Matsui-Mania was a thing for a few weeks in Durham back in 2012. I am not quite sure how I have never sat down and typed a few words about the long-time Yomiuri Giants and New York Yankees star. He was far from his prime and clinging to his professional career, but it was still fun to see him a few times in-person. One of those games was against Daisuke Matsuzaka (Dice K) who was on an injury rehab assignment for the Red Sox.
Here is a grainy video of him launching a ball out to centerfield at the DBAP, only to get robbed of a home run. It's a tough park to hit a home run.
Hideki Matsui only played stateside for a few years, but I think one of the biggest reasons I have never written about him is the fact that his cards were always seemingly out of my price range. It's hard to justify a three digit number for an autograph of a player who was only on the Bulls for a month at the end of his career.
I was surprised recently in an uptick in Matsui cards on social media, blogger, etc. Matsui has signed a lot of cards for Topps in 2023 and they are a fraction of the price they used to be. When you factor in his profile as a Japanese player and the fact that he was a World Series MVP for the Yankees, it's a pretty reasonable number.
First Matsui post, first Matsui autograph.
Hideki Matsui was easily the biggest name missing from my collection of Durham Bulls autographs. This card feels really satisfying.
I crossed the half-way point with the 1964 Topps Giants during my last update post back in January. I have been working on this set for awhile, but I have crossed off a lot of the short-prints and big names on the checklist. Over the past month, I have added another 4 cards from the set to my collection. All four of the new Topps Giants are Hall of Fame players, including the last pricy card I needed to find.
I am going to start off with Whitey Ford.
Not a huge Whitey Ford fan. He looks a little grizzled here. Wonder what Whitey and Mickey were up to the night before this photo was taken. Probably the morning this photo was taken too. In keeping with the other Topps Giants posts, here is the back of the card.
You ever look at the Hall of Fame stats at the bottom of player's Baseball Reference page? You know what left-handed pitcher had a better top 7 years of their career than Whitey Ford?
Mark Langston.
I am going to make a Mark Langston post one of these days.
On to the next one.
Yes, there are Cubs cards on the checklist. I actually waited to buy this Billy Williams card. When I first saw it, I was convinced that the copies were flawed due to the fuzzy quality of the picture. Nope, that's just the way this card was made. Disappointing given that Topps managed to put together 59 other decent pictures of the players in this set.
The back of the card has a nice write-up on Billy Williams. He was a younger player here. As mentioned in previous posts, Topps spent a lot of time talking about Minor League careers on the backs of the Giants cards. This Billy Williams card is particularly odd. The left-side of the card focuses on his first few seasons, there are two or three sentences about his time in the Texas League, and then it goes back to his career as a Major Leaguer.
Just give me a whole paragraph about the home run in the All-Star Game.
Another Cub.
Much better photograph on the Santo card. He looks really young here, although this photograph would likely have been taken in his third or fourth season. I really like the cream colored Cubs jersey here. They should wear these as throwbacks.
Back of the card.
The Texas League.
American Association.
The National League is not mentioned.
The last card is the best card.
There is a little surface discoloration going horizontally across the card from the W on the Willie to the left border. The centering is not terrible, but I am happy to cross off the last really tough card left on the checklist. I am still missing the Roberto Clemente and Frank Robinson cards, but those are fairly reasonable compared to the Mantle, Koufax, and Mays.
A card back without any mention of the Minors.
Amazing.
I am now at 37 cards out of 60, closing in on the two-thirds mark. I am mainly down the common cards, but I am going to keep working on the bigger names on the checklist. Overall, I have four Hall of Famers left. I am going to try to knock those four players out next.
