my favorite cards of the year - 1996 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.

i went to the national in 1996. it was held in anaheim and was the second national that i attended (my dad took me to the first one in 1980, although i don't think it was advertised as the national back then). i had not been paying attention in 1991 when it was also in anaheim, but i was full bore back in to collecting this time around. i don't recall anything specific from the convention, however. i am sure i was looking for some 1970 topps cards for my set build and some steve garvey cards, too.

favorite non-dodger card: collector's choice babe ruth

i showed this card back in june as it is part of the subset that i collected in addition to completing the full collector's choice set when it was released. i was all-in for collector's choice starting in 1994, and some of my favorite cards from each year are from the brand (see 1994 and 1995). the card features an iconic photo of the bambino, and one that i had seen many times, although not on a baseball card, and so i was happy to have it with the babe's complete career stats on the back. 

back in the early 1980's, one of my best friend's brothers had a poster of babe ruth on his wall, and it was a poster with this image. i remember asking my friend why his brother had a poster of ruth (the posters on my wall were of steve garvey, ron cey, and don sutton), and his brother overheard my question. his answer was "because it's f*cking babe ruth". i can respect that.

favorite dodger card: pinnacle raul mondesi

there weren't a lot of centerfield shots on baseball cards back when this card was issued, and there still aren't many today. most of the games we watch are on tv, with this being the dominant view of the action, but it is underrepresented on cardboard. i liked this card right away for the vantage point, as well as the fact that pinnacle used the image even though it's kind of fuzzy, and they didn't bother to level it out, either. it's reminiscent of 1970's topps cards where it looked like a lot of the stadiums were built on a slope.

up next, 2017. stay tuned!