the variety and the monotony of my jay howell through the mail successes!

jay howell, whose 1988 o-pee-chee variation is on display today over at oh my o-pee-chee! had 5 good seasons in the dodgers' bullpen, spanning from the year that had been so improbable, 1988, through the worst year in la dodger history, 1992.  as such, he has a lot of over produced cards showing him as a dodger.  i put some of those doubles to use in ttm requests, and mr. howell obliged.

since he's a reliever, there's not a lot of opportunity for variety regarding the photos of howell used for his cards.  aside from posed shots or what looks to be a post-game congratulatory moment as shown on his 1988 card, i guess topps could have used a photo of him in the stretch position, or backing up home plate when an inherited runner scored, or maybe walking off the field after being found to have pine tar in his glove.

anyway, here's his 1989 topps card

featuring a shot of him in mid-delivery at home in dodger stadium.  it's a pretty run of the mill reliever photo, with the right field bullpen in view.

here's his 1990 topps card

featuring what i assume is a spring training photo due to all the greenery beyond the fence.  howell is shown this time near the start of his delivery.

on his 1991 topps card

howell has completed his delivery and awaits the result.  like 1990, it looks to be a spring training shot.

his 1991 upper deck card

goes back to the mid-delivery in dodger stadium, but with a slightly different angle from the 1989 topps.  the colors on this card really pop, and you can see the vast difference between the quality of upper deck's images and those of topps.

topps went horizontal on howell's 1992 card

but they stayed with a mid-delivery pose.

so did fleer in 1992

 which is quite similar to what topps did on his 1993 card

during his 5 years in la, howell appeared in 236 games and had exactly 5 at bats, so i understand why there are no cards showing him at the plate.  still, i wonder if topps tracked (or tracks) the monotony of photos they use for any given player from year to year.  after all, variety is the spice of life.  even when there's just one company with an mlb license.

thanks for signing all these similar looking cards jay!