A New Place to Buy Cards Part #3

Another highlight of my purchase at the newly discovered card shop was a set called Upper Deck Rivals. This set came out in 2004 right after the Red Sox defeated the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. This 32 card set features this rivals jumbo card shown above along with some other cool cards of Yankees and Red Sox stars that I will show here.

The main part of this set consists of the rival base cards. This shows star players from both franchises, both past, and present. The design is very Upper Deck as it has a modern design with a nice Rivals logo in the middle of the bottom part of the card. The A-Rod card is pretty good however

I was more excited to see Yankees legends like Yogi Berra and Lou Gehrig. The black and white pictures were truly a smart decision as it shows those who buy the set how far back this rivalry really goes, to way before color images were first developed.

And while all these Yankees cards are nice to have

I was obviously way more excited to see what Red Sox players would be included. These cards include images of older players like Luis Tiant and Fred Lynn, but much to the credit of Upper Deck, these are pictures that I haven't seen anywhere else. The Tiant card is by far my favorite not just since he's one of my favorite Red Sox players included in the set, but also because it shows the star pitcher in a more unconventional photo as he appears to be signing his 1976 Topps card (I can tell it's 1976 by the card back and that it's easier to see in person).

The other Red Sox players include Pedro Martinez and Bobby Doerr who tragically passed away earlier this week at the age of 99. Doerr, at the time of his passing, was the oldest living Hall of Famer.

RIP Bobby.

In addition to the star player cards, Upper Deck chose to include cards of players from the rival teams to commemorate, well, how big of rivals they are with one another. It honors not just players such as Wakefield and Boone, bur also skippers like Don Zimmer and Billy Martin.

There was also another part of this set in which they show players who dared to wear both the Red Sox and Yankees uniforms. Obviously, we have Babe Ruth, but then we have one of my favorite players of all-time in Wade Boggs. The 3rd baseman is another player of whom I have over 100 cards, mainly on the Red Sox but also on the Yankees and even the Rays.

And the final card of the set is this special What If insert (the back is written by Peter Gammons) where Gammons suggests different situations involving these 2 teams in which a different outcome could've changed history. I was lucky enough to get a card of Yaz which is numbered 2147/2150. This card is by far my favorite of the box, because of how sleek it is and how it reminds me of the glory days of baseball card collecting. Plus, I got this card of a Red Sox rather than a Yankee, so that's another plus for this box.