2003 Upper Deck First Pitch

There are 270 cards in the base set of 2003 Upper Deck First Pitch plus cards #271 - #300 are short prints.
There are 5 autographs to collect are 6 'stars', Ichiro, Gambi, Garciaparra, Sosa, Griffey Jnr and Griffey Snr.
Obviously Upper Deck were trying to boost this, almost pointless product, with the inclusion of auto's. There is no evidence to suggest it was successful. First Pitch always lagged behind Topps Opening Day, who were always one step ahead.

The Red Sox available are:
#89 Pedro Martinez
#90 Shea Hillenbrand
#91 Derek Lowe
#92 Jason Varitek
#93 Tony Clark
#94 John Burkett
#95 Frank Castillo
#96 Nomar Garciaparra
#97 Rickey Henderson
#262 Derek Lowe
#288 Jeremy Giambi

I have 4 packs and there are 5 cards per pack.

Pack 1:

#15 Shawn Sedlacek Royals

#79 Geronimo Gill Orioles

#84 Mike Young Rangers

#122 Jose Valentin White Sox

#136 Morgan Ensberg Astros

 

Pack 2:

#28 Mike Crudale Cardinals

#32 Troy Glaus Angels

#193 Vladimir Guerrero Expos

#203 Benito Santiago Giants

#290 Tom Glavine Mets SP

 

Pack 3:

#27 Eric Cyr Padres

#113 Doug Mientkiewicz Twins

#133 Mike Mussina Yankees

#192 Adrian Beltre Dodgers

#205 Jason Schmidt Giants

 

Pack 4:

#127 Derek Jeter Yankees

#167 Sammy Sosa Cubs

#198 Brad Wilkerson Expos

#267 Jason Giambi Yankees

#281 Delvis Lantigua Yankees

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Oh dear...



2002 Donruss

The 2002 Donruss Baseball set consists of 220 cards. Cards 151-200 are Rated Rookies and cards 201-220 are Fan Club.
There were a number of parallels, of which many were of a short print run (but not all) They were: Career Stat Line and Season Stat Line
There were inserts called: Diamond Kings, All-time Diamond Kings, Elite Series, Longball Leaders and Production Line. The Production Line inserts had a limited print run based on the 2001 stats of the player. It was divided into three sections On-base percentage, Slugging percentage and OPS (on-base plus slugging). To make this a little less confusing, the first 100 of limited Production Line cards were die cut.

The Red Sox available are in the base set:
#9 Manny Ramirez
#12 Nomar Garciaparra
#13 Pedro Martinez
#34 Hideo Nomo
#88 Trot Nixon
#111 Tony Clark
# 154 Jorge De La Rosa RR
I have one solitary pack and there are 5 cards per pack.

 

The Pack:

#50 Adrian Beltre Dodgers

#100 Shannon Stewart Blue Jays

#112 Roy Oswalt Astros

#120 Christian Guzman Twins

#187 Ed Rogers Orioles RR

Still no Red Sox from these packs.

2002 Upper Deck Rookie Debut

2002 Upper Deck Rookie Debut is not a set as such, more of an update for three previously released Upper Deck sets: Honor Roll, Ovation, and Victory. Rookie Debut was a retail exclusive update set.
Rookie Debut features a number of autographs game used cards that are not part of any of the three previously released sets plus a number of inserts :Climbing the ladder, Elite Company, Solid Contact and Making their Mark. Added to each of these are Honor Roll UD Prospects, Ovation World Premieres and Victory Rookies.

The Red Sox available are:
#103 Cliff Floyd Honor Roll
#104 Derek Lowe Honor Roll
#136 Josh Hancock Honor Roll UD Prospects
#137 Freddy Sanchez Honor Roll UD Prospects
#122 Cliff Floyd Ovation
#123 Derek Lowe Ovation
#156 Jorge De La Rosa Ovation World Premieres
#157 Freddy Sanchez Ovation World Premieres
#553 Cliff Floyd Victory
#554 Derek Lowe Victory
#612 Freddy Sanchez Victory Rookies
#613 Josh Hancock Victory Rookies
#614 Jorge De La Rosa Victory Rookies

The Rookie Debut pack contains 5 cards.

The Pack:

#105 Hee Seop Choi Cubs Honor Roll
#140 Brian Tallet Indians Honor Roll UD Prospects
#131 Andy Van Hekken Tigers Ovation
#603 Jayson Werth Blue Jays Victory
#629 Aaron Guiel Royals Victory Rookies
   

In the absence of Red Sox, here is the Ovation embossed with the Detroit logo.
An interesting idea to update three separate sets. Now it would be like Topps Update including Topps Update, Heritage, Chrome, Archives, Opening Day, Attax, Finest, Allen+Ginter, stickers, Gypsy Queen, Museum Collection, Platinum, Tier One, Tribute, Triple Threads...hang on that's just plain stupid.

