one of the best things to have come from fleer's partnership with sports illustrated in the late 1990's are the use of the magazine covers as baseball cards. in fact, these cards are so cool and such a natural fit, that it's really too bad that there was no topps/inside sports collaboration or donruss/sport teamup. thankfully we did get one of way too few jimmy wynn as a dodger cards as part of the 1999 fleer sports illustrated greats of the game set.
it comes from the appropriately named 'cover collection' insert set. and it has friends.
johnny podres, the 1955 sportsman of the year
this next one is from 1998 fleer sports illustrated world series fever, and was part of the base set
it features the first ever all-california world series (there have been a few others since - 1988, 1989, and 2002) which saw the dodgers face the a's. the a's won in five games, but at least we get this card that features dodger stadium, steve yeager triumphant over sal bando thanks to joe ferguson's arm, rollie fingers' mustache, garvey breaking out of the box, and billy buckner with what might be bert campaneris toppled over on top of him.
the only disappointment i had with these cards is that fleer didn't include si cover cards for the 1977 or 1978 world series. how cool would these covers have been to have as cards?
a 1977 double play turn by billy russell in dodger stadium
and a lee lacy sliding in night card, also from chavez ravine.
those are some cards that totally should have been!
These "cover collection" inserts are one of the best ideas in the history of baseball cards. They work perfectly.
ReplyDeleteI really need to get my hands on a copy of that Wynn cover insert.