Set Appreciation Post #2 - 2000 UD Ionix

Do you know how many complete sets I have assembled?  We are going to find out over the next few years.  The answer is in the hundreds.  I liked doing this post last week, and I am always trying to find ways to share out cards that are already in my collection.  Not just the new ones that are incoming.  I am going to make this a regular thing on my blog.  I stuck my hand in the closet, grabbed a box, and here is this week's set.

Play this music as you are reading.

It fits with the post.  

Basic Design 

How many sets did Upper Deck make like this in the late 1990s and early 2000s?  Plenty.  Relatively small checklist with a few short printed rookie cards at the end.  Glossy finish.  Mix in a few inserts, some "game-used" stuff, and a few autographs.  They did the same set over and over.

A few of them have their own flavor, but many feel really cookie cutter in some ways.

The base cards have a picture with the player in a box, their name on the left side of the card, and this 1980s school film strip thing running across the bottom.  Makes me want to search the closets at school and see if I can turn up one of those old projectors.  I will use it all the time.

Ping.  Move the film strip forward.  

The back of the card also has a color photo, which comes into play when we get to the parallel cards here in a second.  Really simple stat line, player name again, team logo, and the card number is printed really small at the top.  Besides being a repetitive set that Upper Deck made over and over again under different brand names, the cards feel really busy to me.  

Here is something I like about this set.  

The cards are shown top to bottom.  The parallel card is red, the blue card is from the base set.  No serial numbers, and there are not fifteen different colored parallels, just two.  The parallels just flip the front picture with the back picture and change the color.  Upper Deck did this in other sets too.  Seems like a simpler approach to a parallel set.  At least, compared to the current insanity of parallel cards.  

These were called "Reciprocals".  Based on my stack of cards, you got a couple from each box.  I think if they are going to use a math term for a parallel, they should have done more to incorporate the concept into the design.  The base card should be numbered 11.  The reciprocal card should be 1/11.  Fraction card numbers.  

Am I right?  Someone who knows something about math back me up in the comments.  

Favorite Former Durham Player

Hopefully you are playing the music from the top of the post.  

Upper Deck made an Austin Powers inspired insert set called "Awesome Powers"  

I have the Chipper Jones version of the insert.  

This feels like a let down.  A standard Upper Deck stat line on the back of an insert card?  They should have come up with some sort of 1960s pop culture reference.  Stop the music.  

Favorite Cardinals Card 

The choices in the base set were really sad.  

The reciprocal card for McGwire is slightly better.  

There is an Adam Kennedy prospects card too, but I did not even feel like is was worth the time to scan.  I am actually going to go with this insert card of Mark McGwire.  I guess if you are going to use math terms for the parallel set, mixing in some science on the insert cards is fair game.  Periodic Chart of Players and McGwire was given the Mc label.  

There is an actual Mc element.  

It's a synthetic metal.  Synthetic things and Mark McGwire.  I think there is a joke there somewhere.  

Favorite Non-Cardinals Card 

MLB had this really bad promotion in 1999 where all of the teams wore "Turn The Clock Ahead" uniforms.  Several of them appeared on baseball cards around this time.  Truly amazing that anyone thought these were a good idea.  Beltran is pictured here wearing a Royals "Turn The Clock Ahead Jersey", but they actually had two different versions.  The other one was far worse, and is shown in the highlight video below. 

You don't even have to watch the video, just look at the picture on the preview.  It's terrible.    

Those Mariners jerseys in the video look similar to the Diamondbacks uniforms from two or three years ago.  Whatever your favorite team, go hunt down pictures of these jerseys if you have not seen them before.  

The "Turn The Clock Ahead" uniforms also gave us a classic Albert Belle moment.  He had three home runs wearing his futuristic duds, but got hit by a pitch at the end of the game with a chance to hit a fourth homer.  Belle stood at home plate and pretended the ball did not hit him.  

Classic.  Albert Belle.  

I imagine at some point future generations of baseball fans will look at cards like this Beltran and wonder what he is wearing.  "Gather around grandkids, let me tell you about baseball uniforms during the 1990s....."  

Probably won't actually happen.  I am glad that Upper Deck captured these uniforms on a baseball card for posterity.  I like to look at it and chuckle.  

Autographs, not inserts.  

I could write about a bunch of the inserts that Upper Deck included in the packs of Ionix, but I won't do that today.  Let's talk about the autographs instead.  These were actually kind of a tough pull at roughly one autograph per case.  

I have a Jeter autograph from this set.  Pulled it out of a pack of cards.  

It's the only one in my collection.  If he were as good as someone, say Alan Trammell, I would probably be willing to own another one of his cards.  