1 Gary Peters 2 Ken Johnson 3 Sandy Koufax SP 4 Bob Bailey 5 Milt Pappas 6 Ron Hunt 7 Whitey Ford 8 Roy McMillan 9 Rocky Colavito 10 Jim Bunning 11 Roberto Clemente 12 Al Kaline 13 Nellie Fox 14 Tony Gonzalez 15 Jim Gentile 16 Dean Chance 17 Dick Ellsworth 18 Jim Fregosi 19 Dick Groat 20 Chuck Hinton 21 Elston Howard 22 Dick Farrell 23 Albie Pearson 24 Frank Howard 25 Mickey Mantle 26 Joe Torre 27 Ed Brinkman 28 Bob Friend SP 29 Frank Robinson 30 Bill Freehan 31 Warren Spahn 32 Camilo Pascual 33 Pete Ward 34 Jim Maloney 35 Dave Wickersham 36 Johnny Callison 37 Juan Marichal 38 Harmon Killebrew 39 Luis Aparicio 40 Dick Radatz 41 Bob Gibson 42 Dick Stuart SP 43 Tommy Davis 44 Tony Oliva 45 Wayne Causey SP 46 Max Alvis 47 Galen Cisco SP 48 Carl Yastrzemski 49 Hank Aaron 50 Brooks Robinson 51 Willie Mays SP 52 Billy Williams 53 Juan Pizarro 54 Leon Wagner 55 Orlando Cepeda 56 Vada Pinson 57 Ken Boyer 58 Ron Santo 59 Johnny Romano 60 Bill Skowron SP
I made the 15 hour-plus drive to northern Michigan last week with my wife and kids to visit the in-laws. Not the upper peninsula, but rather the top of the lower peninsula. It's a really quiet place in the winter as you can imagine. The peace and quiet was great with the way this school year has gone. There was nothing I had to do, and no place I had to go.
My kids got outside to enjoy the snow....
There was really good food as always. My in-laws are some combination of French-Canadian and Polish decent. The traditional holiday food at their house is usually some combination of the two, so there are meat pies and pastries (French Canadian) and pirogies (Polish).
Homemade, created with love, not out of a freezer box.
Onto the cards.
The town has two big box retail stores. There is a Meijer and a Wal-Mart. Both stores somehow have an abundant selection of retail baseball cards. Living outside of Raleigh, I can count the number of times I have seen packs or boxes of baseball cards at a retail store during the past year and a half. It is a rarity.
Meijer and Wal-Mart four hours north of Detroit?
Some of the Meijer baseball card display is cut-off on the left-side, but you get the idea. The place is completely full on retail cards. Some of the displays within the section have not been touched. I asked about the cards that were being sold at Service Desk on Saturdays. The answer was a generic, "hockey cards". I could see that.
Wally World.
Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the snow, good food, but also these two fine retail baseball card aisles in northern Michigan. I made several visits to these two places during my week and a half in Michigan, so I am splitting the post into two halves with a breakdown of the different card products.
First up, is some Topps Holiday, which I bought at Meijer. It's on the second shelf from the top in the right side. They were completely untouched. If I did not buy them, they would still be there right now. My wife was mildly amused with the purchase holiday themed baseball cards.
I was trying to put the set together, which I am close to doing. Here are some of my highlights from my three boxes.....
We have got some ornament box toppers. These feel like they are a rip-off from old Pacific cards. Pacific used to release their base set around Christmas. I believe their final year or two there were Christmas ornaments in the packs. The Pacific ones had cooler shapes and they did not airbrush cheesy Santa hats on the players.
Snowmen relics.
Love the Aaron Judge with the pinstripe running through the middle of the jersey swatch.
I also got a few Santa hat and scarf variations.
Obviously the Dylan Carlson card is a favorite here. Although, after pulling these cards I tried to pay attention to whether or not people still wear scarves. It snowed a few times while we were in Michigan and it was really cold. No, people no longer wear scarves.
Favorite Cardinals cards.
Tio Albert of the Dodgers has a different vibe than Anaheim Albert. Nice that Topps has made a few cards of him with the Dodgers. Hopefully this ages better than the Ken Griffey Jr. cards with the White Sox. The Arenado card just seems to fit him a player. He makes a face like this seemingly once a week. Who knows when this picture was taken.
