The Card O' The Day (or every third day) - 1999 Upper Deck 450 Bobby Estallela

Here you go all. Card 'O The Day volume 2. 1999 Upper Deck #450 Bobby Estallela. I was really hoping the old number generator would spit out a card that was significant.. or better yet.. really old. Instead we have this. Lets make the best of it.



1999 Upper Deck:

Nothing too significant about this set. Just another in a long line of adequate UD base sets. This was a period where I had taken a hiatus from collecting so as to fund my excessive drinking college expenses. My firsthand knowledge of the nuance of this set is very limited. What I can tell you is that it was a two series release (as are practically all the UD base sets) and it has 525 cards in the set. If I can recall correctly you could pull an auto'd Griffey card out of series 1, which I imagine was probably a pretty big deal in 1999. (yeah, it books at $1250) The wax on these isn't readily available, but you can still find it if you look around a bit. Only one guy has the product for sale on Ebay and he's been unable to move the Hobby series 1 and 2 for $40 and $30 for about 3 weeks.

Bobby Estallela:

Good old Bobby is a 9 year big league veteran. Played catcher. Known by most as a Phillie, he also played with the Giants, Yankees, Rockes, D'Backs, and Blue Jays. Bobby doesn't appear to have ever been an every day player, having played in more than 47 games in a season only once. (106 with the Giants in 2000) His career highlight was hitting 3 home runs in a game in 1997. (3 home runs constitutes 6.25% of his career total, so.. wow!) He last played in the bigs in 2004.

Interesting trivia on Estallela: He was signed as a free agent by the Tigers in January 2004 and released three weeks later. Before spring training even started. That can't be normal.

Estallela is from Florida and his grandfather (also Bobby) played in the majors in the 1930's and 40's.

Estallela was named in the Mitchell report.. for what its worth. I can't get over the fact that there are FOUR Bobby Estallela fan clubs on Yahoo.