As a quick reminder, since it's been more than a month since I did one of these posts, I began five new Michigan baseball PCs this year after learning/remembering that a few more Major Leaguers were Wolverine alumni. That link takes you to the post where I did a quick write-up on each player. Not at all a spoiler alert: through COMC, Justcommons, and Sportlots (plus any existing cards I had from complete sets), I finished up all five PCs, and now I'm showing them off.
Today's player is Gary Wayne, a pitcher for the Twins, Rockies, and Dodgers from 1989-1994; his cards span that exact time period. Before I get to the cards, here's a quick explanation of today's post's title: Netflix picked up what was to be an NBC sitcom called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, written by the hilarious and talented Tina Fey and starring Ellie Kemper of The Office and Bridesmaids. The show's first season was hilarious, including the titular character's doomsday cult kidnapper, the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne, played by Mad Men's Jon Hamm. Make sure to check it out, it's great!
Ok, now it's on to the cards. Wayne has 36 total, and I had four from complete sets (1990 Donruss, Fleer, Score, and Upper Deck), so here are the remaining 32:
1989 Donruss Rookies and Score Rookie/Traded:
Because of the sometimes goofy rules as to what constitutes a RC, these two, which came from box sets, are considered XRCs. Either way, I still like traded/update-type sets, so these are cool.
Gary Wayne 1990 Score Rising Stars and Score Young Superstars II:
Speaking of boxed sets here's a couple more of that type, produced by Score in 1990. I'm not sure that it was necessary to make both, but hey, it was the 90s, so anything went!
1990 O-Pee-Chee RC and Topps RC
1990 Topps Tiffany and Topps Debut '89:
Here we have three cards that look pretty much the same because they pretty much are. As usual the OPC version has French on the back and the Tiffany card is glossy. I do like the idea of the Debut sets Topps did. Here's the box score from Wayne's first game on April 7, 1989, in which he pitched one inning in relief.
1991 Donruss:
I know, Gary--I made the same face too when I saw the green border. A Michigan Man demands BLUE BORDERS.
1991 Fleer:
Yellow's a bit better, though I wouldn't refer to this as "maize." Nice action shot of the lefty, though.
1991 Score:
Ladies and gentlemen, Gary Wayne, LHP for the Innesota Twins!
1991 Stadium Club:
Wayne didn't get a very good photo for his card in Stadium Club's debut set, but I still love the design, including the backs that include an image of the player's Topps RC; curiously they went with his 1990 Debut '89 card instead of his '90 flagship issue. Rookie cards are weird, man.
1991 O-Pee-Chee and Topps
1991 Topps Micro and Tiffany
First of all, no, I don't know what that is on his face and I don't wanna know. Second, I'm not sure why the photographer didn't shoot him from the other side. Finally, Gary's Micro card reminds me that I have versions of Scott Kamieniecki from the same year as well as 1992.
1992 Leaf and Leaf Black Gold:
When I look at these side-by-side it really makes me wonder why Leaf didn't just go with the Black Gold version as the base set. They look much better than the terrible, bland gray-bordered cards, and the only thing I would change is keeping the team logo instead of the weird gold baseball.
1992 Stadium Club:
Back again with Stadium Club, and this photo easily looks like it could have been pulled from the same group as the one used for the 1991 card!
1992 Ultra:
Ah, 1992: the year Ultra's design made a huge leap from the bland '91 edition. The purple bar containing the team and position actually foreshadows his next Major League stop.
1993 Fleer and Fleer Final Edition:
Yeah, like '92 Leaf the boring gray borders do nothing for me. Gary was flipped to the Rockies in March of '93 and made a career-high 65 appearances for Colorado in his penultimate season, as captured on the Final Edition card.
1993 Stadium Club:
1993 Stadium Club First Day Issue and Members Only Parallel:
And finally Wayne gets a Stadium Club photo I like. The First Day Issue cards were apparently limited to "just" 2000 copies, but they're easy enough to find now and aren't serial-numbered, so you'd be hard pressed to prove it!
1993 Topps Traded:
Fellow (future) Rockie Todd Helton has a RC (as a member of Team USA) that makes this set relevant, but here Topps finally depicted Wayne's trade to Colorado.
1994 Donruss:
I don't know if you guys noticed, but Wayne hadn't appeared on a Donruss card since 1991 when this one finally rolled off the presses. Kind of a cool photo of a LHP in profile.
1994 Fleer:
I don't know enough about Wayne to know if he eventually switched to a sidearm motion, but this makes it look like he did! Too bad Fleer cropped the photo so poorly (Topps probably hired the guy immediately upon seeing this card) so you can't see most of his left hand or the ball!
1994 Stadium Club and First Day Issue
1994 Stadium Club Golden Rainbow and Members Only Parallel:
Gary signed with the Dodgers in '94 and appeared in 19 games with them before calling it quits. Stadium Club was the only brand that thought to include him, and that means he was also featured in all three parallels. The "label-maker" set did end up using a pretty good photo of his more dropped-down pitching motion.
And that's another completed player collection in the books! I now have 10 with three more to come in the near future, so watch for those, and as always, follow along with all of my PCs here.
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