1992 Topps #948 Rico Rossy

Rico Rossy spent 4 years in the Major Leagues. He came up to the Majors in 1991 with the Atlanta Braves, spent 1992 and 1993 with the Kansas City Royals, and stuck around to play his final season with the Seattle Mariners in 1998.

Rico never got a major Topps card, and is missing cards from the 1991 Topps Traded, 1992 Topps, 1992 Topps Traded, 1993 Topps, 1994 Topps, 1998 Topps Traded, and 1999 Topps sets.
I made his 1994 Topps card as part of that set, so along with that card and my 1992 Topps custom, it crosses 2 off of his career Topps run.

Just wanted to mention that at my other blog, Topps Cards that Never Were, I have finished the complete checklist of missing players for the 1979 Topps set. That set now gives me complete missing player checklists (yearbook style and traded) of all of the Topps sets from the decades of the '50's, '60's, and '70's. Just the '80's (which is close to halfway there with the '83, '84, '85, '86 and others being done), '90's, '00's, and '10's, and I will be finished (unless I don't get done by the time 2020 Topps Update comes out). If you like making customs, check out the site. There are pages for each years' Topps set (on the right sidebar of the desktop version of the site), and on each page is whatever I have done for the missing player checklist, any templates I have, and a picture with the correct fonts for the set (along with a link to download each font).
Thanks for checking out my latest post.

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

1991 Topps #870 Danny Heep

Danny Heep got his first taste of the Majors in 1979 with the Houston Astros. He stayed with them through 1982, then spent 1983-1986 with the Mets, winning the '86 World Series with the club. In 1987, he signed with the Dodgers, and spent 1988 as a key pinch-hitter for their Championship team. He spent 1989 with the Red Sox, hitting .300 in 320 At-Bats, by far the most in a season for him, as a platoon DH and Outfielder. He was back to bench duty with the Sox in 1990, and spent his final season with the Braves in 1991.

Danny got his first Topps card in 1981, and appeared on every set through the 1990 set. His only missing Topps cards are from the 1980, 1991, and 1992 sets. It was hard as heck to find a decent picture of Heep in a Braves uni. The only one I could find was very small, so this was the best I could do for his '92 card.

Back when I collected autographs, I tried to get every 1988 Dodger to sign their 1989 Topps card. Heep was one of the few I still needed, along with Tim Crews, Brian Holton, Ramon Martinez, Jeff Hamilton, Tommy Lasorda, Mike Scioscia, and John Shelby. Kind of makes me wish I would've done customs back then so I could've done everyone on the team.

I have some projects going on for my other blog, those, along with trying to finalize the purchase of a house, moving, and my wife and I preparing for our first child in November have been taking up my wine lately, but I will try to post new cards on here when I have a chance, and once I finish templates and a checklist, I may try to put up another blog like this where I will finish the 2001 Topps set with some help. Stay tuned. Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy 

1992 Topps Mike Bell

Mike Bell only played 2 years in the Majors, 1990 and 1991 with the Braves. He never appeared on a Topps flagship issue, but was in the 1991 Topps Debut set. He put up decent numbers in the Minors, but as a First Baseman, I think every team in the Majors was looking for power, so that could be why Mike only got 2 years in the Bigs. He played in the Braves system in '92 and went on to the Pirates system in 1993, then played 1 year at Independent Alexandria in 1994 before calling it a career. Perhaps if the Braves didn't have Sid Bream in 1992-1993 and Fred McGriff from late '93-'97, and would've kept Ryan Klesko in the Outfield, then Mike would've got his shot at First with the Braves.

This would've been Mike's final Topps card. As with many cards in this set, if I couldn't find a decent photo online, I would look for ones on cards.  This one came from a Minor League issue, and I added the Braves logo to his helmet.

I've been working the last 5 days since coming back from vacation, so I haven't worked on any backs since I left, but I'm hoping to change that tonight. Perhaps I'll get up to the team combo cards, leaving me with only 30 or so left. We'll see. Thanks for taking the time to ready my latest post.
-Jeremy

Errors and Omissions

I don't know how I stumbled upon it, but the other day, I came upon a picture of Nick Esasky's 1992 O-Pee-Chee card, and realized that I somehow didn't include him in my '92 Topps set. I decided to go 1 by 1 through the '92 OPC set and make sure I didn't skip anyone else. While doing so, I realized that I missed John Dopson as well. I also saw that Jim Schaefer had a '92 OPC card (I had used another photo to create his '92 card. I decided to leave the Shaefer card as is. 

Then, while I was organizing my binders the other day, I realized that I had made Tony Castillo's '92 card as an Atlanta Brave when he really finished the '91 season as a New York Met, so I made a corrected version of that card. 

I believe with these 3 corrections that the 1992 Topps set is now complete, and stands at 1366 cards. 

Eventually I will get back to working on the backs of the cards, maybe once the craziness of the holidays subsides. Thanks for checking out my blog, and if you see any more cards I forgot or need to change let me know. 

-Jeremy

1992 Topps Atlanta Braves team set

Unlike the 1992 Topps Minnesota Twins team set, the 1992 Topps Atlanta Braves set is missing a bunch of players. 12 to be exact, while the Twins set was like 5 or 6 short from containing the whole roster. The Braves set contains a bunch of subset cards, too, and will probably turn out to be one of the biggest teams sets. I finished the Cincinatti Reds set today, and started on the Houston Astros set as well. I'm slowly, but surely making my way through the set. Thanks for checking out my latest work.
-Jeremy

1992 Topps Doug Sisk

Doug Sisk appeared on many Topps cards throughout his career. His last one was in 1989, even though his last season was 1991. I did some research to try to find out why he didn't pitch in 1989, but couldn't find any. I did, however, find out that many New York Mets fans dreaded seeing him pitch after he got injured because he walked so many hitters. This would've been Doug's last Topps card.