Two Random Rynos

In this weekly series, I show off two random Ryne Sandberg cards from my 600+ card PC. One will be from his playing days (pre-1998) and one since his retirement (1998-present).


I didn't make any headway this week with this PC in terms of cataloging as I had an influx of 2018's so count update. Luckily, I still have 600 to choose from to post about.

Playing Days:

This card from 1994 Yoo-Hoo is from the tail end of my original collecting days. Like a lot of my oddball Ryne Sandberg cards, this one could also be posted under my One Card Team Set series.

I'm guessing these were distributed in cases of Yoo-Hoo, but I picked mine up at a card show way before any of the online options would have been available. Yoo-Hoo had some New York Yankees cards in 1959 but they made a comeback in 1993 with a 20-card set featuring all retired playesr, mostly Hall of Famers with a few Hall of Pretty Gooders mixed in. In fact, where the Sandberg card above features the Rawlings logo, the 1993 set said "Baseball Legends".

The follow-up set in 1994 again had all retired players...and Ryno, who would briefly retire the first time after this set was released though.. As mentioned, the theme seems to be the Rawlings Gold Glove Award. Sandberg won nine consecutive from 1983-1991. The player portion of the set shrunk from 20 to 16, but four "Fact Cards" were added to keep the number at 20.

Post Retirement:

2005 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Signatures
 Red Stitch Black Ink #SS-RS Ryne Sandberg 148/175

This one isn't so random as I had it handy recently. Somebody on twitter (sorry, can't seem to recall the name right now) recently asked their followers to post their favorite Sweet Spot autograph card. Knowing I had this one tucked away prompted me to dig it out and let it cut in line to get scanned and catalogued.

This is a pretty awesome card in and of itself. But can you tell what makes this one especially interesting?

Unless you happen to know what Ryne Sandberg's signature looks like, you might not have caught that the autograph portion was actually assembled upside down!

Not that flipping it makes the autograph any more legible, but this is the correct orientation for Sandberg's signature.

A lot of these Sweet Spot autographs have not held up over time so I've been extremely lucky with this one. So tucked back away it goes to preserve the autograph.