Complete Player

Ah, the joys of late 90's inserts. Every insert had a gimmick! Nowadays they just throw a BS short print in the set or chop up a priceless artifact to embed in the cards. Back then each set needed about 6 different insert sets each with it's own raison d'être. Here's an insert from 1998 Score that caught my eye this weekend. Complete Players:

There were ten players in the set, all of whom were considered 'complete players'. Nevermind that Mark McGwire, one of the most one dimensional players in history, was in the set the cards focused on different aspects of their game. Andruw's attributes in 1998 were Approach, Hitting and On Base. Why fielding isn't one of his attributes, I really don't know. The backs of the cards mostly talk about his World Series homers and his quick rise to the majors.

That's right, cards. Each player got three cards each to make up a 30 card set. The design sort of reminds me of a space-age '88 Donruss with the blue and black borders overwhelmed by a ton of foil stamping. At a pull ratio of 1 in 23 packs, they were attainable but a challenge to complete an entire set. Complicating matters is that they are found with both gold and silver holofoil. I'm not sure what the difference between the two was, but I have the gold version here. Maybe Gold was hobby only?

There was a reason why each player got three cards each, that was the gimmick of the set. If you flip them over and put them together...

you got a complete player! Very ingenious! Can't you wait for the card companies to run out of ideas and start mining the late 90's for stuff to make their cards interesting?

Oh wait, nevermind...