 

2003 Upper Deck Play Ball

When this set was released in 2003, I remember thinking what a lovely looking set and I would love to collect the whole set thing. I pick-up a few cards here and there, but never fully committed to finishing it off.
The original Play Ball set produced by Gum Inc. in 1939, when no other gum companies were releasing baseball sets, was a simply designed -white bordered, black and white photograph with no writing on the front. The back featured a detailed biography of the player shown.
It wasn't until 1941, which the 2003 set is based on, did Play Ball add colour. This was the final set produced by Gum Inc, who after the Second World War, returned as the newly named Bowman Gum Company.
The artwork on the 1941 Play Ball cards is incredibly stylish, featuring solid backgrounds and shadows with a comic type picture of each player. The back again had a detailed biography of the player.

The 2003 Upper Deck Play Ball set is in the similar stylish 1930's-1940's design.

The 2003 cards are the modern standard 2 ½ by 3 ½ inches, which are bigger than their 1941 counterparts which are 2 ½ by 3 ⅛ inches.

 I will attempt to collect all 73 of the base set cards (and any short prints/reprints to come my way).

I need 0 cards to complete the 73 base card set.

COMPLETED!

Short Prints

74 Ted Williams Summer of '41

75 Hank Greenberg Summer of '41
76 Joe DiMaggio Summer of '41
77 Lefty Gomez Summer of '41
78 Tommy Henrich Summer of '41
79 Pee Wee Reese Summer of '41
80 Mel Ott Summer of '41
81 Carl Hubbell Summer of '41
82 Jimmie Foxx Summer of '41
83 Joe Cronin Summer of '41
84 Charlie Gehringer Summer of '41
85 Frank Hayes Summer of '41
86 Babe Dahlgren Summer of '41
87 Dolph Camilli Summer of '41
88 Johnny Vander Meer Summer of '41

1941 Play Ball Reprints
R-1 Ted Williams
R-2 Hank Greenberg
R-3 Joe DiMaggio
R-4 Lefty Gomez
R-5 Tommy Henrich
R-6 Pee Wee Reese
R-7 Mel Ott
R-8 Carl Hubbell
R-9 Jimmie Foxx
R-10 Joe Cronin
R-11 Charlie Gehringer
R-12 Frank Hayes
R-13 Babe Dahlgren
R-14 Dolph Camilli
R-15 Johnny Vander Meer
R-16 Bucky Walters
R-17 Red Ruffing
R-18 Charlie Keller
R-19 Indian Bob Johnson
R-20 Dutch Leonard
R-21 Barney McCosky
R-22 Soupy Campbell
R-23 Stormy Weatherly
R-24 Bobby Doerr
R-25 Bill Dickey

2002 Donruss Fan Club

The 2002 Donruss Baseball base set consists of 300 cards, which includes the Fan Club subset #261-300.
There were an extraordinary amount of inserts in this set too. Which included;
14 Artists, 18 Craftsmen, 10 Double Features, 40 Franchise Features, 45 League Leaders,  18 Pure Power, 5 Records and 25 Rookies. 
There were also two parallel sets called Die Cuts and Credits. The die cuts are obvious but I haven't quite got to the bottom of the credits

The Red Sox available from the base set are:
2 Pedro Martinez
47 Trot Nixon
80 Manny Ramirez
110 Nomar Garciaparra
143 Hideo Nomo
161 David Cone
196 Jason Varitek
202 Angel Santos
213 Casey Fossum
247 Jorge De La Rosa RC

I have 5 packs. Each pack contains 7 cards.

Pack 1:

#7 Rafael Furcal Braves

#15 Framk Thomas White Sox

#29 Paul Konerko White Sox

#68 Rickey Henderson Padres diecut

#71 Freddy Garcia Mariners

#82 Randy Johnson D-backs

#127 Jose Cruz Jr Blue Jays

 

Pack 2:

#27 Kenny Lofton Indians

#Tony Armas Jr Expos

#114 Carlos Beltran Royals

#158 Javy Lopez Braves

#169 Tsuyoshi Shinjo Mets

#196 Jason Varitek Red Sox

#283 Todd Helton Rockies FC 

 

Pack 3:

