Jan 23, 2009

Cameo Fevor

The search for cameo cards has overtaken my nights. I've been up scouring my boxes searching for examples and noticing trends. I started to think maybe Ryne Sandberg was a King of Cameos after coming across the following examples:
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Three cards, all from the early '90s, all with varying shots of Sandberg sliding into second.

Then I discovered an oddity that fascinated me. The curious case of Kirt Manwaring and Mark Grace.
It started with this card:
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One of my favorite cards as a kid and a part of my Mark Grace collection, despite being a Kirt Manwaring card.

In my quick searches though, I found there was more:
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Apparently Grace had quite a grudge against Kirt and photographers were well aware of the potential fireworks if Gracey was on the basepaths.

But there's more:
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Not nearly as exciting or potentially explosive, but yup that's Kirt Manwaring behind the plate during this Grace at bat.

I'm sure someone out there could find more examples of players being linked on cards, but I'm sorta blown away by it.

Now getting back to my belief that perhaps Sandberg would be the new King of Cameos...well maybe not. I remembered a great Mark Grace website run by Brad Wackerlin. As part of that site, Brad has a Mark Grace card museum that includes a Cameos section. 33 Grace Cameo cards!! And the best part of it...another Manwaring/Grace combo!!!
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I'm pretty sure Kirt hit fewer homeruns than he had appearances on cards with Mark Grace.

Amazing.

Go Halos!

2 comments:

  1. The Sanbergs are interesting. In all these years of collecting , sometimes I really don't LOOK at the cards. That's going to have to change !! I added to your following partly because my youngest son , Andy , a junior at BGSU , is also a Halo fan .

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  2. Hello! Thanks for the link to my Grace cameo cards. I was looking at the 1991 Score Manwaring card today and noticed that the batting helmet flying off has the #29 on back of it. Weird that Grace was wearing Doug Dascenzo's helmet! Since this was written, I've found two more Grace/Manwaring hookups: they're pictured together on the backs of Manwaring's 1994 Upper Deck card and #1994 UD Collector's Choice cards. 6 cameos together! YOu can see them on the cameo page of my website.

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