1997 Denny's Holograms (Pinnacle) Alex Rodriguez

 Set size: 30 cards

Front Design: The cards use Sportflics technology on the front, featuring a full-bleed motion photo with a white band across the bottom containing the Denny's logo, player name, and team name. The 1997 Pinnacle logo appears at the top.

Back Design: The left half of the back has the player's vitals, career highlights, and prior year and career statistics over a baseball background. The right half of the card has a hologram portrait of the player.

Parallels and Similars: None.

Distribution: Denny's patrons could buy a card for 59 cents each when purchasing a meal and drink. Card #30, Larry Doby, was distributed exclusively in the Cleveland area and isn't considered part of the set.

Thoughts: The set contains one card from each team, plus a commemorative Jackie Robinson card and the Larry Doby commemorative card. While the Sportflics card concept never really caught on, this design makes for one of my favorite Denny's sets, second behind the 1994 issue.

1998 Stadium Club One of a Kind

Set size: 400 cards

Front Design: The cards parallel the 1998 Stadium Club set. A high-quality full-bleed color photo is interrupted only by the player's name in the bottom left corner, and a small Stadium Club "One of a Kind" baseball seam design in the lower right corner. The cards have a metalized foil finish.

Back Design: The backs are identical to the 1998 Stadium Club set, with another color photo filling most of the card. The player's name and card number is in the upper right corner and a baseball seam design fades most of the photo in one of the lower corners. A triangle with arced corners holds the player's vitals, statistics, and a short biography (the amount of information varies by player). On veteran players, a career highlight appears at the bottom of the card, aptly named "The Bottom Line." Cards are serial numbered in the upper-right corner.

Parallels and Similars: This set is a parallel of the 1998 Stadium Club set. There are two other serial numbered parallels in this issue; First Day Issue had a 200-card print run, and printing plates.

Distribution: Cards in this set had a 150-card print run. Cards were randomly inserted into hobby packs at 1:21 to 1:24 odds, and HTA packs at 1:13 to 1:14 odds.

Thoughts: I'm not sure why Topps felt the need to include a second parallel so closely numbered to the traditional First Day Issue set. I'm also not sure why a set called "One of a Kind" isn't a one of a kind issue (thus numbered 1/1). For a set that features some of the best photography seen from year to year, the foil treatment detracts from the card image.

Additional Images:

2002 Leaf League of Nations

Set size: 10 cards

Front Design: A color photo of a player is cropped over a background containing a globe and national flags of various countries - the player's home country flag is printed brighter than the others. His name and team logo appear at the top, and the set name is printed next to the photo in silver foil. The cards are printed with a foil background.

Back Design: The flags, globe, and set logo are repeated at the top, followed by the player's name and team in a black band. The bottom half of the card has a short highlight biography printed in English and the language of the player's nationality.

Parallels and Similars: None.

Distribution: Cards were inserted 1:60 packs of 2002 Leaf.

Thoughts: A large quantity of players in the set are from Asian countries, possibly due to the Asian craze that swept the hobby after Ichiro's success in 2001. The overall design and set concept are great, except for the foil background.

2010 Topps Series 2 Attax Code Cards

Set size: 27 cards

Front Design: The fronts are set up to play the Topps Attax game, with a player photo over a grayscale background, his team logo in the upper-right corner, and the player's name on the left-hand margin. The bottom of the card contains a ToppsTown code and three numbers related to the game.

Back Design: The backs are identical from player to player, with a mostly-blue deck design. The Topps Attax logo features prominently in the middle, but a giveaway as to which player might be on the front is the team logo in the lower half of the card.

Parallels and Similars: These cards are parallels of the regular Topps Attax set, with the addition of the ToppsTown code printed in the middle of the card. Each series of flagship Topps (including Update) has its own code set, and the only way of distinguishing between series is to check the code in the very bottom-right of the card back: Series 2 cards have Code #36210156. Any Topps card with a CPSIA code can be identified at the Topps Website, although it won't give you the exact set. Entering this code at the website tells you this is 2010 Topps Baseball Series 2 Reprint, but that is good enough to identify the series.

Distribution: Cards were inserted one per second series flagship Topps pack.

Thoughts: I'm sure these cards would be much more fun if I played the game. The 2010 issue doesn't have much pizzazz, and it doesn't feel like a game card. Instead, the Attax code set feels like an afterthought, added to packs as a filler or dummy. Unfortunately for pack openers, the card counts toward the total count.


Additional Images: card back (enlarged to show code at bottom)

1998 Stadium Club In The Wings

Set size: 15 cards

Front Design: A radiating-circle holofoil design is on the sides and bottom of a color photo. The bottom of the card contains the set name and the player's name.

Back Design: The vertical backs have another photo at the top. The player's name, position, team, vitals, and prior year statistics are in the center of the card, with a short biography at the bottom. The radiating circles repeat as a background behind the text.

Parallels and Similars: None.

Distribution: Cards were inserted 1:36 first series Stadium Club packs, and 1:12 HTA first series Stadium Club packs.

Thoughts: The backs look more like a minor league release than an insert. The checklist is fairly impressive for a rookie-based set. The foil design is typical late-90's Topps, but it's a solid design.