#124 Dmitri Young St Louis Cardinals (The Meat Hook was the 4th overall player selected in the 1991 draft for the Cards)#58 Moises Alou Florida Marlins (1997 was the only year that Alou spent in South Florida. He made the All Star team, drove in 115 runs and led the Fish to the Fall Classic where they beat Cleveland)
#6 Kenny Lofton Atlanta Braves (During spring training in ’97 Lofton and Alan Embree went to the Braves in exchange for David Justice and Marquis Grissom. Lofton hit .333 in his one season with the Braves… He choked at the plate in the postseason and signed back with Cleveland in ’98)
#137 Hideki Irabu New York Yankees (The botc says Irabu was considered the Japananese Nolan Ryan prior to signing with the Yankees. Didn’t quite work out that way in the big leagues)
#100 Jeff Fassero Seattle Mariners (After the 1996 season the Mariners sent 3 players to the Expos for Fassero giving them the best all left-handed 1-2-3 punch in the American League. Randy Johnson, Jeff Fassero and Jaimie Moyer, along with an amazing offense led the Mariners to a 90 win season, netting 1st place in the AL West. Unfortunately the Orioles rolled over the M’s in the first round of the playoffs. Fassero won the only game for Seattle when they lost the series 3-1)
#43 Paul O’Neill New York Yankees (O’Neill had a pretty nice career, but all I think of was his guest spot on Seinfeld when I see his cards. Paul O’Neill hit TWO homeruns for Bobby!)
#18 Chuck Knoblauch Minnesota Twins (Knoblauch batted .341 for the Twins in ’96, and in ’97 he won the Trifecta for AL 2nd baseman as an All Star, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger winner. He was traded to the Yankees for 5 players before the ’98 season)Okay, that is pack #24 of X Press. This was a jumbo box, so I am only 2/3 of the way there. If you missed the last pack I ripped, it was posted on A Pack to be Named Later, you can check it out HERE. Deep breath, I got a lot of ripping to do! Go Rays! Troll out.
#69 Wade Boggs New York Yankees (Hall of Famer in the pack!!! One thing I don’t like about this brand is that it doesn’t show career totals for stats on the back. It does break them down month by month, which is cool, but I wanted to know where Boggs was at in terms of hits and I don’t feel like looking it up. He did bat .311 for the Yanks in ’96)
#24 Rey Ordonez New York Mets MEN OF SUMMER Insert (this is the first insert we’ve pulled out of this one. This is a 150 card insert set and the odds are 1:7. I bet this was a bear to finish back in the day. Theoretically you would have to rip 1,050 packs and not get a double. Remember there were no card blogs back in ’97!)
#137 Hideki Irabu 1997 Rookie New York Yankees (I’m not sure if the Yanks paid him by the win or by the pound, but he made a lot of US dollars during his short big league career-over parts of 6 seasons he posted a 34-35 record with a 5.15 ERA)
#36 Jay Buhner Seattle Mariners (I wasn’t sure if I had shown what the back of the card looks like. This one shows Jay’s signature pants stain and shows that he hit 12 homers in May and 44 for the season in ’96. His final line in ’96 was .271 BA/44 HR/ 138 RBI. Damn.)
#16 Mike Piazza LA Dodgers (Speaking of rings… Piazza never won his. He never won the MVP award either. He was in the top-10 in voting 8 times and finished second in ’96 and ’97, but he never took it home. His stats in ’96 were awesome for anyone, especially a catcher-.336/36/105. Nice. He brought things to another level in 1997 when he hit .362 with 40 homers and 124 RBI, but he finished behind Larry Walker in every offensive category and also in the MVP voting.)
