Group Break "extras" from Baseball Dad (Part II)

A couple of days I detailed the first part of my haul from Baseball Dad's group O-Pee-Chee break. Today, it's time to take a look at just some of the "extras" that Jack threw in for me.

Here are 10% of the Cincinnati Reds cards that Jack sent me:

2001 Upper Deck National Pastime:
Johnny Bench

What a great card! I don't know the name of this set for sure (any help out there?) but I ought to figure it out and see what else is in the set. I'm such a sucker for old time players...most likely because only sets that feature old time players are able to feature decent Cincinnati Reds. *sigh*

1998 Donruss Collections:
Reggie Sanders

Here's a typical late '90s card, lots of shimmer and shine! The strange thing about this card is that the card stock is among the thinnest that I've ever seen. In fact, I think some card sets have thicker checklist cards than this particular set's base cards!

2002 Fleer Authentix:
David Espinosa

According to the back of the card, the 2001 Reds were a 5th place team with a 66-96 record. This year's Reds team, also in 5th place (although with an expected final record of 72-90). Taking that into consideration, the Reds are due to a whopping 6 wins over the last 8 years. If that trend continues, by the time my grandkids are my age the Reds ought to have a playoff caliber record, so I guess that's something. *grumble grumble*

2002 Fleer Tradition (Update?)
Adam Dunn

I wish the 'ol donkey was still a Red, that's all I have to say about that.

1997 Fleer:
Hal Morris

The '97 Fleer set is a great example of what can go wrong when you try to please everybody. This must be what transpired in Fleer headquarters during the planning sessions for this particular base set:

Boss: "Staff researchers, tell me, what do the people want?"
Researcher 1: "People are tired of shiny."
Researcher 2: "People like old time card stock, not gloss."
Researcher 3: "No, people like foil!"
Researcher 1: "People want affordability."
Researcher 2: "People want full stats."
Researcher 3: "People like the letter X."
Boss: "Researcher 3, you are fired. I hear Upper Deck's hiring. You other two, let's do everything you came up with."

And that is why you have a super thin, nonglossy, full stat back, gold foil embossed, full bleed photo baseball card set. Oh yeah, that's also why you have Upper Deck X, SpX, and all that other "x-themed" crap from Upper Deck - blame it on '97 Fleer.

Thanks for all the great Reds Jack! I should also mention that I especially love the Barry Larkin cards, but they each get their own time to shine during my Barry Larkin Collection posts!