12 Days of Christmas (Day 1): Top 12 Cards from 4 Packs of 1997 Donruss Limited

Welcome to my latest theme week:  12 Days of Christmas!  Each day, I'll be counting down by one - and with it, a new list that encompasses the day's number.  

For today, I've got another four packs out of my 1997 Donruss Limited box.  I thought it'd be fun to do a proper countdown of the 12 best cards from those packs (out of a total of 20 cards in four packs).

Day 1:  Top 12 Cards from 4 Packs of 1997 Donruss Limited

Packs #9 - 12:

#12:  163.  Sandy Alomar, Jr. / Dan Wilson

A pair of catchers starts off the countdown.  The star of this card has to be the Sandy Alomar, Jr. but for me the real attraction is on the back of the card:  Dan Wilson! I still remember pulling a few Dan Wilson rookie prospect type cards where Wilson was shown as a Red.  Wilson had a 14 year career but only his first two years were with Cincinnati.  Even so, I still think of him as a Red and that's good enough to make #12 on today's list of the best cards from packs 9-12 of my box.

#11:  114.  Curt Schilling / Darryl Kyle

Here we have a pair of pretty good pitchers.  I like the snippet of text that says that Schilling led NL pitchers with 8 complete games back in 1996.  Do you know who led MLB in complete games in 2021?  I know I had no idea...

...Answer:  German Marquez, Adam Wainwright, and Zack Wheeler tied with three complete games each.  I'm guessing the days of seeing eight or more complete games by one pitcher are probably over.

#10:  134.  Mariano Rivera / Mark Wohlers

From two pretty good starting pitchers to a Hall of Fame relief pitcher (plus another pretty good reliever).  Rivera alone carries this card, even with the Yankee stink attached to him!

#9:  133.  Larry Walker / Rusty Greer

I always liked Walker when he was playing for Colorado.  In fact, I've always kind of liked the Rockies at least a bit, their stadium seems like a neat spot to visit (I've still never even been to the state of Colorado) and the team usually seems completely innocuous to me.  Perhaps it's because the Reds and Rockies hardly play during the regular season and so I don't have much time to learn to dislike the Rockies?  Also, their mascot is a dinosaur which is awesome.

#8:  71.  Darin Erstad / Mark Grace

A pair of stalwarts of their position for quite some time.  Both players are solid and this is easily one of the better pairings that I've seen on a 1997 Limited card so far (though not the best pairing, as you'll see a little later in today's countdown)!

#7:  17.  Jose Canseco / Chili Davis

I'm not a huge fan of Canseco but I do love the green color scheme for A's cards in this particular set.   The extra shine of the base cards makes the Canseco "pop" for me.  Chili Davis is another one of those guys who probably never quite got enough love in the hobby.  Other than his great name, I don't really know all that much about Chili.

#6:  74.  Joey Hamilton / Brett Tomko

The Tomko is my first non-miscut Reds card out of the box (we pulled a Pokey Reese that was miscut in an earlier post).  That's reason enough to make the countdown though I couldn't justify moving this particular card above any of the remaining cards in my list!

#5:  5.  Cal Ripken, Jr. / Kevin Orie

Any Cal Ripken, Jr. card is appreciated by me.  Cal is one of those non-Reds that I have a PC of, even if I don't actively collect his cards.  I guess you could say I have a bunch of "sleeper" PC guys and Ripken is definitely one of them. 

#4:  142.  Tim Salmon / Manny Ramirez

Even though I personally like the Ripken, Jr. card better, I had to put this Salmon/Manny pairing one slot higher in the countdown because of the sheer star power on this card.  Furthermore, you can tell I had originally bought this box for a group break since here's our requisite Tim Salmons sighting!

#3:  198.  Double Team:  Darin Erstad / Jason Dickson

Here's our second Double Team short print of the box.  As I said before, these are estimated to be seeded 1:6 packs so I should still get two more (fingers crossed one of them is the one with Barry Larkin on one side).  Kind of surprised to see that it was Darin Erstad and not Tim Salmon who made the "hitter" side of this card.

#2:  Limited Exposure:  167.  Jason Kendall / Charles Johnson

An extra shiny card of a pair of pretty good catchers?  Sign me up!  We've now found two Limited Exposure parallels in our box and both happened to feature catchers.  

#1:  Fabric of the Game:  Raul Mondesi (#0867/1000)

We'll end with what I believe is the box hit - a Fabric of the Game insert.  The "gimmick" of the Fabric of the Game set is that the cards are printed on things other than cardboard (either on canvas, leather, or wood).  Truthfully, I think that this card is actually just cardboard with a canvas-esque texture on the front but I guess I could be wrong.  This particular card is numbered out of 1000 and is printed on canvas.  Also, remember how I said earlier that this was clearly a box that was destined for a group break?  Well, here's even more proof of that since I pulled a Dodgers hit...I always seem to pull Dodgers hits in group breaks!

That does it for today's 12 Days of Christmas list!  Each day, I plan to have a different list that corresponds to the day of the post - i.e. for Day 2 we'll have an eleven-item list, Day 3 a ten-item list, etc.  Hopefully, it will be a fun way to usher in the holidays for all of us!