Not a favorite Cardinals card, but it was weird to see Jon Lester with the birds on the bat.
The Cardinals scotch taped together a rotation for the last two months of the season, which included Lester. He pitched well for them, but as a long-time Cub and member of a Red Sox team that beat the Cardinals in the World Series, it was weird to see this card.
My favorite Durham Bulls player in the set is Jake Cronenworth.
There is no card of Blake Snell wearing a Santa hat this year. I feel a little sad about that.
That brings me to the second part of my post, which features cards from a few packs of Panini Chronicles. I picked these up at Wally World. I was sent there to buy a star tip for a frosting bag. These cards are better than fancy shaped frosting. Not a huge Panini cards fan, more a curiosity with this purchase. I had actually opened a pack of these a few weeks back. Some of the cards were interesting. Why not?
There are 15 cards in a pack with a variety of different designs. I have no idea if these cards are all a single set or different sets packaged together.
These are really thick cards with heavy card stock. Nice glossy finish too. I pulled two relics out of my three packs. Love the AJ Puk card. I saw him pitch with the College National Team at USA Baseball a few years back. Good college pitcher, hoping he can pull it together in the Majors.
"OverDrive" sounds kind of dumb, but I like the overall design. Yes, I am ignoring the airbrushed logos. Both cards would be in the "shiny" category in terms of finish. I like the pink hues on the cards. The Dalbec is some sort of parallel, but it's not serial numbered or anything.
Next group of cards are all acetate.
The white background is from the scanner. Are these from the same set or subset? Why is Aaron Judge standing on some sort of island? I like acetate cards, but I am not sure about these.
Last cards for this post.
These two cards have a similar finish as the Juan Soto and Bobby Dalbec, but without the stupid "OverDrive" wording over the card. I like the diamond design in the background. The Ke'Bryan Hayes is a parallel with more sparkle than the Acuna, but not serial numbered.
Tomorrow, I will share out a few more cards that I picked up while visiting the retail card aisles of north Michigan.
It's been awhile since I have made a post about a set.
I am kind of a softie for some of these products that came out around the time I started blogging. Bowman Platinum has now been out for 10 years and has gone stale in recent editions. I think the same can be said for other Bowman spin-off products that Topps created in the early 2010s. Inception would be in that same boat. Started off great, but its fizzled in recent years.
Let's go.
Base Set
The design on this set is decent. I always worried that Topps would start blending the different Bowman product designs together and make them indistinguishable. This design has some similarities to the first two Bowman Platinum sets, but I think it has a unique look compared to other Bowman products from 2012. I like the frames around the picture and the player names. The Bowman Platinum logo in the middle is not my favorite, but I guess it does make the set more identifiable.
The majority of cards in this set have more of a blurred out background than the Pineda card. Not sure why Topps left more of the picture visible on this card.
The back of the card.
There is a lot of other "stuff" on the back, which makes the area for stats and the write-up fairly small. Topps still did a decent job here, especially with the write-up. It's small, but I like the information that is provided on the cards. I never love "busy" card backs that are cluttered with junk, but I do appreciate the large card number and player name at the top.
Maybe I am just saying that because I was sorting out some 2021 Topps cards yesterday.
Michael Pineda was a really big prospect in 2012. He's had some decent seasons when he has stayed healthy, but his career highlight has to be the time he was using pine tar during a game and just slathered a bunch of it on this neck.
This was a few years ago before the crack down on "sticky stuff"
Pineda was ejected from the game.
I'm Really Here For The Autographs
The set design for the 2012 Bowman Platinum is decent, but I didn't buy these cards so I could get a Michael Pineda base card. I bought these cards for the autographs. Do people buy Bowman Platinum cards for another reason?
Yes, the majority of autographs are on stickers, which kind of stinks for this product, but at least they are well blended in most cases. There were plenty of former Durham Bulls players, some current at the time, who appeared on the autograph checklist. That made me pretty excited to buy some of Bowman Platinum cards back in the day.
