1993 Upper Deck, Dave Fleming

#141 Dave Fleming

Here is another up-and-comer that I went after, through the mail, in the early nineties. And just like yesterday's, he ended up a bust after a great rookie season. Dave finished the 1992 season with a 17-10 record with a 3.39 ERA. He came in third in the Rookie of the Year voting behind Pat Listach and Kenny Lofton. His stats diminished for the next couple years while he experienced arm troubles and by the end of the '98 season, he was out of baseball. I never knew that he appeared in nine games for the Royals in 1997.

I only have five cards signed from the '93 Upper Deck set and all five of them were signed around '93 or '94, through the mail. Also, all five of them had some type of problem as a result of them being so glossy. But, this is by far the worst. Dave seems to have signed his card pretty quickly because there is hardly much left to show for it.

I'm pretty sure that I bought a box of this stuff at a card show after it came out. So, I should have a fair amount of it. But for some reason, I haven't bothered to dig out any cards from it to get signed in the past year. I'm sure that I was scared off by the way these ended up looking. But after some recent successes, I am positive that they will look much better signed 16 years later. So, my goal is to get a few more of these signed this year.