age of ultra

no superheroes here, just humble baseball players on some fleer ultra cards.

here's a 1999 fleer ultra chan ho park

the latter years of ultra feature some nice photography, as evidenced by jeff shaw's card

which features dodger stadium and the three sisters in the background.

a less scenic part of dodger stadium is in the background of antonio osuna's card

but we get charles johnson (i believe) in the foreground

mark grudzielanek is on the road on his card

but ismael valdes is back at home on his

in addition to lots of dodgers and dodger stadium cards, ultra has contributed many double plays to my collection. here are a few that i haven't shown before

2001 fleer ultra edgar renteria

i hope renteria was successful in his giant twin killing

speaking of giants, here's a 2002 fleer ultra rich aurilia card

jeff kent can only stand and watch

2004 fleer ultra orlando cabrera

nice to see the expos now and again

2004 fleer ultra marcus giles

most of the marcus giles dp cards i have seem to show him horizontal.  must not have been much of a jumper.  like placido polanco

or michael young

this is a 2004 fleer ultra update card of giant prospect brian dallimore

who is being taken out by juan pierre.  hopefully dallimore got some lessons in sliding runner evasion from double play professional ray durham, seen here on a 2005 fleer ultra card

it's too bad that fleer went under - we could use more ultra these days.

a few more double play turns and some other cards from the heart of texas

here is some more goodness from the box of cards that i received recently from brian at play at the plate.

a few more double plays that are new to my collection - 1999 pacific denny hocking

1999 pacific crown collection rey ordonez

2000 fleer ultra tony batista

and a couple from 2001 fleer tradition - ron belliard

and pokey reese

i'll give fleer some credit for bringing to mind 1956 topps without being totally obnoxious about it.

brian included a 2002 fleer ultra eric karros gold medallion edition parallel

which cleanses the palette between vintage-y looking cards, more of which you are about to see.

a good portion of the box included cards from 2002 upper deck vintage.  this was the set that was basically 1971 topps with the photo moved above the team/player/position text.  here's the carlos febles card from the set

looks like a rundown.

strange to see david ortiz in a twins' uniform after all these years

one of the more interesting cards in the bunch was this ichiro card

with him legging out an infield hit, which he often did.

now, upper deck would tell you that they were paying homage to 1971 o-pee-chee, which is why the backs of the cards are yellow

this would be what the latter series of o-pee-chee looked like in '71, with the rectangular photo like topps had for the entire set run.

anyway, we know that o-pee-chee claim to be tenuous at best since upper deck wound up altering their 2009 o-pee-chee set to look nothing like the 1977 set which it was rumoured to be featuring prior to its release.

whether by design or not, some of the cards do remind me of 1971 topps, like this bernie williams card

that reminds me of the tommie agee card from 1971, just a bit more 'zoomed in'.

here are a few cards from the postseason scrapbook subset

an alfonso soriano walk-off in the alds

jeter walk-off in the world series

i'm not sure why upper deck chose to say "a last at-bat" on soriano's card, but "walkoff" on jeter's

more jeter love from game 5 of the world series

he drove in two runs and took to breakdancing at home plate, apparently.

finally, however, let us recall the fantastic end to the 2001 world series, thanks to mark grace and luis gonzalez

that was awesome.  just like the box of cards brian sent.  i'll be showing some of the pacific goodness in another post or posts.  stay tuned…

plays at second base from play at the plate

i recently alluded to a big ol' box of cards that i received from brian at play at the plate.  it was mostly pacific cards with some 2002 upper deck vintage thrown in for good measure.  that was what i had requested when he put the spoils from a recent 5000 card box purchase up for grabs.  luckily for me, brian also fished out some double play cards and added them to my haul.  let's have a look at some.

1999 fleer tradition ricky gutierrez

ricky is joined on the card by a lurking matt luke, former dodger outfielder and double dipper, so that's nice.  he also demonstrates his awkward double play lean.

that lean is not shown on another gutierrez double play card from the bunch, this one from 1999 topps stadium club

but it does surface on his 2002 fleer ultra card that was also included

on to the non-ricky gutierrez cards

here's carlos baerga turning two on a 1999 fleer tradition card

the indians did the right thing by trading baerga when they did (during the 1996 season) as he experienced a pretty significant drop off when he joined the mets.  the indians received jeff kent and jose vizcaino as part of the return from the amazin's, and then parlayed them into matt williams for the 1997 season.  williams helped the tribe get to the world series, and then they traded him for travis fryman, who was a mainstay for a few seasons with cleveland.

1999 fleer tradition damion easley

and 1999 fleer tradition aaron ledesma

here's ledesma's teammate, miguel cairo, turning two on a 1999 topps stadium club card

as are mike lansing

and tony womack

there were some parallels in the box, too, like this 2002 fleer ultra gold medallion edition adam kennedy card

and quite a few ruby parallels from 2000 pacific.  among them were some double play turns like miguel cairo

who makes his second appearance in the post;

rey ordonez

who should have more double play cards than he does;

and miguel tejada

who may well have more double play cards than anyone else.  now, 2000 pacific had a black & white version of the card's front photo on the back, and since there were two tejada's sent my way, i'll add his back to the dp collection

this next one, i am considering to be a double play card because of jay bell's airborne state, and because why else would brian send me a 1998 fleer metal universe card of a royal?

you can't really see because of the scan, but bell is leaping over a butte rather than a sliding player.  it makes for some variety in the dp binder.

i'll showcase a few more dp cards from the patp box later...

double plays abound

jay bell is turning two at dodger stadium on his 2000 upper deck card.

this may well be a play from the first game of the davey johnson era - opening day 1999.  if so, that would be mark grudzielanek sliding in.  this was the game in which raul mondesi tied things up with a 3-run blast in the bottom of the 9th and then won the game with another homer in extra innings. 

here's mickey morandini turning two on his 2000 fleer ultra

and 2000 topps stadium club cards

not to be outdone, i've got three fernando vina double play turns to show - 2000 pacific (ruby parallel)

2000 topps chrome

and 2002 fleer ultra

however, this last one is more likely a stolen base attempt, i am afraid.

these last three are dp turns for sure, though.  2004 fleer platinum ray durham

1999 fleer tradition andy fox (warning track parallel)

2006 upper deck tony womack

all that's missing on that womack card is the 'now with reds' text.