Tag Archives: Jason Isringhausen

1991 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Posted by on 12 May 2015 Comments Off on 1991 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Birth of Generation K

Full list of 1991 Mets draft picks

Today’s Mets have a clear surplus of talented young pitchers. With Matt Harvey returning from Tommy John surgery, Jacob deGrom coming off a Rookie of the Year season, Noah Syndergaard making his MLB debut tonight, and Steven Matz not far behind, the future looks bright. And that’s without even considering Zack Wheeler, who should be back on this list sometime next year after he recovers from Tommy John surgery. Hot young pitching is nothing new for the Mets, but neither is heartbreaking disappointment for Mets fans. Case in point: Generation K.

The Mets were a complete disaster in the early ’90s. One after another, big-name free agents failed to deliver anything but embarrassing headlines. The only hope for Mets fans came in the form of the 1991 draft class, which contained pitchers Bobby Jones, Bill Pulsipher, and Jason Isringhausen. The “Worst Team Money Could Buy” Mets were terrible, but Generation K (Pulsipher and Isringhausen plus 1994 pick Paul Wilson) promised to turn things around and send the Mets back to the World Series.

1 Al Shirley 1s Bobby J. Jones 2 Bill Pulsipher 2s Marc Kroon
8 Randy Curtis 12 Jason Jacome 16 Donny White 22 Jason Isringhausen

Partially thanks to their increasing prevalence in MLB, MiLB, and unlicensed baseball card products, prospects were being hyped more than ever before. By 1994, autographs from every team’s top prospects had become commonplace. Pulsipher and Isringhausen had autographs in 1994 and 1995, but the most successful pitcher of the bunch for the Mets, Bobby Jones, would have to wait until 1996 for his first autographs. Rounding out this draft class is a trio of relative nobodies, Randy Curtis (shown in a Mets uniform but with the Padres), Jason Jacome (who actually spent time with the Mets), and Donny White (who signs as Donnie but is listed as Don on Baseball-Reference).

As luck would have it, the Mets would make it to the World Series with the help of someone from this draft class. But not anyone from Generation K. Bobby Jones couldn’t do it by himself though, so we’ll pick up the story in 1995.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Series 1

Posted by on 26 February 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Series 1

Topps remembers Tom Seaver and tries to photoshop out the memory of Jose Reyes

With the [trademarked term for a significant football game] just around the corner at the end of January, one thing was on everyone’s mind – baseball cards!  Topps Series 1 dropped on January 31 with a huge media event that looked like someone put Keith Olbermann and a camera crew in my living room circa 2001.  Anticipation had been building for weeks, filling the 40-day gap since the last Topps product release.  So did the product live up to the hype?

The big news in the lead-up to Topps Series 1 was the inclusion of several short-printed variant cards.  The big ones were photoshopped cards of fan-favorite Jose Reyes and some guy named Al in their new teams’ uniforms (I guess Prince Fielder waited too long to sign).  These were announced as very limited short prints, just to make sure nobody sold them cheap on launch day.  Other SPs included humorous cards showing mascots, Gatorade, and Skip Schumaker’s foot (more on this later).

The theme for the bulk of the insert sets this year is gold.  Golden Moments, Golden Greats, Gold Standard, Gold Futures, gold-colored coins, Gold Rush wrapper redemption cards, and even 1/1 solid gold cards (via redemption of course) filled out the base product.  The Golden Moments insert set filled the annual role of “set spread across all mainline Topps products with relic and autograph variants.”  Manufactured material also got a boost, expanding into metal objects like pins, coins, and rings in addition to the usual cloth offerings (this year’s theme: retired numbers).

With the stage set, launch day held a few surprises.  First, the first-ever card featuring Jose Reyes in a (fake) Marlins uniform was overshadowed by a squirrel.  The Skip Schumaker SP featuring the Cardinals “rally squirrel” was the hot ticket, with one of the first pulled selling for over $600.  After a few ending in the $300+ range, prices quickly settled down to the $100-200 level.  These should bottom out somewhere in the $20-$50 range, which is still absurd.  The Reyes card meanwhile is settling in at about $50-$100, not that it matters.  This is supposed to be about the Mets after all.

Read more »