Well Designed Inserts- What Have I Missed?

Part of not being engaged in the baseball card part of the hobby for so long is that I don't know where to start.  One of my favorite parts of collecting is finding unique looking inserts that I know I'll enjoy coming back to look at again and again.

That is why I am asking for your help.  What insert sets from the 90s that might include players from my wantlist have I missed, or even ones that don't, particularly from the mid-late 90s?

I am more likely to put together an insert set than a full base set.  The last baseball insert I worked on was 2006 Bazooka Stamps, which obviously isn't from the 90s, but I associate the coolest insert sets with the mid-late 90s.  I have 24 out of 30 cards from this set.  I collected postage stamps when I was younger and so to me this was a unique, interesting insert set to put together.

Here we have some Braves.  The Braves starting pitching for the most part has been solid, but with several guys out for the year (Beachy, Medlen) and another struggling (Minor), how nice it would be to have Hudson back in the rotation.

Looking back on it now I find these cards less appealing than I did at the time.  The backs are essentially blank and the cards have no color.  I would appreciate these more if they had a variety of colors, even if keeping the same design on each card.  Even so, this is a pretty unique idea for an insert set.  Plus since there's nothing of significance on the back, I can put these into pages on the front and back sides.

An example of a set I am likely to acquire a few cards from is 1996 Studio Stained Glass Stars.  The cards up on ebay look awesome and I imagine there aren't any other insert sets that try to mimic the look of stained glass on a card.

This post wouldn't be complete without me showing some of my favorite inserts from my Orioles and Braves collections.

I've always viewed Flair Hot Numbers as an iconic insert set from the 90s, a set that all other insert sets are measured against.  Maybe there's another that fits that category for you?  

This Rawhide insert from Fleer Ultra is my favorite Ripken in my collection.  The texture on the card which is hard to see in the scan is made to look like the surface of a glove.

Send me all your transparent inserts!  I think the Stadium Club Chrome set deserved more years in production and the inserts from SCC are great.  

Shiny inserts from late 90s/early 00s Topps!  Can't get enough of them.  

While I may not be looking to complete all of these types of sets, I do enjoy picking up cards of my favorite players and teams that fall into these sets.  Maybe I'll go back and try to complete the Bazooka Stamps set, especially since I am 5/6 of the way there.

From the Binder- Cesar Izturis

Yes, you saw right- I collect Cesar Izturis cards.  Izturis, the one-time All-Star and Gold Glove winner at shortstop for the Dodgers.  Watching Izturis and Alex Cora team up in the middle of the infield for the mid-2000 Dodgers was a thing of beauty.  

I took a trip out west with my parents and sister to visit some family in 2003, and on that trip my dad and I saw the Dodgers and Cardinals at Dodger Stadium.  It is one of my favorite baseball memories.  Ricky Henderson hit a home run for the Dodgers in his last major league season and a young Albert Pujols homered for the Cardinals.  Here is the boxscore if you are interested.  It is my favorite MLB game I've been to short of the Red Sox game I attended on my honeymoon, with great players on both sides.  I followed that group of Dodgers pretty closely for a few years and still follow them to a lesser extent now that all the players from that team are elsewhere or retired.  Izturis batted 8th for the Dodgers that night but I enjoyed rooting for him and watching his glovework.  In the following years I acquired a little more than a page worth of Izturis cards (and cards of others from that team, Shawn Green, Paul Lo Duca, etc...).  Below are some of my favorites.

The first is the only rookie card I have of Izturis, his 2000 Topps card.  In the center is his Rookie Crusade insert from 2002 Donruss, the only serial #'d card I have of Izturis.  10 years ago getting a serial #'d card of anyone was a pretty big deal.  On the right you can see Cesar avoiding a sliding Marcus Giles, maybe after having thrown to first.

I would count several Fleer Ultra sets among my favorites over the years.   The 2005 iteration would rank high among them, with their great action shots.  Speaking of, I miss Fleer.  Cesar's 2004 Topps Chrome Gold Refractor isn't serial #'d but it is one of the few gold refractors I have of any player.  And finally, I enjoy any year of Topps Heritage.  I could do without the white border but it's an attractive card. The back of this one describes Cesar using his speed and quickness at shortstop to shore up the infield that had been plagued with errors in seasons prior.

I'll always appreciate the role Izturis played on those Dodger teams in the early-mid 2000s.  I'd like to add an autograph of Izturis to my (small) collection soon.