Dennis Rasmussen, 1992 Stadium Club #749

I'm barely more than halfway through the 50-pack junx wax rip that was made possible by my sister's generosity, and I've already had some fun finds, including a 1987 Donruss Jamie Moyer rookie card and some early 1990s minor league cards of Leo Gomez and Tim Wakefield. I also tore open another pack of 1992 Stadium Club Series 3, which I'm really starting to love.

I've discussed my particular interest in collecting cards that depict various players on as many of their teams as possible, but the second-year offering of Stadium Club has already given me a few guys who never played a single regular-season game with the team on their card. It's likely that they took the pictures in the middle of 1992's Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues and finalized the checklist in an attempt to keep up with Upper Deck's "final series", which also showed players in their new digs in a timelier fashion. As a result, I have this card of never-was-an-Oriole Dennis Rasmussen, a veteran lefty who pitched for the Padres and Yankees but couldn't make the O's out of Spring Training. He spent a couple of miserable months at Rochester (0-7, 5.67 ERA) before being released in mid-June and bounced around for three more years in the majors and minors before retiring.

I'd already gotten my hands on this card at an earlier date, but the "new" pack of Stadium Club yielded a former Oriole in unfamiliar colors: Jeff Ballard with the Cardinals. I'd previously known that he spent parts of two subpar seasons with the Pirates at the end of his career (1993-1994), but I have never seen or heard of any cards of him in a Pittsburgh uniform and I'd essentially given up hope of adding him to my "multi-team" collection. Not so fast! The Montana native signed with St. Louis in January of '92 but did not head north with the team in April. He had a great season in AAA Louisville, though, going 12-8 with a 2.52 ERA. I guess it just wasn't good enough for Cards manager and future genius Joe Torre.

If you're wondering whether I actually just spent two paragraphs talking about guys who didn't play for teams, I don't know what to tell you. It's a weird hobby sometimes.