Cards From The Team Set Completion Maestro (Cards on Cards): Part 1

Sometimes there's a package that comes along that jumps out of the mailbox, laughs maniacally, and starts tap dancing on your wantlist. Its movements are graceful and frenetic at the same time as it uses precision to cull those numbers and images from the desired corner of your mind and yet is a chaotic whirlwind of tumult.

Seriously, though, there are still Phillies cards on my wantlist from the golden overproduction era of my childhood.  I probably had all these cards at these some point, but I think they were lost in an unmarked van that was driving along the PA Turnpike on a late afternoon 10 years ago.....I really dislike stealth vans ever since that day.

The maestro of this wantlist destroyer was Kerry from the estimable Cards on Cards.  We somehow made a trade and so came this dervish of delirious delight to reduce me to my knees pining for Jim Eisenreich to come back to the Phillies, but only the version from 1993.

Oh, to be young and full of soda and T-shirts.....

By my imprecise count, he finished off 17 different team/insert team sets from this package.  Amazing.  Highlights to follow.....

1989 Shining Stars Ricky Jordan: I'm sure I've said this before, but I modeled my baseball stance after Ricky Jordan when I started playing kid pitch Little League.....I was not a good hitter.

1989 Score Darren Daulton:  This was pre-car accident, pre-RBI accumulating Daulton....I always thought Steve Lake was better.  I really knew nothing at this time.  What is Daulton doing now that his prediction didn't come true?

1992 Action Packed Dick Groat:  I will now reference myself....so you can read the previous post.

1986 Fleer Future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton: This may have possibly been the last mainstream issue card I needed from 1986 that I know of.  These may also have doubled as the first insert set.  There were only 6 cards in the checklist.....and one did not make the Hall of Fame: Pete Rose, of course.

1990 Topps Traded Dave Hollins:  This was the first I remember hearing of the Rule 5 draft.  I really liked Hollins because he was so intense; you could hear his bat handle grinding down to nubbins while he was batting.

1990 Donruss Jeff Parrett:  I thought that Parrett was the best pitcher ever because he tied for the team lead in 1989 with 12 wins.....as a reliever!  Well, it definitely wasn't Don Carman.....who remembers these players truly....

Tangent: Speaking of Don Carman, here's another anecdote.  I was obsessed with baseball (some would say I still am).  And so like all good little baseball-obsessed fans I also listened to every spring training game I could on the radio.  Don Carman was pitching on that day (it must have been 1989 or 1990).  The bases were loaded with 2 outs in a 1 run game (this may be exaggerated) and he had the hitter at 3-0, and I was feeling so deflated because he seemed to walk so many people.  He then came back and struck the hitter out, and I was so excited.....for a spring training game.  I thought maybe the Phillies would finish above 6th place.....and in 1990, they finished 4th....hope wins again.

1993 Topps Wes Chamberlain: One thing's for sure; he'll never get confused for Louie Meadows.  What, now?

1993 Upper Deck Tyler Green:  You know those days when you take a tennis ball (or any ball really) and a glove and you simulate pitching an entire game in the street alternating innings?  Once I heard of Tyler Green, I developed my own version of the knuckle curve that was basically called the "squiggly".  I swear to this day that it made an "S" shape curve in the air when it was thrown correctly.  I don't think I can replicate it now though.

This was part 1 of 2 because there are more cards to show than I know to fit on a scanner bed.....