This post is part of an ongoing feature The Great Griffey Base Card Project.
Donruss’
aesthetic began skewing more and more high end in 1992. Check out that Design Timeline and you can watch
as each design of the mid-90’s gets more and more contemporary, even
adult. Probably in the very same meeting
at which this new direction was agreed upon, Donruss must have also decided
they needed to offset this move by creating another set for the younger
collectors - the ones who care less about gold foil in fancy cursive and
high-end photography. These kids wanted
action, color, pizzazz, chutzpah, maybe even a little moxie. “You know, for kids!” is probably exactly how
this brand was pitched. Thus Triple Play was born.
From the
beginning this was a simple brand with photography that could only be described
as “neato.” There were not a lot of
inserts, but it was jam-packed with relatively unique action shots, the first
ever official cards for team mascots, and Fun
at the Ballpark cards featuring Jay Bell milking a cow. What fun!
Here is
every* Triple Play design by year:
1992:
This is not
the worst inaugural set I’ve ever seen.
I can see how kids would like the orange laser beam horizontal across
the center flaring out to red beneath a slanted photo - kids enigmatically like
lasers and uneven lines simultaneously, I get that - but when I was that age I
was all about multicolored designs, rainbows and the like. Yeah, I was that kind of kid. Hence this polarizing, one-note, all-our-cards-are-bright-ass-orange
stuff would have lost me two packs in were it not for the kooky nature of the
cards themselves. The pictures of
mascots and players getting hit with pies and…..well, stretching, I guess, are
all such a novelty that this set gets a pass.
It’s also one of my favorite Griffeys of ’92 because of that mysterious
picture totally giving gravity the finger.
1993:
My favorite
of the Triple Play base set designs, the ‘93 set is characterized by the
red-accented black border and big silver surname marquee across the top of each
card. This color and design feel a lot
more “cool” and grown-up. Plus the
black-red-silver combo is the same color scheme used by Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget, and we all know that
his rocket-powered flying car was much cooler than Gadget’s hokey transforming
mini-van.
They upped
the number of inserts this year and kept the same high ratio of kooky fun
cards, including a card for new president Bill Clinton (only George H.W. Bush
had received a major-brand baseball card before in the 1990 Topps set). They also threw in color photos on the backs. We started seeing glossy finishes on inserts,
but the base set would have to wait until next year. Regardless, this is the most distinctive of
the Triple Play designs.
1994:
Here is
another example of a set getting away from its roots. This year they did away with the kids’ club
and just made a regular set of baseball cards.
All the young’uns who were drawn in by the fun content of the ’92 and
’93 sets now had to face the reality of a set comprised of just guys playing
baseball. No pies or
mascots or wackiness - just action shots.
It must have been like being given your first book without
pictures. Glossy? Yes.
Colorful? Sure. Fun?
Meh…. At least the inserts
started to get really cool this year.
Design-wise,
the bottom-mounted name plate sports a centered team logo among
team-appropriate colors that have the letters of the player’s surname cut out
with a cool shadow effect. Triple Play
also dropped the border and embraced full-bleed printing for the first time,
continuing the picture into the cut-out lettering beneath. The set completely omits players’ first names
which I like. It’s a good-looking set,
but it’s definitely not keeping with the original purpose of the brand.
I think
that at this point in the brand’s timeline Donruss intended for TP to compete
with Collector’s Choice on the low-end. The
price points were about the same; but while Triple Play’s inserts were awesome
in ’94, the base set was not nearly as impressive as that of CC, nor were there any cool parallels (CC had silver and gold signature). Ironically had some of the characteristics of
the previous years (e.g. unique photography, quirky cards) been carried over to
the ’94 set, TP probably would have lasted a bit longer. As that was not the case, this would be the
last set from Triple Play for 18 years.
*So that
technically wasn’t every Triple Play
design because it’s back now. The brand
has been resurrected under the ownership of Panini, and they’ve already
released a 2012 and 2013 set. The design
has changed significantly into something entirely new, all cartoonish and
logo-less. Sadly, there are no Griffeys....yet.
Here's every Triple Play Base card of the 90's in order:
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