I parsed it down to two favorite Durham Bulls autographs. There are more.
First up is outfielder Mikie Mahtook. He is still in Triple-A with Charlotte at the moment, which is the White Sox affiliate. While he has had some good years in the Minors, Mahtook has never been able to do much in the Majors. Hence, a decade in Triple A. He had a decent year with the Tigers in 2017, but nothing beyond that. I think he is best known for losing a home run to a spectacular Alex Gordon catch, but not before high-fiving the first base coach.
That Royals player in the background is awesome.
Matt Moore was a great prospect coming up for the Rays and pitched really well in Durham. In 2013, he won 17 games and finished in the Top 10 in Cy Young voting. Two Tommy John surgeries later, Matt Moore is 2-4 this season with an ERA over 6 for the Phillies. Still love his baseball cards. One of those "what could have been" players.
One last autograph that I picked up back in the day was a young Rockies third base prospect.
This has always been a nice card, but I was really happy to have it during the past year. Saved me a little time, probably a little money too.
Best Non-Cardinal/Non-Durham Bulls Card
During the pandemic, I learned that people are also crazy for second year Mike Trout cards. They are actually expensive in some cases. Pretty wild. When did this happen? I feel like I need to put all of my early Mike Trout cards into sleeves and top loaders. I don't really collect Mike Trout cards, but I have a ton of them from 2011 and 2012. I could probably sell them all and pay off my car loan.
This is a nice card, but it's my second best Bowman Platinum card of Mike Trout.
This one is nice too.
Best Durham Bulls Card
This was a really hard decision. If I had to rank sets based on Durham Bulls content, this set would likely be a strong contender for the Top 10. It's not just the cards, but also the names. I loved the Bulls teams between the 2009 Triple A National Championship team and the 2013 International League Championship team. Some of my favorite players.
It's really hard to decide, so I am going to choose two cards.
Hellickson is one of the most decorated Minor League pitchers in recent history. He won the USA Today Minor League Player of the Year Award in 2010, International League Pitcher of the Year in 2010, Triple-A National Championship Game MVP in 2009, and was the starting pitcher in the 2010 Futures All-Star Game.
In 2011, he pitched for the Rays. Hellickson had a sub-3 ERA and won the American League Rookie of the Year. Similar to Moore, Hellickson had a lot of arm problems and ended up being an end of rotation pitcher for a bunch of different teams.
Next.
Archer was on the Durham Bulls in 2012. He's also from Raleigh, which makes him pretty popular in these parts. This is actually from the short-printed prospects section of the set and would have been a favorite card of mine back in 2012. Archer is still playing, but his career has really been set back by arm injuries. Seems to be a theme here.
In recent years, Archer has given the baseball world the fight between the Pirates and Reds where Yasiel Puig tried to fight the entire Pirates team. Archer actually threw a pitch at Derek Dietrich, but somehow Puig was the angriest guy on the field. I love Tucker Barnhardt holding on to Puig's shoe while he is trying to punch five different Pirates players at the same time.
There are a bunch of people on the internet who love this picture and have turned it into art work.
Wil Myers could have been a possible third, but he is on the Royals in this set. Meh.
Best Cardinals Card
The Cardinals had a heavy presence in this set. They were coming off a World Series win and had a lot of name prospects at this point. Oscar Taveras, Carlos Martinez, and Matt Adams all had autographs in the set. There were also cards of Matt Holliday, Lance Berkman, Allen Craig, and David Freese.
I am going to choose none of those players and go with a role player from the 2011 World Series team instead. Bench player the first half of the year, starter after the Cardinals ditched Colby Rasmus in the middle of the season.
Underrated Cardinal, Jon Jay.
Topps always made really good cards of Jon Jay early in his career. The balanced it out by ignoring him the second half of his career.
How Does It Compare?
