2001 Donruss Studio Warning Track Mike Piazza Stadium Wall Card

The relic card phenomena probably went a little bit too far at some point during the late 90s and early 2000s.  I am aware that the small pieces of jersey and bat that once excited collectors have become stale and boring, but some card companies tried to get ahead of the curb by offering some rather creative relics.  In fact, I ran into a fellow collector with an interesting assortment of oddball relic cards.  Sounds a little bit strange, but most of the cards focus on relics that would be considered community property.  The most common of these cards are base and ball cards, but there are a few more creative ideas that card companies came up with a few years back.  This week I will take a little bit of time to share two of these cards.

2001 Donruss Studio Warning Track Mike Piazza

First up for my oddball relic cards is this awesome 2001 Donruss Studio Warning Track Mike Piazza Stadium Wall card.  Sounds pretty cool and unique, but these cards are pretty easy to find and there is a slight flaw with these cards.  Reading the small print on the left-hand side of the wall relic and you will see the words Three Rivers Stadium.  (Sigh).  Pretty lame giving out a communal piece of baseball property, but worse that it is not even from a stadium that Piazza played in as a home player.  If the wall piece came from Shea Stadium or Dodger Stadium it would be a little bit cooler.  Digging a little bit deeper into the Donruss catalogue for the 2001 calendar year you can find sets with bench cards and all sorts of other fixtures from Three Rivers Stadium.

On a positive note, while Piazza was never a Pirate, he did have an incredible career playing at Three Rivers Stadium.  In 42 games played in the Stadium Piazza put up 15 home runs, 45 RBIs, a .380 batting average, and an OPS of 1.131.  Not too shabby.  I am going to be on the look out for a McGwire bench card from Three Rivers, but in the meantime I guess I have finally added a wall relic card to my collection.