Here is another collection project that I recently completed: every refractor from Eric Owens. All variations and everything.
Background: Eric Owens Was a few years of favorite with bad Padres teams at the start of the millennium. He was a picturesque man who played hard and would give an exciting highlight here and there to keep the season interesting in San Diego. He had already hung his shoe pictures by the time I returned to the hobby, but getting back and collecting his cards brings good memories to seeing him playing, and in turn reminders from those days, weighing me through Community College with a lot of Freetime to view Padres broadcasts to broadcast all summer long. Good times.
So yes, he is a man I like to collect and am somewhat forced for SuperCollect. But with all my other active gathering goals that keep me busy, I am reluctant to make someone super collect except perhaps guys with fewer than 50 total cards such as Walters of the last post. TCDB says that Eric Owens has 259 cards, and I am tempted to log my PC one these days, but it is unlikely that they will ever land them all without making much effort and money (he has a select certified edition “Mirror” from 1996. [foilboard] Color parallels that can become pricey due to low printruns), so only focusing on refractors seemed to go the way.
I went through the TCDB checklist of Eric Owens and made myself a list of only refractors. The “Refractor Run” took some patience, but I finally detected them all. Fortunately, the last Chrome set he was recorded in (2004) was the last before 2005’s premiere of the super fractor as we know it, and so there were no 1/1s that I had to worry about. Apart from everything that has slipped by me and/or TCDB, I can now say that there is no Eric Owens -Ractor that I don’t have.
Let us look at all the refractors from Eric Owens without further delay.
1996 Power the best things, with both peeled and unplanned examples.
The limited exposure parallels in 1997 Donrus Limited uses refractorsSince TOPPS has the trademark to use the word refractor with regard to brand trade cards, as my understanding is. But yes, I will count this in my refractor run. However, it is a kind of stupid set, with another player on the other side a chump called Trey Beamon (Padres) on the back of this. Eric is actually at the back, proven by the Legalese along the right and card number at the top. He received his first Solo Padres refractor in 2000 Chrome. (He was briefly with the brewers between his stints in Cincinnati and San Diego, but no refactors document those stop.)
In 2001, Owens was admitted to the Chrome tops that year as a padre, and after crossing the country to Miami, it appeared in the Topps Trade & Rookies of 2001 as a Marlin, both of which had “retro fractor” parallels. Retro fractor Just seems to mean refractors in heritage style where the back of the Rouger cardboard map is, which is a nice combination with a tactile perspective. The tops all-time fan favorites refractors that I have chased (now more than 95% completed!) Are also the case.
2002 Topps Chrome has 2 refractor parallels: gold and black (/50).
2003 Topps Chrome Trumpets Eric’s Return to South California. Here is our first legitimate “Rainbow” group, because TOPPS began to add more parallels this year. Blue, silver, gold, black and x-fractor (the last one of which I have both in the factory and released and released). This same shot shot is also in flagship 2003 tops, but of course I am simply interested in refractor parallels here. I really call it only because they also recorded him that year …
I am not sure why TOPPS had bothered, but Eric appeared in 2003 Topps and Rookies, although he was already depicted on the Angels in the main set (both flagship and Chrome), and he was absolutely no Rookie at that time. Chrome parallels were mixed that year with basic (paper) for the traded and Rookies packages, with both refractor and X-fractor parallels available. I have again the X-Fractor in both RAW and encapsulated (“unecirculated”), which is made more impressive because it is a /25 card (and unfortunately no, none of my copes is the Christmas card). To be honest, I am not really planning to get both peeled/unpeeled as well as embedded/not -sorted variations from Eric Owens refractors where available, originally fine with both, but as the project progressed, it just happened quite a bit and so I leaned in the Overkill.
Eric’s season 2003 in Anaheim was his last MLB promotion, but he will be released in 2004 Topps and 2004 Topps Chrome with this pre-game stretch photo. In reality, he stretched out for the Mariners who did spring training, but did not make the team and then played that year for Detroit’s Triple A Club before completing his play career with a year in Mexico. Anyway, the refractors in 2004 Chrome are base (white), gold, black and red X-fractor. The black refractors are of the most interest for me; My ambitious long-term set-collection search to them is due to the dozen of a bakery to complete the entire set in black refractors. I had to pick up a Dupe Eric Owens for the refractor run.
Like I said before, there is luck for me that he did not go around long enough to be recorded in 2005 Topps Chrome, because the super fractor came into play (not to mention the printing of the printed circuit boards, so hobby completeists had the old “they all collect” philosophy.
Regarding Eric Owens’ journey, the angels found his moxy enough to bring him back a few years as a minor league coach. He returned to the Majors as an assistant who hit the coach for the Blue Jays in 2015 and 2016. Since June 2024 he is head coach of the baseball team of his Alma Mater, Ferrum College, based in the Blue Ridge Mountains of his native Virginia. Sounds like a sweet performance for him.
Thank you for reading.
#Completed #refractor #run #eric #wens