At the beginning of the post when I said, "I am kind of a softie for some of these products that came out when I first started blogging", what I meant to say is that I am a softie for the autographed cards. I have done 14 of these posts over the last year, there is no way that a generic-looking Bowman spin off can be in the top half of the sets.
Right?
What's it better than? It's clearly not the worst set I have reviewed. It's more exciting than the 2000 Topps set, but those cards are only interesting when compared to watching an episode of the Pat Boone show. The 2000 UD Ionix set seems like a good neighborhood.
The Ionix set had better inserts. While the quantity of autographs offered by Upper Deck was smaller, the players were actual Major Leaguers. I love Jon Jay and all the other Cardinals players mentioned as signers in the 2012 Bowman Platinum set, but was an autograph of Scott Rolen in Ionix. There were also no sticker autographs.
I am going to place this set 12 after Ionix, but before the boring 2000 Topps set.
I am still working on my 1964 Topps Giant set project, even if I am posting here less often. The last card I added to the set was Mickey Mantle, so I have had a limited a budget the last few weeks. The Mantle card is not one of the short-printed cards in the set, but it's still way up there in price.
In case you missed it, here is the Mantle.
Last week, I was able to add another pair of cards from the set. No Hall of Famers this time around, but two players I would classify as being in the Hall of Very Good Players if you followed baseball in the 1950s and 1960s.
The first card is a short-print and cost a little more. Not Mantle expensive, but more than the normal card for this player.
I was a little thrown off seeing Bill "Moose" Skowron on the Senators. Happens every time I see one of his mid to late 1960s cards at a show. The 1950s and 1960s Yankees teams had plenty of Hall of Famers, which Skowron is not, but he was a very good supporting cast member on many of those teams. Skowron was good for 20 home runs and 70 to 80 RBIs a year hitting 5th or 6th behind players like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. In all, Skowron played in 8 All-Star Games and won 5 World Series with the Yankees.
His play in the 1963 World Series is actually the subject of the "news story" on the back of his card, only he was playing against the Yankees as a member of the Dodgers. This was Skowron's 5th and final World Series ring.
Skowron was a really good Postseason player which is summarized on the back of this card. The numbers speak for themselves. Skowron never won any Postseason Awards, but had some really good performances in years where the Yankees lost. In the 1960 World Series against the Pirates, he had 12 hits in the 7 games for a .375 average with 2 home runs, 2 doubles, and 6 RBIs. Not bad for a guy hitting 6th in the lineup. Skowron jumped around at the end of his career. He spent time with the Dodgers, Senators, White Sox, and Angels. Again, I am always a little weirded out to see him in a uniform outside of the Yankees.
Speaking of the 1960 Pirates, my second card is an important member of that team.
Bob Friend was on the Pirates forever. He played 16 years in the Majors, 15 of them were with the Pirates. In 1955, he led the National League in ERA. In 1958, he led the National League in wins. In an average season, Friend won a bunch of games and pitched a ton of innings. Friend had some shaky years mixed in too, but ended his career with almost 200 wins and 2,000 strikeouts and a ton of innings pitched. I looked up his comparable players on Baseball Reference, some of his similar players were Curt Simmons, Claude Osteen, Rick Reuschel, and Jerry Reuss. Wins and innings.
Here is the back of the Bob Friend card.
All-Star Game stats are fine, but Bob Friend had a great year in 1960 until the World Series. He was in the top 5 in the National League in wins, ERA, and strikeouts that season. Nothing about that?
When you think of Bowman sets from the early 2000s, what comes to mind? Black borders were a must. Tons of hype for a bunch of prospects that may or may not (ding, ding, ding) have made a significant impact in the Major Leagues. This post is about the 2002 Bowman set, but it could really be about all the Bowman sets between 2002 and 2006.
There is a theme for this post. Let's try this meme.
