Do you know how many late 1990s and early 2000s Topps products have the same photo of Ray Lankford? Several others are similar enough that you have to wonder if they came from the same game, maybe even the same at-bat.
It's worthy of its own Random Ray post one of these days.
This is the picture, which is on a Topps Finest Refractor for today's post.
Did Topps only have one or two photos of Ray Lankford available for their 1999 baseball cards?
The answer appears to be yes.
Give me a photo of Ray Lankford wearing a gray Cardinals road uniform in the follow-through of his swing and I will guess 1999 or 2000 Topps (insert the name of product). Given where his head and eyes are looking, I am guessing he hit the ball somewhere. The astroturf around the home plate area leads me to believe this photo was likely taken in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, or Cincinnati. The number of stadiums with artificial turf in 1998 was limited to a few remaining cookie-cutter parks.
The design is fine. I am happy it is minimal and the main focus of the card is the photograph of the player. We have got the protective coating thing on this card. I left this one on the card.
Back of the card.
I like the small photograph of Ray clapping in the top corner. It's something different from the front of the card, always a positive.
The Finest Moment and Finest Career Achievement both have nice write-ups. As a person who saw Ray Lankford hit for the cycle in-person, I love all the baseball cards that mention that game. As a person who enjoyed watching Ray Lankford as a player, I am going to have to disagree for the Finest Moment from 1998.
I would have actually picked out Lankford's eighth inning home run against the Cubs on the night of Mark McGwire's 62nd home run. Lankford was the lone left-handed batter stuck in the middle of McGwire, Ron Gant, and Brian Jordan. McGwire walked frequently, Lankford did a great job of making teams pay for putting Big Mac on base.
The night of McGwire's 62nd home run, the Cubs walked McGwire to pitch to Ray Lankford with the score tied at 2 in the 8th inning. The result.....
The McGwire years were also Lankford's best years. He set career highs in a lot of offensive categories outside of stolen bases. Ray stopped running after the Cardinals dropped him into the middle of the lineup. This moment felt a lot more emblematic of Ray Lankford's 1998 season than some random game against the Expos where he went 4-4.
The home run was even on a low fastball over the middle of the plate. Ray Lankford did not miss low fastballs.
Overall, a solid effort here by Topps. I just wish we could have more than one photo of Ray Lankford on their 1999 baseball cards.
If they're going to use the same photo... it's a good thing it's a great looking photo. That refractor is sweet!
ReplyDeleteI agree, it is a good looking photo. The situation could be much worse.
DeleteI could see how that would be annoying to someone who collects him. On the flip side though, as someone who doesn't collect him, and hasn't seen very many of his card from that year; it's a pretty cool photo!
ReplyDeleteYes, it is at least a nice action photo. This could have been much worse .
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