1992 Topps #905 Rick Mahler

Rick Mahler played for 13 years in the Majors, recording a Major League record 3 shutouts on Opening Day. He came up to the Big Leagues in 1979 with the Atlanta Braves, and stayed with them through 1988. He spent 1989 and 1990 with the Cincinnati Reds, winning the World Series in 1990 with them. His final Big League season was spent with the Montreal Expos and Atlanta Braves in 1991. His brother Mickey Mahler also pitched in the Majors from 1977-1986.  After his pitching career, Rick became a coach, and I actually got to meet him in 2004 when he was a coach with the St. Lucie Mets. They came to Lakeland, Florida to play the Lakeland Tigers, and after the game, I went by the bus and Rick signed a stack of cards for me, and was really nice. Sadly, in 2005, Rick passed away in 2005 from a heart attack.

Rick didn't get his first Topps card until the 1982 set. He also appeared on a Braves Team Leaders subset card that year. He got into the 1983 set, but was left out of the 1984 set. He appeared in the 1985-1991 sets, and didn't get his sunset card in the 1992 set. He also got a Topps Traded card in 1989. Rick is missing cards from the 1980, 1981, and 1984 sets.

I've been doing a lot of work on customs for the 1994 set. Right now, I'm working in numerical order, and am in a big clump of coaches. I also did a little work on the 1999 set, adding some card that I found on a website of what looks like some kind of online baseball game. The teams in the game are different years, but the cards are the same year as the year of the team (example: if someone had the 2004 Red Sox team roster, they are pictured on a 2004 Topps card). I chose to make my customs the same way the Topps sets are, where the stats are from the year before the cards are issued, so some of the cards won't get in the main set, but will help out with Traded sets. There are a few other teams on that site ('99 Astros), and I believe there are multiple seasons, so I think once I have the '97-'00 checklists done that I will research every page I can find and add cards to my lists. Thanks for checking out my latest card.
-Jeremy