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

My Favorite Frankenset Card by Page; Page 3 (Cards 19-27)

Page 3 of the Frankenset has some solid cards. It can't quite measure up to page one or page two, but it does feature two baserunners you wouldn't expect to be pictured chugging around the bases on a baseball card.

Here are those entries:

1995 Pinnacle #22, Bob Hamelin

6'0", 230 lb. Bob Hamelin flying out the batter's box so fast his helmet falls off. Shocking fact: Hamelin stole four bases in 1994. FOUR! He swiped 11 in his six seasons in MLB.


Our second unlikely baserunner:

1996 SP #23, Tom Glavine

Stolen base fact (unlike the case of Hamelin, not found on the back of the card): Tom Glavine stole one base. In 22 seasons. Glavine had 1645 plate appearances in his career, whereas Hamelin had 1508.

So Bob Hamelin was clearly the better base stealer. (The preceding sentence was just typed for the first time in Western Civilization's known literature.)

Odd choices by Pinnacle and Upper Deck, for sure. But this week's winner is the beneficiary of an even odder choice decision by the makers of the 1990 Classic baseball series.

1990 Classic Yellow #T25, Jeff Treadway

Did you catch it? Odd, isn't it? Besides "why in the world would you choose this photo?," the other main thought I had was wondering what happened here. The only thing I can see causing this scenario is Treadway fouling the ball off. One of those barely got a piece of it spinning foul balls. For a guy who hit .277 in 134 games the previous season, you think Classic could have done better. Or maybe they were being sneakily intentional, because this card in my opinion, is a true "classic."