#7 Rafael Furcal Braves

#12 Roy Oswalt Astros

#36 Gary Sheffield Dodgers

#66 Sammy Sosa Cubs

#71 Freddy Garcia Mariners

#150 Mark Quinn Royals

#282 Jose Canseco White Sox FC

 

Pack 4:

#12 Roy Oswalt Astros

#22 Kerry Wood Cubs diecut

#30 Bernie Williams Yankees

#50 Sean Casey Reds

#115 Ellis Burks Indians

#137 Mike Piazza Mets

#187 Jeromy Burnitz Brewers

 

Pack 5:

#66 Sammy Sosa Cubs

#80 Manny Ramirez Red Sox

#93 Al Lieter Mets

#155 Darryl Kile Cardinals

#160 Lance Berkman Astros

#170 Brad Penny Marlins

#225 Brad Voyles Royals RC



Not Bad 2 Red Sox from 5 packs, although there was some duplication of other cards.
Which is either bad luck or poor quality control.
Not a set I think I would actively go out to complete.The uber shiny fronts, mark very easily.

2012 Triple Play

 Someone out there was kind enough to send me two packs of 2012 Triple Play (was it you?) Possibly sick of my moaning about availability, postage costs, etc, etc.
If it was you...then thanks.
This helps in my desperate attempt to collect the entire set. It is going well so far, about 44% of the way in. Lets see how these contribute.

Pack 1:

#38 Dan Harden Los Angeles

#60 Yoenis Cespedes Oakland

#86 Jose Bautista Toronto

#121 Albert Pujols Los Angeles 4/9

#164 Andrew McCutchen Pittsburgh 2/9

#255 Ryan Howard Philadelphia

#28 Joe Mauer Minnesota sticker

Pack 2:

#31 Brett Myers Houston

#39 Jered Weaver Los Angeles

#80 David Price Tampa Bay

#152 Yoenis Cespedes Oakland 8/9

#213 Evan Longoria Tampa Bay 6/9

 #268 Baseball 101 Home Run

#13 Grand Slam sticker

Not so good, only 2 stickers and 2 cards closer to the complete set

1999 Upper Deck PowerDeck

This can only be regarded as a gimmick, surely. Perhaps I am mistaken, maybe there were thoughts that this  'interesting' idea would take the card world by storm.

Each pack of PowerDeck's contained a CD, obviously shaped to fit snuggly in a pack of cards.

The CD showed highlights of the particular player. There were 25 CD's to collect. The paper cards included in the packs were called 'Auxillary', so the main set were the CD-Rom, the cards just happened to be in the pack too. There were 25 base cards as well. The checklist for the auxillary cards and CD-Roms were identical.

There were a number of inserts as well; Most Valuable Performances, Powerful Moments, Time Capsule . Each of these inserts were available in both auxillary (paper) and CD versions.

Each pack contained 2 auxillary cards and 1 CD-Rom.

 

The Red Sox available are:

7 Nomar Garciaparra,

13 Manny Ramirez

23 Pedro Martinez

 



I have one pack that was included as part of a ebay lot I bought recently.

 

 The pack:

#AUX3 Cal Ripkin Jnr Orioles

#P3 Cal Ripkin Jnr Orioles

 

CD-Rom

#9 Tony Gwynn Padres

2001 Donruss Studio packs

The 2001 Studio set was the first Donruss brand for 3 years since the demise, through bankruptcy of the previous owners Pinnacle. It was also the first regular set to feature short printed and serial numbered cards. The short base set consists of 150 cards, add 48 Rated Rookies (limited to 2001), 2 Rated Rookie redemptions (limited to 500) and 20 Fan club (limited to 5000) cards to create a  220 card extended base set. There are many, many more limited cards from this set, including the popular Diamond Kings.

The RED SOX from the short base set are;
#14 Manny Ramirez
#17 Nomar Garciaparra
#46 Hideo Nomo
#65 Carl Everett
#107 Pedro Martinez
#127 Shea Hillenbrand
#131 Trot Nixon
#137 Jason Varitek

I have four very thick packs each containing 3 cards.

Pack 1:

#5 Derek Jeter Yankees

##26 Brain Jordan Braves

#143 John Olerud Mariners

 

Pack 2:

#11 Mark Quinn Royals

#70 Jacque Jonas Twins

#110 Rickey Henderson Padres

 

Pack 3:

#56 Matt Morris Cardinals

#64 Juan Encarnacion Tigers

#112 Sammy Sosa Cubs

 

Pack 4:

#43 Barry larkin Reds

#51 Bobby Abreu Phillies

#133 Juan Pierre Rockies



 In the absence of any Red Sox I give you Bobby Abreu and the thick spacer that was inside each pack.