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:



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:

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:

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:

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!!!

I'm pretty sure Kirt hit fewer homeruns than he had appearances on cards with Mark Grace.

Amazing.

Go Halos!

Cameo Cards

In an odd run of events, I inspired Cincinnati Reds Cards to wonder whether or not the players in the background mattered to team or player collectors. His question in turn inspired me to want to search my own collection and discuss this topic. I have always been fascinated by what else is happening on a card. One of the first cards that popped into my mind was the 1991 Score Kirt Manwaring card.


As a collector of Mark Grace cards for a number of years I knew just where to find this card of a Giants catcher...in the back pages of my binder dedicated to a Cubs First Basemen. Besides just being a very cool action shot, I loved that this card had one of my favorite players on it. It instantly lost its status as a Giants card or Kirt Manwaring card and instead became a Mark Grace card.

So I decided to break out one of the storage boxes and grab a stack to see what I could find. To my surprise, I found a couple of nice examples and one jewel to add to a collection.


1992 Score Mike Brumley. Clearly these cameo cards most often show up on cards depicting an attempt at breaking up the double play. Here we have HOFer Cal Ripken Jr. sliding under the leaping Brumley. The vision of Ripken is small, but definite.


Clearly I bought too many packs of 1992 Score. Bill Doran just trying to save the throw into second while Ryne Sandberg slides in. Another real crisp action shot, with another HOFer on the slide. Score was all over it in 1992.

Finally, the card that made my day.

1992 Donruss Joey Cora Luis Polonia!
My main man Luis Polonia immortalized on yet another card. A card that I may never have known about were it not for the bantering of blogs. The Pursuit of Polonia continues and has just been strengthened. I love the Cameo Card!!

Go Halos!