Millennium Bowmans

A couple of Bowman cards from the year 2000! (Ah, Y2K, a simpler time. When all that was going to kill us was the imminent technological meltdown.)

Card Number 918: Bowman, 2000; #80

I've never really got the point of Bowman. It's a mid-point range, maybe a little more upmarket than Topps flagship. Pitched at true fans. Worthy, but dull. And never more dull than on the cusp of the 21st century when the designers thought grey would be the perfect colour for the borders on their cards. (Had they learned nothing from 1989 Fleer?)

Then there's the thing about reproducing the player's signature on the side of the card. It's Tony's signature from back when he was a rookie. However, in his career Tony signed so much stuff we know that isn't what his signature looks like. At all. 

Grey shabby chic look aside, I like the Bowman Briefing that was on the back of Bowman cards.

I checked out that 'evolution' stat. Technically, it's true (although Baseball Reference lists his batting average for 1981 at .376), but it feels slightly misleading saying it was his "first pro season" without mentioning that it was low down in the minor leagues with Amarillo and Walla-Walla.

Card Number 919: Bowman (Retro/Future parallel), 2000; #80

One of these parallels was included in every pack. They are shiny homages to the famous 1955 Bowman design where all the player's pictures were on images of televisions. It was futuristic back then, and decidedly retro by 2000.

It's the same picture of Tony on the front, cropped to fit in the television screen.

The back has the same photo and the Bowman Briefing. However the layout is different. The grey borders are gone!

The Retro/Future parallels are much more interesting than the base cards and would be a nice set to collect, although their relative scarcity compared to the regular versions of the cards might make it a bit harder to build the set.

Total: 919 cards