1992 Topps #987 Jeff Schaefer

 Today's missing Topps card is #987 Jeff Schaefer.

If this Topps card looks familiar, that’s because it was part of the 1992 O-Pee-Chee set. It was card #391 in the OPC set, and replaced card #391, the Ron Gant All-Star card in the 1992 Topps set, since for some reason, OPC didn’t replicate the All-Star or record breaker cards in their set. 

Jeff made his Major League debut in 1989 with the Chicago White Sox. He played the 1990-1992 seasons with the Seattle Mariners, and spent the 1994 season with the Oakland Athletics, his last one in the Majors. 

Schaefer is one of my ‘white whales’ for the 1994 Topps Traded and 1995 Topps sets. He only played 6 games for the A’s in 1994, and I was unable to find a photo of him in an Athletics uniform. I was able to reach out to him in hopes that he knew of a photo that was taken of him as an Athletic, and he said he knew that a newspaper had a photo of him as an Athletic, and that was it and that he doesn’t own a copy.  With no photo, I had to conjure one up, and for the record, the Pirates and Athletics are the hardest team to do that for, just because of black, yellow, and green being difficult colors to blend and either having to somehow cut and paste a different hat and uniform on a player or have to somehow create a realistic looking cap from one painted green or black. It’s a tough job as you can see later. 

Jeff got his first and only major Topps issue in the 1991 Topps set. He is missing cards from the 1989 Topps Traded set, the 1990 Topps set, the 1990 Topps Traded set, the 1993 Topps set, the 1994 Topps Traded set, and the 1995 Topps set. Besides the 1992 Topps custom I’ve made, I have also created his 1993 Topps, 

1994 Topps Traded, 

and 1995 Topps customs. 

Jeff is just missing cards from the 1988 Topps Traded, 1990 Topps, and 1990 Topps Traded cards to complete his career Topps run. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy