A Blast from the past... 2001 UD Baseball

Since I've refocused on card collecting again, part of my mission is to go through the monster boxes that I've had for quite a while and see what I've got in them.  I started doing this on Sunday, and I thought to myself, wow I've collected a lot of different stuff over the past 15 years (off and on).  Some of it good, some of it ....well.....

So, I figured what the hell, I'll take a trip down memory lane and look at some of these old sets, scan a few cards to show everyone what I'm talking about and discuss the players on a couple of the cards.

The first box I had looked through had the 2001 Upper Deck baseball that I had bought oh so many years ago. 


Pictured below are 3 Star Rookie cards from that set:

It's pretty interesting how much latitude UD used in determining who their "Star" rookies were.

Card #43 in the set was Jimmy Rollins, definitely a star.  Led the NL in triples 4 times, steals once, and should reach the 2000 hit mark sometime in 2012.
Card #21 in the set is Bronson Arroyo, double digits in wins 6 times, 3 straight seasons of 15 or more wins with the Reds between 2008-2010, and yes, he wore #69 for the Pirates for 3 years (sorry, the deviant in me just had to come out sooner or later).
Card #35 in the set, Joe Lawrence who played for my hometown team, the Blue Jays.  Joe Lawrence you say?  Who?  Yea, I wondered that myself, so I looked him up.  Jays 1st rd pick in 1996 (16th overall),  played a grand total of 45 games in the show with a .180 average and 2 HR.  (Like I said, UD used a lot of latitude in determining their star rookies).

Yes, I will keep Joe Lawrence in my Blue Jay collection, even though he was there for just a couple of cups of coffee.

By the way, I'm always looking to trade for Blue Jays or Leafs (yes I'm an avid hockey collector as well).  If you have anything you're looking to trade, drop me a line...

thanks for reading!