urbani sprawl

i believe most folks know of my love for o-pee-chee and the different variations that their sets included each year for players changing teams or retiring or what have you. i dedicated an entire blog to the full run of these variants from 1971 through 1988, for goodness sake!

within those variations, there were a couple of instances where a card referenced three different teams. joe morgan's 1983 super veteran card showed him with the colt .45s and the giants, and then announced his deliverance to the phillies. that was three teams somewhat by design, while frank tanana's 1981 card showed him as an angel, with his new team designation on the hat being the red sox. the "now with" text, however, referenced the white sox.

i thought of that tanana card when i found this 1996 leaf signature series tom urbani card at the monthly card show last month.

first, i noticed that urbani eschewed the space that leaf allotted for the autograph, preferring to sign elsewhere - just as wilton guerrero did on cards i shared in a previous post. once i got past that, i noticed the "trade from cardinals" text and the fact that this was actually a detroit tigers card. i decided to bring it home - the out of place autograph is a novelty worth a dollar i suppose, but i really wanted to get it scanned so i could share that it is a rare three team card.  

here's the back:

now all of a sudden, urbani is a member of the california angels!

according to baseball reference, urbani at no point was a part of the angel organization. he pitched for the tigers into august of 1996 before being sent down for the remainder of the season. after the season ended, he signed with the rangers. so, like tanana's, this three team card is due to an error by the manufacturer, but it's still an interesting anomaly. at least to me.