Monday, June 22, 2020

Who's the Criminal? Donruss or Classic? (+ Pick 3)

First, a question... The thumbnail pictures for my posts aren't appearing on any blogrolls lately. Any idea why? Google searching has not helped me.

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Recently, I was looking through my various cards sorted by player mainly to see if there were any good Frankenset cards I missed on the first go around. When I made it to Randy Johnson, the following two cards must have been near each other in the stack. Interestingly, the first thing I noticed is that Johnson's pose looked almost identical to a card I had just seen when flipping through the stack. I compared the two faces again. Then again. They looked so similar. And then, duh, I thought to look at the background of each card. And what do you know:


So who copied whom? As far as I can tell the two companies did not collaborate on the 1990 sets and weren't connected in any way. Baseballcardpedia.com indicates that the Classic Yellow set was produced by a company called Game Time, Ltd. The Classic set began its run in 1987 and issued its final MLB set in 1993, most of which were sold with a trivia board game. Donruss began its run in 1981, which makes me think if there is a criminal here, it would be the newbie Classic.

So let's look at the card again. Notice something about the Classic card. At the bottom of the photo, a fence is visible. The Donruss card doesn't have said fence, so Classic couldn't have ripped off the Donruss card. However, the Donruss card has upper deck stands above Randy Johnson's head, while Classic doesn't. So Donruss couldn't have lifted the picture from the Classic card either. But then I got to thinking, it would be very unlikely that a card company would wait until another had released their set to finalize the photos on their own set. (Kind of a DUH moment here.)

So my conclusion is there was possibly a stock photo submitted by the Mariners or appearing in a media guide or something that was fair game for any of the card companies to use. Now that I reason it out, it doesn't seem like there was any ripping off going on here. I clearly didn't think this through before writing this post. Please forgive me for leading you to this exercise in futility. 

But wait a minute... There IS a criminal here! BOTH companies, for uniquely TERRIBLE card designs. Shame on them. 

If you made it this far, you've stumbled into a giveaway! Congratulations. If you visited the blog during the first giveaway, the rules are the same. You are eligible to win again, too.

This isn't an earth-shattering giveaway because my collection isn't earth-shattering, but I wanted to do a small giveaway since it's fun to receive cards of any kind in the mail. Especially if they are free. And they are free - no obligation to send anything back.

Anyway, this giveaway is simple. There are three sets of players. Pick one player from each of the groups of names. Enter your names in the comments below. The first 6 people that comment will win and receive a PWE of cards of those three players. I'll try to include some interesting cards if I have them. Also, in the comments, if you want cards of that player from a particular team, you can say so, and I will try to accommodate. No doubling up on names. Once a player is taken by someone, you need to pick someone else in the group.

In subsequent giveaways, players chosen in the previous giveaways will not be available to choose again until some unknown date in the future.

If you win, please provide your name and address via email by accessing my Blogger profile. If I've traded with you, you can skip this step. 

And Blog Reader Bruce, I still need your address from the last giveaway.

Remember, pick one player from each group!

GROUP 1: (HOF) - don't expect anything too vintage here, but there are some cool cards

Grover Alexander Reggie Jackson
Luke Appling Fergie Jenkins
Earl Averill Walter Johnson
Ernie Banks Chuck Klein
Johnny Bench Nap Lajoie
Jim Bottomley Joe Morgan
Lou Brock Stan Musial
Rod Carew Brooks Robinson
Mickey Cochrane Frank Robinson
Joe Cronin Tris Speaker
Bob Feller Willie Stargell
Rollie Fingers Bill Terry
Jimmie Foxx Honus Wagner
Frankie Frisch Paul Waner
Bob Gibson Billy Williams
Goose Goslin Ted Williams
Lefty Grove Carl Yastrzemski
Gabby Hartnett
Rogers Hornsby

GROUP 2: Former All-Stars and such (Galarraga - McGriff)

