires is shown on defense, ready to handle anything hit his way.
The '89 Toronto issued card is an Honorable Mention because it is not a standard issue card. Still, it was good to see Spanky on a new card and in a new uniform. I like the straight-on shot of Squires batting, although it would have been more appropriate to show Squires giving fielding pointers to someone.

Spotlight on Cards:More Double Vision

About a week ago, I wrote about Topps letting me down by producing 2 cards of Oakland Raiders WR Mike Siani 2 years apart using the same picture. Siani wasn't the only victim of Topps' laziness.
In 1974, Topps produced their first card of Bob Klein, a tight end with the Los Angeles Rams. The next year, Klein's card had a new photo, which was pretty cool, featuring eye black. Unfortunately, in 1976, Topps was back to their duplicitous ways.
Klein's 1976 card featured the same picture as his 1974 card. Well, there was one difference and an annoying one at that. The picture was flipped. Because the shot is shoulders up, one would never know one picture was flipped. Nothing seems opposite. However, when looking at them side by side, it is obvious.

1974 & 1976 Bob Klein Topps cards.

Spotlight on Cards:'73 & '75 Topps Mike Siani

Previously in Spotlight on Cards, I dissected 2 different sets of Topps basketball cards. Today, I am concentrating on 2 individual Topps football cards of Mike Siani, former wide receiver for the Oakland Raiders.
Siani was a 1st round draft pick of the Raiders in 1972, but spent most of his career as the 3rd receiver, behind Hall of Famer Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch (a 4 time Pro Bowler). Of course, it was the gritty underdog Siani, who became my favorite.
I was excited when I got my first card of Siani, a 1973 Topps card. The '73 Topps were the first sports cards I ever collected and I really like the look still to this day.
My complaints arose 2 years later, when Topps used the exact same photo for Siani's 1975 card. It was hard to be excited about this 'new' card. How lazy could Topps be? How could they care so little about the card or the collector?
Back in those days, Topps was the only card company producing football cards. Also back then, football cards were one of the main ways to get info on any player. ESPN wasn't around, nor was the internet. Basically, there were a handful of football magazines, which usually focused more on bigger name players and there was the yearly Topps set.
This was major disappointing to me as a young collector and fan of Siani. Topps cards were the only yearly tangible updates on most players and for them to simply reuse a 2 year old picture of Siani was simply inexcusable.
Later, when Siani joined the Baltimore Colts, I was hoping Topps would redeem themselves by producing a Colts card of him. Alas, it did not happen. (If I ever find a picture of Siani with the Colts, Steve over at White Sox Cards will be getting another request for Cards That Never Were).
The argument could be made that Baltimore wasn't good enough to have too many WR's on cards. Another reason could be that although Siani was generally the third WR on the Colts, a few running backs had more catches. These might be plausible reasons, but looking at other teams' card rosters leaves me doubtful.
No reason is good enough anyway. Topps owed me a Mike Siani card and one with the Colts would have been a great olive branch. Instead, here I am 24 years later griping about the double vision seen below.

1973 & 1975 Topps Mike Siani cards.

Spotlight on Cards:Topps 1976-77 Basketball

In my last Spotlight on Cards, I ridiculed the tri-panel 1980-81 Topps basketball cards for being ridiculously small among other things. Today, I am shining the spotlight on the 1976-77 Topps basketball set.
The first thing that jumps out is the size of these cards. These cards are larger than the normal sports card issue, measuring a whopping 3 1/8 x 5 1/4 inches (almost twice as much total area as a regular sports card). Topps had done large basketball cards before, but that was in the earlier days of basketball cards (more on those in a future post).
The size works for and against the cards though. On the plus side is that the extra area size is great for autographs. These cards could easily fit a signature and an inscription courtesy of a bold Sharpie. Unfortunately, a lot of the action shots are dark, which would obscure most autographs, such as the one I got from Phil Jackson.
The action shots are pretty good looking pictures, but there is one other problem. Most of the action photos were taken in Landover (MD) at home games of the Washington Bullets. Therefore, most of the opposing players are Washington Bullets. That is just a bit boring.The large size also makes it harder to store these cards. Normal binder pages are made for 9 cards (3 rows of 3 cards). These big boys require a different storage sheet. Most collectors store their autographed cards by player, not year. Requiring different pages messes up that system.
There are a lot of standard head (and shoulders) shots. While they are a bit more boring in these larger cards, they do provide excellent backdrops for autographs, much better than the action shots.
One last cool feature is on the back of the cards. The college statistics of the player is shown for his entire collegiate career. Unfortunately, that is balanced by the silly "How to Play Basketball" and "Rules of Basketball" feature at the bottom of the cards. Apparently Topps didn't have anything better to put in that extra space.

Spotlight on Cards:1980-81 Topps Basketball

Last Sunday, I wrote a post about waiting 8+ years for the return of some Tom Burleson signed basketball cards. At the bottom was a copy of one of the cards Burleson signed.
Scorehead Zeke and a few emailers asked about this card. It was his 1980-81 Topps basketball card and it was bad. It wasn't the fact that it was Burleson's card which made it bad. The whole set was bad. It was also the last basketball set produced by Topps for many years.
The 1980-81 set featured a regular sized card, divided into 3 mini-cards by perforations. Each 1/3 (or mini-card) featured a different player and was considered a separate card, despite being attached to 2 other mini-cards. Make sense? Wait...it gets worse.
There were 178 total cards in the set, including 264 different mini-cards. The same 264 mini-cards appear in different positions (with different mini-cards attached to them) in the first and second sets of 88 cards that make up the 176 card set.
This set was panned by critics and collectors. Autograph collectors were especially upset and befuddled by this set.If you kept the 3 piece card intact, once you got one of the parts signed, you would never risk losing the first signature by sending it out to someone else to sign another of the parts.
If you split the card at the perforation, you were left with an absurd card of minimum proportions. If you got it signed, what could you possibly do with it? There are no card pages or holders with slots that small.
Additionally, the space for the signature was obviously smaller than usual. No player would sign across more than his part of the card. If he signed with a Sharpie, often it was too small to be legible. If he signed with a pen, it was usually too light and would get lost in the colors of the card. It was a 'no-win' situation for autograph collectors.
The only reason this set gets any attention at all is the famous Larry Bird-Magic Johnson rookie card. Topps managed to put Bird and Magic on the same card (with a Julius Erving leaders card occupying the other part of the card). Two of the greatest basketball players of all time have their rookie card in this abysmal set and on the same card.