my favorite cards of the year - 1992 edition

i recently introduced my mini collection focusing on my favorite cards from each year that i've been a collector. the basic gist is that i wanted to create a space for the cards that i most appreciated having in my collection in the year that they were released. these were cards that i acquired in the year that they were issued, and that i considered to be my favorites at the time. i have disallowed (most) cards that are already in other mini collections in order to avoid having a mini collection consisting of more steve garvey, double plays, and dodger stadium cards.

in 1992 i graduated from college and was working in the real world. i was pretty much only collecting topps back then - i bought a few boxes of wax to make sure i could complete the set - but i did buy a few packs of upper deck. at any rate, topps won out this year as far as my favorite cards were concerned.

favorite non-dodger card: topps cal ripken jr

topps continued with the great photography that was featured on many cards in their 1991 set. this card of ripken posing next to lou gehrig's monument at yankee stadium was similar to the '91 card that featured roger clemens out at fenway's green monster scoreboard. my affinity for consecutive games played streaks is well documented, and this card features the two players with the longest streaks in the history of the game.

favorite dodger card: topps darryl strawberry

ok, so this is where my rules kind of get in the way. tom lasorda's topps card should be here, but i already have copies of it in my lurker and evolution of the 1978 topps dodgers collections, so i went with this one instead. it really was one of my favorite cards from that year, as strawberry finally got an action shot on a dodger card with this one, and i was excited about it. it wasn't until years later that i was able to confirm the game at which this photo was taken. i think it's great that a 1992 upper deck card depicts the play that followed this one.

up next, 1979. stay tuned.