Blast From The Past: Fall 1992 Topps Magazine

I bought this Fall 1992 issue of Topps magazine a couple years ago, but finally got around to scanning it this morning; that's about par for the course for me. Not only is Gary Sheffield on the cover, he is featured throughout the magazine several times. One detail that I really like about the cover is the border; it's exactly like the border on 1992 Topps cards.

As it mentions in the bottom right-hand corner, this issue marked the unveiling of the 1993 Topps set. Interestingly, with all of the love Sheffield was given, his 1993 card was not one of the ones shown. He was, however, featured on one of the eight magazine-only cards.

The cards are attached in the magazine on perforated cardstock. I like Rob Goubeaux's design; I wouldn't have minded seeing a whole set like that.

Of course, if they did make a real set out of his design they would have came up with a more detailed back than this, but I'm not complaining about it since it'll never leave this magazine.

Sheffield figured prominently in the cover story, which was about players who changed places and turned their careers around. Former Friar John Kruk made his first appearance of the magazine, complete with a blast from the past in the form of his last Topps card as a member of the Padres.

After that, the Sheffieldmania reached full-blast with a profile on him written by a young Tyler Kepner.

The gist of the article was that Milwaukee sucks and San Diego is awesome. You'll get no argument from me.

Following a profile of Roger Clemens, Roberto Alomar got the same treatment, right down to the info-box at the end with a punny title.

I have a copy of that Alomar rookie card. A non-collector might look at that $9 price quote and think that it's worth a lot more 20 years and one Hall of Fame induction later but, no, pretty much all base cards, rookie or not, from the overproduction era are basically worthless.

John Kruk made his second appearance in the magazine on one of the final four cards included.

They're quite garish, but where it gets even worse is on the back.

That's a lot of fat jokes, and not even clever ones, not that that matters. The attempts at humor went on from there, and culminated in an easy shot at Steve Garvey. Timely.

The last page of the magazine was a short strip about Ozzie Smith. You'd think that since they talk about his whole career they could have included a picture of him in his mustard-and-brown days, but I can't complain with all of the attention the Padres got in the rest of the magazine.

If all of that wasn't enough to push you into nostalgia overload, the back cover will do the trick.

Ah, those were the days.