Cards That Never Were – By Dave Sliepka and Theo Chen

A few days ago, I shared a post called Celebrating the Reverse – Card Backs With Jim McLauchlin. In it, I shared a fantastic article from the September 1991 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine that jokingly presents the first quasi-annual Sy Berger Awards for Card Back Excellence (or Lack Thereof). Today, I’m doing something similar and sharing another fantastic piece from a magazine, this time from the official program for the 16th National Sports Collectors Convention in July 1995.

16th National Sports Collectors Convention Official Program

The convention organizers included five detailed articles from leading card and memorabilia magazines, and this one was from Beckett Baseball Card Monthly covering Cards That Never Were. Dave Sliepka and Theo Chen offered a visual look at what could have been in baseball cards but wasn’t. They limited themselves to active or recently active players and concentrated only on cards that realistically could have been produced. Given how popular custom cards are now, I think a lot of you will get a kick out of what they came up with. I’ll share the entire article at the end with the details of each card.

1974 Topps Dave Winfield, Washing “NAT’L LEA.”

1974 Topps Dave Winfield, Washing “NAT’L LEA.”

1983 Topps Traded Don Mattingly

1983 Topps Traded Don Mattingly

1986 Fleer Fred McGriff/Ty Gainey

1986 Fleer Fred McGriff/Ty Gainey

1986 Fleer Update Bo Jackson

1986 Fleer Update Bo Jackson

1986 Topps Traded Ruben Sierra

1986 Topps Traded Ruben Sierra

1987 Fleer Greg Maddux/Rafael Palmeiro

1987 Fleer Greg Maddux/Rafael Palmeiro

1988 Topps Gregg Jefferies

1988 Topps Gregg Jefferies

1989 Score Ken Griffey Jr.

1989 Score Ken Griffey Jr.

1989 Upper Deck Joey Belle

1989 Upper Deck Joey Belle

1989 Upper Deck Deion Sanders

1989 Upper Deck Deion Sanders

1990 Donruss The Rookies Frank Thomas

1990 Donruss The Rookies Frank Thomas

1990 Bowman Dave Justice

1990 Bowman Dave Justice

1990 Leaf Travis Fryman and Juan Gonzalez

1990 Leaf Travis Fryman and Juan Gonzalez

1991 Stadium Club Mike Mussina

1991 Stadium Club Mike Mussina

1993 Fleer Mike Piazza

1993 Fleer Mike Piazza

1993 Donruss George Brett

1993 Donruss George Brett

1993 Topps Traded Alex Rodriguez

1993 Topps Traded Alex Rodriguez

Cards That Never Were Complete Article

Cards That Never Were – Pages 50/51
Cards That Never Were – Page 52
Cards That Never Were – Page 53
Cards That Never Were – Page 54
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