Featured autograph - Tim Wallach

It's ironic I maybe posting this since he just did a card shop signing and I didn't actually get this autograph at that appearance - back in my first incarnation as an autograph collector at Anaheim / Angel Stadium, I ended up trading for a handful of loose 1996 Angels Mother's Cookies cards [maybe one or two signed already, but an incomplete set].

After all these years, like this Angels in Order post about a Mark Trumbo card - I really just want to complain about how the Angels uniform blends into the background of the card.

Unfortunately, all the cards in 1996 Angels Mother's Cookies set look like the Wallach - I want to say the cards look kind of cheap to begin with but it seems like the Angels were the only Mother's Cookies team set photographed in a studio setting and not outdoors.

It's kind of hard to see the autograph but I got the card signed a couple of weeks ago - just to get it out of my little stash of cards I have for the current Los Angeles Dodgers third base coach and put it away.

I did the same for a Mark Langston card I got signed last year or the year before - I don't intend to get any more signed.

Featured cards: 1992 Topps Stadium Club

Topps' sophomore effort may have as impressive and/or better images than their first release in 1991 - the problem for me was Topps turned Stadium Club into a bloated 900 card set, issued in three series of 300 cards. It was the first Stadium Club product I remember picking up with some sort of regularity, but it also became this monster, clusterF of a set littered with unproven players and players who'd be the 25th man on a roster. It should have remained a 600 card set like the initial release in 1991, but Topps thought they could capitalize on the initial popularity of the 1991 set.

The Van Slyke [card #232] features a very nice horizontal shot of Van Slyke diving with a head first slide at third base - you can see Pittsburgh Pirates' then third base coach Gene Lamont kneeling to see what will happen as third baseman Tim Wallach of the Montreal Expos presumably awaits the throw from the cutoff man. The only reservation is the photographer is able to catch Lamont and Wallach's butts lined up with the image of Van Slyke's impending slide.

The Hoiles [card #161] features a play at the play - we don't know if the runner is safe or out as he crashes home, kicking up dirt as Hoiles is looking for the baseball.

Surhoff [card #117] looks like he is making the throw on a pickoff as Ken Griffey Jr. tries to get out of the way - I can eat up 'bonus babies' or common cards featuring cameos by stars all day long.