Show Off Your Rare 2000’s Inserts Thread

[Mephisto]

I love the 90’s version thread. I often see inserts and variations I didn’t know existed. Some people are pretty much exclusive to the 90’s but I do like to collect based on players and many of the top 90’s players I grew up on had their careers end in the 2000’s with just a handful going into the 2010’s.

Even though I watch a lot of baseball today on MLB.TV there aren’t a lot of more recent players I enjoy collecting and there are just a handful of card variations I focus on past 2009 with most of the players I grew up watching having retired by that point.

Fan favorites Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn would hang around until 2001. Even the Man of Steal Rickey Henderson played through 2003.

Unlike many collector’s I do love me some pitchers and many of the 90’s top pitchers would say goodbye in the 2000’s including Clemens, Cone, Maddux, Glavine, Mussina, with Pedro, Smoltz, and Big Unit hanging it up following the 2009 season.

Most of the 90’s power hitters bid adieu by the close of the 2000’s including McGwire, Canseco, Gonzalez, Piazza, Palmeiro, Bonds, Bagwell, Kent, Sosa, Sheffield, McGriff, Delgado and Thomas. Even though the top collector power hitter of the 90’s Ken Griffey Jr. would wrap things up in 2010, his final career home run would come in 2009.
Power and speed players of the 90’s such as 1995 MVP award winner Barry Larkin and 3,000 hit club member Craig Biggio wouldn’t hang up their cleats until well into the 2000s.

What else is more 90’s than prehumidor Rockies studs? Walker, Galarraga, Bichette and Castilla all retired in the 2000’s.

The 2000’s also saw the baseball deaths of officiallyMLB licensed lines from Fleer and Donruss. Upper Deck who was a major disrupter starting in 1989 just in time for the 90’s, would lose its MLB license in 2009 as well. Upper Deck tried to “sneak” some product out in 2010 but no where near the level it once was and a lawsuit would put a final end to it.

Aside from the great 90’s player that saw their careers end in the 2000’s this decade also brought about the early MLB careers of Pujols, Cabrera, Ichiro and pitchers such Verlander, Scherzer, Kershaw and Grineke,

While the 90’s brought about Topps’ introduction of Refractors, the 2000’s introduced the popular Superfractors.

I had long avoided Superfractors as I didn’t want to deal with the FOMO of chasing 1/1s but when I saw the 2005 Topps Chrome Palmeiro come up for sale I had to make an offer on it. It happened to be the first year of the Superfractor and Palmeiro’s final year as an active player. There is nothing like taking B12 and Viagra before hitting the field.




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