Where Art Thou John Olerud?

Earlier this week I made a post about a cool Moises Alou autograph that I had landed during the weekend and how much I loved the Flashbacks set in this year's Bowman product.  I was contemplating completing the set when I hit the publish button on Tuesday, but was not totally sold on the idea.  While the Flashbacks set is a small collection of autographs, there are two difficult autographs and an autograph of a player I immensely dislike.

By the time Wednesday afternoon rolled around I had sealed the deal on both of the tough autographs.  Another one of the autographs had been picked up last Monday.  All three autographs were scheduled to arrive on Friday, so I was eager to get home from work, break open the mail, and make a cool post about my three latest autographs......

Did I mention I went on a field trip Friday?  I love field trips, but they are energy zappers if you are a teacher on a field trip and not a student.  My class went to the Moravian town of Old Salem located in Winston-Salem.  It's a fun trip if you live in North Carolina, or perhaps parts of Virginia.  Anyway, long field trips usually result in a lazy follow up day that involve a lot of sitting on the sofa.  Today I have watched parts of three ACC Baseball Tournament games along with a part of the Brewers/Braves game, and a few partial movies......

Now that it is 10:30 I am wide awake and ready to talk about baseball cards.  Perfect.

This was my card from last Monday.  When I first started looking into the Flashback Autographs this was the card that originally caught my attention.  Topps has plenty of products that offer autographs of retired players, but they can repeat the same players over and over.  I like to look for some fresh faces.  Particularly if they are a player from the 1990s.  I liked watching Marquis play for Expos, and several other teams along the way, and with no certified autographs prior to this set, his autograph seemed like it would be a fun get.  Moises Alou, check.  Marquis Grissom, check.  

On to the tough ones.....

I honestly was not expecting to land this autograph.  This card was not something that I was willing to spend money on, and Yankees fans have always been pretty generous with trades on Bernie Williams cards from my experiences, so I thought I would have been outbid on a trade too.  Well, sometimes you just have the right combination of cards to win over a trade partner.  A few high end minor league autographs, a few Dodgers relics, and this autograph (including those awesome glasses) was all mine.  The actual tough autograph I really wanted was.......

In my opinion this is easily the best card in set.  So many cool things are going on in this card.  I love the old White Sox uniforms along with Old Comiskey.  I love looking at the signature of Frank Thomas.  Definitely one of the more recognizable John Hancock's in the hobby.  This card was actually a purchase for me.  This is a really nice autograph and probably better than the other Thomas autographs that I currently have in my collection.   

Both the Thomas and the Williams cards are numbered out of 99.  Their addition, along with the Alou, leaves me three cards away from finishing this set.  I need a John Olerud, Juan Gonzalez, and Carlos Baerga.  I have a trade in the works for the Gonzalez and have my eye on buying a copy of the Baerga.  Looks like I might be down to John Olerud by the end of the weekend, these cards would all look nice in a side by side photo of some sort.....