Random Ray - 1992 Topps

This is one of my favorite early cards of Ray Lankford.  

The 1992 Topps set was completely different.  No gum and no wax wrappers. White card stock rather than colored card stock. There were also parallel cards in every pack.  It was bizarre, but I really l like this set as a whole, especially the white card stock.  It gave the Topps cards a much needed lighter look.  

Here is the front of the card.  

Lankford earned a spot on the Topps All-Star Rookie team, so his card got the cool little cup logo in the corner.  There were some good names on the list of All-Star Rookie teams in the 1992 set with Hall of Famers Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez as the headliners.  Luis Gonzalez and Chuck Knoblauch are also in the subset.  

I also like the picture of Lankford.  This feels like it's some combination of an action shot and portrait style picture.  It's definitely not staged like a portrait, Lankford is clearly sitting in the middle of the dugout talking to people, but the card still has many of the attributes of a portrait photo.  

Back of the card.  

If you have been a regular reader for a while, you probably know my interest in Ray Lankford started after I went to a game his rookie year where he hit for the cycle.  I am a big fan of any card that mentions the cycle.  

MLB consolidated the cycle down to a 55 second video clip on YouTube.  

The 1992 Topps set was also the first time the card company used color on the back of the cards.  

All of the 1992 Topps card backs have panoramic photographs of the stadiums.  The Busch Stadium picture looks out of proportion.  The arches look really flat and wide here with little height.  I am sure that the editor of the card stretched the photo to fit the space, which is what caused the loss in proportion.  

Here is a photo looking from the inside of the stadium out, but you can see the actual shape of the arches here.  Much different from the Topps photo.