Base Set
The set has a black border because it is a Bowman set from the early 2000s. You were expecting something different. Tisk, tisk. I usually use the first card in the set, but it appears that I am missing my Adam Dunn card. I have this set marked complete, so I did a little investigating to see where the card went.
The story of where the card was is more interesting than the second card in the set. I scanned this one when I started writing the post, just in case Adam Dunn was gone.
The veteran cards in the set all have a red border to distinguish them from the prospect cards which have a blue border. The pictures on the card are mundane. The Roger Clemens card has him batting, otherwise, they are not interesting.
The backs of the Bowman cards have changed little over the years. These write-ups aren't exactly 1988 Score and the descriptions of the players are generous. I threw up in my mouth a little bit when I read that "fluid shortstop" part.
Remember that time Jeter dove into the stands at Yankee Stadium and smashed some old women and his face into one of the seats?
There is nothing fluid about this catch.
Derek Jeter getting an overly generous biography from a baseball card writer.
A Lengthy Side Story About The Adam Dunn Card
Over the pandemic, my 10-year-old spent a lot of time reading about baseball. As a two-teacher household, it was hard to work with him while we were teaching our classes online. My wife and I frequently told him to find a book to read for a short time when he got stuck. He also dabbled in baseball videos on YouTube.
He is one of those people who can read a book and can recite every fact back to you that he read. While he generally sticks to topics like stadiums, Hall of Famers, Cardinals, and Durham Bulls players, we went through a phase last summer when he got really into reading and watching videos about players with odd careers.
If you have never read anything about Adam Dunn, he's a weird player. There is a Dorktown video about the weirdness of his career. This is the preview screen for the video on YouTube.
I could see where the video has appeal to the average 10-year-old.
Anyway, he also killed time during the pandemic by looking through my old scorecards, ticket stubs, and baseball cards. He'd ask me frequently about taking cards from my collection, most of which I was indifferent about.
Apparently, the 2002 Bowman Adam Dunn card was one of them.
"You can scan my card" is the line I got when I asked him about the card. I tried trading back for the card, but he is currently demanding a Ji-Man Choi autograph. That's a little steep for an Adam Dunn base card.
Luckily, I am on vacation, so writing an extra side story in this post doesn't really matter.
The World's Most Smudged Autographs
In the early days of this blog, I actually worked on finishing off a set of 2002 Bowman autographs. I had pulled several out of packs back in the day, decided it would be an easy project. There are very few cards on the checklist, no real big names.
It would have been really easy, but 90% of the 2002 Bowman autographed cards are smudged.
One-time Durham Bull and drug test failer, Wilson Betemit with smudges.
Art Howe's favorite first baseman who would not take a walk, Carlos Pena.
My favorite card in the set belongs to former Cardinal outfielder Ryan Ludick.
I spent some time, that I am never getting back, trying to find these autographs in good condition. There are several of these cards that I have multiple copies of due to trying to upgrade. No matter how hard you look, they are all smudged.
Big mistake.
Topps having quality control issues......
Best Non-Cardinal/Non-Durham Bull Card
I like looking through old Bowman sets to see the prospects that did not make it almost as much as those who became something in the Majors. This Ronald Acuna card makes me feel old. He was a career Minor Leaguer with the Mets who got a baseball card in the 2002 Bowman set. Little bit different player than his son, Ronald Acuna Jr.
Ronald Sr. had a career-high of 8 home runs playing for the Mets two A-Ball teams in the Florida State League and South Atlantic League. While he lacked power, Ronald stole 20 bases almost every season he played in the Minors and had several years where he crossed 30. Ronald Sr. also has a card in the 2002 Bowman's Best set.
I cannot find anything about what happened to Ronald Sr. after he stopped playing baseball outside of a ton of photos of him at Braves games (New Balance sweatshirt).
Best Cardinal Card
This was such an easy pick for me. The second I picked out this box from the stack, I knew the Cardinals card that I was going to pick for this post.
