in the year 2000

i used to watch conan every once in a while, and i recall the first time i saw his 'in the year 2000' bit.  it was in late 1999 and he predicted that in the year 2000, zombies would feast on human flesh and when they got hungry later, they would go to olive garden.  i found that to be quite funny.

this post has nothing to do with conan or his skits, however.  instead, i give to you a few cards that were produced in the final year of the 20th century.

2000 fleer focus jeff shaw

on which we clearly see the don drysdale hero patch.  i think of cards from this set as fleer's knockoff of 1981 topps.  oddly enough, upper deck would bring the cap design element back to cards in 2006 under the fleer banner.

2000 topps jeff shaw

the first topps gray border set since 1970.  it was a nice break from two years of gold borders.

speaking of gold, 2000 upper deck gold reserve kevin brown

aside from the full bleed, there were some similarities between the topps card design and the upper deck card design in the year 2000.

2000 upper deck sp authentic

there were a heckuva lot of kevin brown cards in the year 2000.

2000 pacific angel pena

pena is wearing the roy campanella patch, as any catcher should.  note that paul loduca wore the mike scioscia patch.

2000 pacific paramount devon white

yes, devon white was a dodger in the year 2000.  and in 1999 as well, when he wore the jackie robinson patch.  here's the back of his 2000 topps stadium club card

looks like devo played his best at dodger stadium.  he finished his career with 34 leadoff home runs, including one hit for the dodgers in the year 2000.

2000 skybox dominion adrian beltre

beltre was 21 in the year 2000, and he hit 20 home runs for the first time.  he's about to turn 35 and is about 600 hits shy of 3000.  i wonder if he will make it.

i really liked that skybox dominion set when it came out, but my favorite set of the year 2000 was the fleer greats of the game release.  fleer had put out the first gotg set in 1999 as a sports illustrated fueled set, complete with an autographed card in every pack.  that was cool, but i really liked the look and feel of the 2000 set over the gloss of the 1999 set.

here are a few of the dodgers from the set - tommy john

al lopez

preacher roe

and fernando valenzuela

the set featured on card autos, too.  not of fernando, unfortunately.  had there been one, it might well have been my favorite card of the year 2000.