Thursday, January 28, 2010

An in-depth look at Gary Sheffield's 1991 Ultra card

The most interesting card in the four packs of Ultra I got from Cards on Cards was this Gary Sheffield. Though listed as a third baseman, he is clearly a shortstop on this card, albeit an awkward looking one as he fails to turn the double play courtesy of a hard slide by Carney Lansford.

Interestingly, even though it is a 1991 Ultra card, Sheff didn't play a game at short in 1990. Instead, this picture is from May 14, 1989, a 2-1 Milwaukee win at Oakland - this play occurred in the second inning. Sheffield would go 1-4 and scored the winning run in the ninth on a Glenn Hubbard error.

There was no Fleer Ultra in 1990, which makes one wonder why Fleer held onto this photo for an extra year instead of using it to spice up the oh-so-boring 1990 Fleer set. Were they holding on to great pictures in anticipation of launching Ultra the next year? Or did they not get the picture until too late for the 1990 set?

1 comment:

  1. Bo - I have no clue how you figure out that this picture is from 5/14/89, 2nd inning, etc. Amazing!

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