1992 Pinnacle #227 - Dan PasquaOnce upon a time, there were a plethora of baseball card companies in existence. Each had many different releases. Sometimes the sets were so diverse, that one could not distinguish which cards came from which company without looking at the tiny print.
2009 is a much simpler time, in that respect. There are only so many places where cards come from today. By 2010, there will only be one card company that will be fully licensed to produce cards. That company would be Topps. As of next year, only Topps will be able to produce images of players with logos. Any other company will need to get creative.
Back in 1992, only card sets that came with baked goods and cereal had to airbrush logos out. Pinnacle has long since ceased production of baseball cards. Still, the memories of this age are fresh in my mind. It may have been the overproduction era, but there were so many choices.
Innovations in how cards were presented were born out of healthy competition between card companies. Where will the Dan Pasquas of today find a home? Today's Dan Pasqua is someone like a Nick Swisher, with one difference. Dan Pasqua would not showboat or complain about where he ended up on the field. Dan Pasqua would play wherever the manager assigned him.
He did not fuss or cry foul if he wasn't in the lineup. He came to the park ready to play and did his job to the best of his ability. There was no flash, yet Dan occasionally had a flair for the dramatic, when he would hit a mammoth home run. His numbers may not show it, but I felt confident every time that Dan came up against a right handed pitcher.
I, along with many other collectors, miss Pinnacle. I miss all of the other fallen brands too. There was a feeling I would get when I went to the card shop and had a smorgasbord of packs to choose from. Pinnacle always stood out when I was in a pinch. Dan Pasqua stood out to me when the Sox were in a pinch. Whenever I run across a Pinnacle card in my collection, I always think about this card of Pasqua and collecting as a teenager. Looking back, I wouldn't trade either memory for the world.
2 comments:
There were probably less choices in 1992 (Topps, Bowman, Stadium Club, Donruss, Leaf, Score, Pinnancle and Upper Deck) but definitely over production. I miss Score Baseball. The 1993 Score Baseball Set was one of the Best of all time
I was talking about choices in different companies. Each company had sets that didn't seem thrown together at the last minute. With only two companies having all the necessary licensing (only one in 2010), the sets are more likely to be lazier than they seem this year.
1992 still had Fleer, Classic and O-Pee-Chee as companies producing multiple sets.
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