So Taguchi was the first Japanese player signed by the Cardinals. He was initially somewhat of a disappointment and ended up spending parts of his first seasons in the U.S. playing with the Cardinals Triple-A team. In the end, he was a fourth outfielder for the Cardinals, but he was one of those lovable bench players.
The back of his card was actually fairly accurate. He was a spray hitter and superb defensive player. The Cardinals ended up pairing him up with outfielders like Chris Duncan and Reggie Sanders, who could hit but had limitations on defense. Frequently Duncan or Sanders would start the game, Taguchi would come in late as a defensive sub.
While he was really known for his defense, I think his best moment in the Majors was his go-ahead home run off of Billy Wagner in Game 2 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. The Cardinals lost the first game of the NLCS and were tied with the Mets late in Game 2. I am sure that if the Mets win the game, go up 2-0, the series turns out differently.
This is the home run.
Taguchi ended up on the Phillies after his contract ran out with the Cardinals and he managed to pick up a second World Series ring with the team in 2008.
Best Durham Bulls Card
I chose a former Durham Bulls player pictured as a Blue Jays prospect. Rich Thompson was a decade away from playing with the Bulls when this card was produced. However, if you followed Triple-A baseball a while back, it was pretty hard not to know the name Rich Thompson. He was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2000 out of James Madison University and was in Triple-A by the next season. Such a quick riser would surely make it to the Majors, right?
Here is his well-earned 2002 Bowman card that was likely made due to his rapid climb through the Minors. Topps also put him in their base set as a prospect and in T-206.
He disappeared from major baseball card products after 2002, but he continued to play in Triple-A.
Right up on the back of the card seems fair.
So, here is what happened to Rich Thompson:
+He played a total of 13 years in the Minors, he appeared for a Triple-A team in 12 of those seasons.
+He played for the Triple-A teams of the Blue Jays, Pirates, Diamondbacks, Phillies, and Rays.
+He twice made the Majors. Once in 2004 with the Royals where he played in 6 games, but only got 1 at-bat. He did not have a hit. The Rays called him up in 2012 where he had 2 hits in 22 at-bats. His career batting average is under .100 and he has more stolen bases (7) than hits (2). Rich Thompson still made it, that counts for something.
+His final two seasons in professional baseball were spent with the Durham Bulls. He was excellent on the 2012 team, hence the call-up to the Rays. Thompson had a rough year in 2013 and retired after breaking his foot while fielding a ball.
Some years Rich Thompson was on your team, some years Rich Thompson was not on your team. He was a scrappy player who was easy to support. Further, while the Minor League records can be a little sketchy at times, I would have to think that his 300 career steals at the Triple-A level would have to be pretty far up the list. Overall, he has almost 500 steals in the Minors. Again, that has to be far up the all-time leader's list.
Thompson is still loved around the Minors almost a decade after he retired. The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, Phillies Triple-A team, has given away multiple bobbleheads of Thompson and I have also heard there are pictures of him hanging in the front office of the team.
How Does It Compare?
This set is not really all that interesting, so it has to rank in the bottom half of the list. This is post #14, so I will start at 2017 Topps Minor League Heritage and work down the list.
-Both 2017 Topps Heritage Minors and 2002 Bowman are prospect-driven sets. While I am not a huge fan of the 1968 Topps design, a boring border with interesting cards is better than a boring border and uninteresting cards.
-1995 Emotion XL is at least interesting and has good photography, even if some of the labels slapped on the players are really stupid. Better than over glossed Derek Jeter bios.
-1988 Donruss, while I don't love the borders, it's still more interesting than the 2002 Bowman set. Plus, that set has a Tom Glavine rookie, which is better than any prospect card in the 2002 Bowman set. Let's go down another spot.
-2000 UD Ionix. Now, we are talking about the right neighborhood. Predictable short checklist with the same 2 or 3 players on each team getting cards. Ionix has better autographs and some nicer high-end touches, but there is something nice about having the larger checklist of 2002 Bowman where you get cards of the players I put into this post.
