Topps Cards That Never Were: 1990 Mike Schmidt

After some delay, I'm finally getting around to posting the Schmidt card. I've had two anonymous requests to make this card presumably from the same incognito collector, so here you go my friend. I also know that my pal, Plungerhoo, will enjoy this card as he was a Phillies fan until he crazily switched allegiance to the Nationals because of Ryan Zimmerman.

In his last season, Schmidt did not have a stellar campaign compared to his previous seasons, but I still do not think that warrants him getting the shaft. Schmidt retired at the end of May in 1989, and gave one of the more memorable retirement speeches. At the time and even now, I still say "there is no crying in baseball." But since he had just retired, I guess it is alright to shed a tear, since he technically was no longer in baseball. Also, if I said otherwise, I'm sure he is still in great enough shape to kick my ass out of the ballpark. Plus, I did my fair share of crying after striking out in Little League or getting roasted while on the mound. And for those paying attention, he retired at The Murph, which I didn't realize until I watched the video again some 20 years later.

Anyways, this card was fun to make. I particularly enjoy how Schmidt's head is on one side of the Phillies name and his bat is on the other side. This was only possible because the template I used had to remove John Kruk's monster mullet from the photo, which required me to resize Mike to fill the void, thus putting his bat in the background and his helmet in the foreground.

Here are Schmidt's stats from 1989 at the age of 39:

YEAR	CLUB	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG
1989	Phillies	42	148	19	30	7	0	6	28	.203

Backlogged cards ready to roll include: 88 Jackson, 80 Hunter, 77 F. Robinson, 76 F. Robinson and 75 Kaline.