The design is not great, but it could be a whole lot worse too.  I am not sure why there is a gigantic bar going across the card with the player name, position, and team logo written in really tiny font on the inside.  Seems like Upper Deck is filling space for the sake of filling space. 

I also have a Rolen autograph from this set.  

I did not actually pull this out of a pack of cards.  I just bought it.  Love the flip down sunglasses.  

So How Does It Rank?  

Think about all the pros and cons on this set, along with all the other sets I have featured on the Set Appreciation Posts, I can confidently say that this set ranks second.  So far.  

1. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders

2. 2000 UD Ionix 

This list looks lame at the moment, but just wait a year and it will be better.  

Did you collect this set?  Do you have a favorite card?  

The Food Isn't Good, But The Baseball Cards.....

There are several chain restaurants that I will not eat at for various reasons.  Usually there is just something really unappealing about their food.  Places like Jack In The Box, Hardees, and Denny's all make my list of places I will absolutely not touch.  Although my wife likes to point out that I will eat at White Castle.

Point taken.  

There is one thing that distinguishes one of those three restaurants on my list above: baseball cards.  

At Jack In Box there is the possibility of E. Coli, or perhaps getting really mediocre food off of a really overcrowded menu.  They are like the Cheesecake Factory of fast food, not really good at anything, but you can order all kinds of food.  No baseball cards though.  

Hardees.  Gross.  No baseball cards either.  

Which brings me to Denny's.  

I can't tell you the last time I ate at a Denny's.  I am going to say that it is a minimum of 20 years.  There was one where I went to college, but it was rather shady.  One of those places in town that you do not go near.  There were a bunch in St. Louis, I don't even remember a specific location of one though.  I am sure at some point I have been to one.  At least I think have been to one.  What's really important is that they have baseball cards.  

I posted one Denny's card a week ago that came in a random package.  

I was pretty excited to see this Jackie Robinson card.  I did not have it in my collection, but I knew I had a bunch of these Denny's cards from 1997.  Obviously I did not get these by eating at a Denny's, but after going through my collection, it appears that I am missing one card from the set.  Several of the cards are in my collection a few times. 

How did all of these cards end up in my house?  Great question.  A look at one 1997 Denny's card close up.....

There are some other quality Denny's sets out there from the 1990s, but this one is my favorite.  I like to think of it as a combination of two different classic baseball card products.  The fronts of the cards are very similar to the SportsFlix cards.  Right down to the texture.  

The backs of the card.....

have a hologram picture.  While the picture does not take up the whole card, this part of the card reminds me a bit of the mid to late 1990s SPx cards from Upper Deck.

There are a grand total of 29 cards in the set, but I am technically missing one of the cards from the set even though I have all 29 of the cards from the checklist.

A look at the cards in the set.

These are the first two numerical cards in the set that I was able to assemble by digging through my card boxes.  The Tim Salmon card on the right is actually card number 1.  However, Denny's made a Larry Doby card that was also card number 1, but it was only available at restaurants in the Cleveland area.  I will go find one at some point.

More of the set.

Two pretty good first baseman here.  Always forget how good Mo Vaughn was before he left the Red Sox for the Angels.  Never quite the same after that point.  Still good numbers though.  

A small checklist of 30 cards should allow for a really strong checklist of players who were active during the 1996 and 1997 seasons, but for some reason there is a Travis Fryman card in here.  He was on several All-Star teams and was considered the best player on some bad Tigers teams.  Tony Clark was a lot better though.  

Love seeing John Jaha in here.  Not a long career, but he had some great years in the mid 1990s for the Brewers.  Had a nice year or two with the A's too.  Johnny Damon on the Royals too.  Meh.

Shall we pick up the pace?

McGwire with a mullet.  The base runner in the picture is distracting and blurry.  I think it's Rey Sanchez, so Spring Training game?

ARod was in middle school when this picture was taken.  

I am pretty sure that someone at Pinnacle added that baseball to the Roger Clemens card.  

For no reason, here's Jose Hernandez.  It looks like they airbrushed him on the card next to Sammy Sosa.

The Rockies player in the set was not Larry Walker or Andres Galarraga.  I could have also lived with Ellis Burks, maybe Vinny Castilla.  Bichette.  Terrible.  

Always a positive when you can post an Expos card.  

Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame because the numbers on the back of this card are that good.  Plus, he was not on steroids yet.  

Jackie Robinson a second time and Scott Rolen with the Phillies bat boy.

Overall, a great set.  They do not make these sets anymore, which is probably a good thing in terms of the quality of food consumed by baseball card collectors.  However, these were really good card sets.