Boys and girls, it's time for Stupid Card Manufacturer Tricks! Today's participant is Donruss, who put lipstick on the pig that was foil parallels and called it "Career Stat Line"! In 2005, Donruss randomly inserted these parallels in packs of their flagship set, serial-numbered to a selected one-, two-, or three-digit number for each featured player. That serial number corresponded to, you guessed it, one of said player's career statistics. The only one of these cards I have features Adam Loewen, who had been the Orioles' first-round draft pick in 2002 and didn't even sign a contract until well into 2003. He wouldn't make his big league debut until May of 2006. So Donruss took a gander at his fledgling minor-league stat line and went with 116, his total number of innings pitched in pro ball. The card you see above has a serial number of 114/116 stamped on the back in silver foil. Pretty wild, huh?
Stop yawning, I can't hear myself think.
In doing 30 seconds of hack research for this post, I discovered that there were also SEASON Stat Line parallels. The mind boggles. How did this company lose its MLB license the very year that they came up with such an ingenious idea?
The things card companies pulled when I wasn't collecting makes me wonder how cards even exist now.
ReplyDeletenight owl - You and me both, sir.
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