Triple Play 1992

Night Owl had a post a couple weeks back (and I'm glad things seem to be OK for Greg) that included a 1992 Triple Play card of Hector Villanueva. Triple Play is a set I wasn't very familiar with. I have a couple cards in the player collection, but other than that I hadn't seen any of the other cards before. The Villanueva card intrigued me, so I dug into the set a little more.

Donruss put out Triple Play for three years, from 1992 - 1994. At a time when cards were getting fancier and more expensive, Triple Play was designed to appeal to the low budget buyers. Donruss didn't want to lose that segment, so they created a no-frills set.

The 1992 set had 264 cards, and 13 of those were Cubs. I was able to pick up a team set off of ebay for only $1.50; that's even cheaper than if I went to Sportlots and paid 18¢ per card.



This card is among my favorites. Remember that in 1992 lights at Wrigley Field were still a novelty, having been installed only four years earlier. Since the Cubs were limited to 18 night games, they were still an event.



Here is another favorite. One of the subsets was called Awesome Action, and its appropriate that Donruss included Awesome Dawson in the set. We hear a lot today about the lack of quality in today's wooden bats; they seem to shatter quite often. This card shows that even 20 years ago, bats got blasted.



Here's the Hector Villanueva card that got me started on Triple Play.



This card shows that in 1991 the Cubs were still NNOB...no name on back. The numbers were also plain blue; today they have a red border. I like the traditional NNOB look better.

Here's the rest of the set



















Tomorrow I'll continue with the 1993 Triple Play Cubs.