Barry Larkin / Cal Ripken / Neifi Perez / Mark Bellhorn
Year: 1996
Brand: Bowman's Best
Card number: 4
Insert: Mirror Image Refractor
By 1996, Topps was fully onboard with producing inserts and then parallels of their inserts. Today's entry in my ongoing Barry Larkin Collection is one such insert parallel: the Refractor version of the Mirror Image insert.
According to baseballcardpedia, the Mirror Image Refractors were seeded 1:96 hobby packs, quite rare but not nearly as difficult to find as the other Mirror Image parallel (Atomic Refractors were seeded 1:192 hobby packs)! I still don't own the Atomic Refractor version of Larkin's Mirror Image card, but at least I have the regular Refractor to go along with the regular version of the card (shown off in a previous Barry Larkin Collection post).
Here's the full checklist for the Mirror Image set:
- 1 Frank Thomas / Todd Helton / Jeff Bagwell / Richie Sexson
- 2 Roberto Alomar / Craig Biggio / Luis Castillo / Desi Relaford
- 3 Chipper Jones / Scott Rolen / Wade Boggs / George Arias
- 4 Cal Ripken, Jr. / Mark Bellhorn / Barry Larkin / Neifi Perez
- 5 Albert Belle / Ruben Rivera / Larry Walker / Karim Garcia
- 6 Kenny Lofton / Donnie Sadler / Barry Bonds / Andruw Jones
- 7 Ken Griffey, Jr. / Ben Grieve / Tony Gwynn / Vladimir Guerrero
- 8 Mike Piazza / Ben Davis / Ivan Rodriguez / Jose Valentin
- 9 Mike Mussina / Bartolo Colon / Greg Maddux / Jamey Wright
- 10 Randy Johnson / Jarrod Washburn / Tom Glavine / Billy Wagner
Looking at the list, I'd say that overall Topps did a good job with their pairings. Most of the cards had at least one of the two paired prospects pan out! Good choices overall include Todd Helton, Craig Biggio, Scott Rolen, Andruw Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, and Billy Wagner. Unfortunately, that success didn't exactly work out for Barry's card. Mark Bellhorn and Neifi Perez both had long MLB careers (10 and 12 years, respectively), but their combined WAR only adds up to 10.6. For comparison, Ripken had a career WAR of 95.9 while Larkin had a career WAR of 70.5.
Despite the questionable pairings on this particular card, I will say that I like the concept (and execution) of the Mirror Image set overall. I do think that this is a good avenue for a Bowman brand to explore, pairing established players with young players. If nothing else, I know I'd buy more Bowman if I could have some assurances that packs would contain guys I've actually heard of before!
It would have been cool had one of these featured four genuine hall of famers. Topps created these 4 player cards for football and basketball too. There were a bunch of three star cards (even three hall of famers... like the Gwynn/Guerrero/Griffey), but none with four.
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