Andres Galarraga Tommy John
Ron Gant Andruw Jones
Nomar Garciaparra Wally Joyner
Jason Giambi David Justice
Kirk Gibson Eric Karros
Joe Girardi Jeff Kent
Troy Glaus Jimmy Key
Juan Gonzalez Paul Konerko
Luis Gonzalez John Kruk
Dwight Gooden Mark Langston
Shawn Green Derrek Lee
Mike Greenwell Travis Lee
Marquis Grissom Al Leiter
Pedro Guerrero Jim Leyland
Ron Guidry Mike Lieberthal
Ozzie Guillen Javy Lopez
Josh Hamilton Greg Luzinski
Todd Helton Fred Lynn
Dave Henderson Billy Martin
Keith Hernandez Dennis Martinez
Orel Hershiser Ramon Martinez
Charlie Hough Tino Martinez
Bo Jackson Willie McGee
Gregg Jefferies Fred McGriff

GROUP 3: Current/Recent All-Stars and such (G - Z)

Joey Gallo Kyle Schwarber
Paul Goldschmidt Chris Sale
Didi Gregorius Carlos Santana
Zach Greinke Max Scherzer
Bryce Harper Jean Segura
Felix Hernandez Luis Severino
Jason Heyward Andrelton Simmons
Aaron Judge George Springer
Clayton Kershaw Giancarlo Stanton
Dallas Keuchel Trevor Story
Cory Kluber Stephen Strasburg
Jon Lester Dansby Swanson
Francisco Lindor Ichiro Suzuki
Evan Longoria Noah Syndergaard
Manny Machado Masahiro Tanaka
Trey Mancini Troy Tulowitzki
JD Martinez Justin Turner
Andrew McCutchen Trea Turner
Yadier Molina Justin Upton
Matt Olson Joey Votto
Salvador Perez Adam Wainwright
Tommy Pham Christian Yelich
Buster Posey
David Price
Jose Ramirez

19 comments:

  1. Luke Appling, Billy Martin, and Ichiro... thanks for the giveaway!

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    1. As for your Blogger issue, I've seen blogs have this issue from time to time, it does usually end up getting fixed, but by who I do not know. Hopefully someone with more know-how than I will be able to assist you.

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    2. Thanks Jon. Can you send me your address?

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  2. Mickey Cochrane, Orel Hershiser, and Corey Kluber. Thanks for the giveaway.
    The 2 cards that look similar of Randy Johnson remind me of 3 1992 Jeff Huson cards that feature him turning a DP over Jose Canseco and the photos are obviously from the same play. I want to say Donruss, Score, and Pinnacle were the brands.

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  4. Yaz, Dwight Gooden and Kershaw.

    Probably the most famous example of the case you address with the Johnsons is the 1982 Rod Carew photo that appeared in both Fleer and Topps. This was a case of the photographer selling the photo to both companies. It was quite the dust-up.

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    1. Yeah, I would guess the same thing happened here; the same freelance photographer sold the same photo to two different companies. It seems likely to me--although I can't know for sure--that this violated the terms of one or both contracts.

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  6. Hey. Lou Brock - Cardinals, Nomar - Red Sox, Scherzer. Please.

    I like my RJ Expo card, but the photo is about as boring as these are.

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    1. In case anybody's wondering, both times I got blocked it was with my third group pick.

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    2. Glad you finally got your 3rd to work! Can you send me your address? Thanks.

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  7. Musial, Helton, Sale if I am still in the top 6!

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  8. I'll never say that the 1990 Classic design is awesome, but I don't mind it either. I've actually thought about tracking down all of the older Classic sets and putting them into binders by years. I think it'd look cool to see the blue, pink, and yellow borders of the 1990 sets all together.

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    1. Yeah I guess it's not so bad. I think the colors would look nice all together like that.

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  9. Thanks for the giveaway. I just recently started reading your blog. I would like to chose the following players please: Rogers Hornsby, Bo Jackson and Francisco Lindor

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    1. Hey Tim thanks for reading but we already had winner #6. Hope you can get in sooner next time!

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  10. Good catch! I noticed that about another Mariner several years ago - https://borosny.blogspot.com/2010/06/classic-recycling.html

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