Collect the Mets

Shamelessly pandering to Mets Police

It’s been a rough nine months here at Collect The Mets as I realize just what is involved in scanning and presenting thousands of cards, especially when I keep buying more cards faster than I can process them.  It doesn’t help when I go off on tangents like game recaps.  The content just isn’t going up as fast as I would like and the readership suffers as a result.  The Twitter followership is doing well by comparison, but that’s probably because I don’t tweet often enough to be annoying.

So it wasn’t too much of a shock that I didn’t make the Mets Police Twitter 86 list.  If anything, I probably owe 86% of my Twitter followers to Mets Police.  I knew what I needed to do to get more attention though – more cowbell, er, I mean more Mazzilli.  And so I reached back into my extensive archives to put together this piece.

Longtime readers will know that Lee Mazzilli has been in my autograph collection since the early ’90s, when I met him at an autograph signing in Filene’s.  When certified autograph cards became all the rage, Mazzilli was sadly absent amid all of the Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Davey Johnson, Mookie Wilson, and even Kevin Mitchell autographs.

2003 Sweet Spot Classic

Presumably, there are no more than 25 Mazzilli fans. Otherwise, this could be a problem…

Fans would have to wait until 2003 for the first Lee Mazzilli certified autographs.  Upper Deck finally ended the drought with three Yankee Greats autographs in 2003 Sweet Spot Classic.  This was a three-tier parallel autograph set featuring blue autographs (not numbered), black autographs (numbered to 100 or less), and red autographs (numbered to 25).  Other notable Mets in this insert set include Dwight Gooden and David Cone.

2003 UD Yankees Signature

It wasn’t a long wait for Mazzilli’s next autograph appearance in 2003 UD Yankees Signature.  The Pride of New York autograph insert set featured just about every notable person ever associated with the Yankees, so finding Mazzilli in there wasn’t a big surprise.  Also featured in this set are Don Zimmer, Dwight Gooden, David Cone, and several other Mets whose first names do not start with D.

Mazzilli was also featured on the Pinstripe Excellence dual autograph insert set with fellow also-Met Mike Torrez.  Like Mazzilli, Torrez was also on the small-town autograph circuit in the early ’90s, though for some reason I have two of his autographs from back then.

Upper Deck was on a massive Yankees kick in 2003.

But that’s not all!  Mazzilli was featured two more times in 2003 Yankees Signature, this time on a pair of Yankees Forever triple autograph insert cards.  Triple autographs are common these days when you can just slap three sticker autos on a card and call it a day, but in the olden days, you had to get three different people to physically handle the card for these sort of things.  With guys like Paul O’Neill and Dave Winfield on these cards, Mazzilli clearly wasn’t the main draw.

2006 Fleer Greats of the Game

Surprisingly, Mazzilli did not have any autograph cards in 2004 or 2005, when products like UD Timeless Teams, UD Past Time Pennants, Topps All-Time Fan Favorites, Topps Originals, and Donruss Timelines went heavy on players from the ’86 Mets.  His next appearance would be in the UD-produced 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game.  In addition to the base Greats of the Game Autographs card, Mazzilli was featured in the Nickname Greats insert set with the inscription “Italian Stallion.”  These would be Mazzilli’s first sticker autographs.  At least he was finally shown as a Met.  Other Mets featured in one or both of these sets include David Cone, Sid Fernandez (“El Sid”), Howard Johnson (“HoJo”), Tom Seaver, and Rusty Staub (“Le Grand Orange”).

2007 Sweet Spot Classic

Things came around full circle when Mazzilli made his final autograph appearance in 2007 Sweet Spot Classic.  Unlike the 2003 version, this one shows him as a Met.  Also unlike the 2003 version (as well as just about every Sweet Spot autograph from the era), only one version of this card was produced, numbered to 199.  Other Mets in this set include Tom Seaver and Keith Hernandez, all with cards numbered to 16.

And that’s all there is.  Mazzilli has never had an autograph card in a non-UD product and has never had a game-used memorabilia card.  If you’re looking for a premium Mazzilli card, these ten are the only ones you have to choose from.

Update: Two more Lee Mazzilli autographs for the obsessive collector

What a difference a year makes.  After not having any certified autograph cards for five years, Lee Mazzilli was back in action with more autographs and not just for Upper Deck.  Still nothing from Topps though…

2012 SP Signature

Technically, this 2012 SP Signature Mazzilli autograph existed back when I originally wrote this piece.  However, being from the unlicensed Upper Deck and featuring no player photograph, it was an easy one to overlook.  Upper Deck didn’t even release a checklist for this product, instead letting the product “speak for itself” and encouraging collectors to check out YouTube and eBay for more information.  So yeah, this exists, Lee Mazzilli’s autograph on a sticker stuck on a generic card.  Mazzilli’s autograph also exists on a 6-player autograph card (numbered to 10) and an 8-player autograph card (numbered to 2).  I will almost certainly never own these, so we’re done having all of Mazzilli’s autographs here.  Oh well.

2013 Panini Hometown Heroes

It only took a decade, but the Upper Deck monopoly on Lee Mazzilli autograph cards has been broken!  Panini included Mazzilli in 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes, their response to Topps Archives.  Hometown Heroes / Fan Favorites, get it?  Already without team names or logos because of that other baseball card monopoly, Panini went with a rather uninspired design and color scheme on Hometown Heroes, one that brings back memories of 2005 Diamond Kings, one of the ugliest products in recent memory.  Blue ink on a light green background just doesn’t work.  At least there’s an actual picture of Mazzilli this time…  Though it doesn’t look like he’s in a Mets uniform.  Parallel versions numbered to 25 and 1 also exist, but what’s the point?  A different border color isn’t going to save this card.

So there you have it, two more autograph cards (plus four low-numbered variants) for you to chase if you need to have everything Lee Mazzilli.  Ball’s in your court, Topps.

Update 2: A long overdue conclusion

2014 Panini Prizm

So I might have skipped an update in 2014 and neglected to add Mazzilli’s 2014 Panini Prizm autograph to the list in a timely manner… Panini’s back with a second helping of Mazzilli after his appearance in the (thankfully) one-off 2013 Hometown Heroes. It’s a sticker autograph and shows him in what apparently started as a Mets jersey before Panini’s crack Photoshop team sucked the soul clean out of the iconic racing stripe jersey. This time around, there are no parallels, just a lone abomination. Still waiting on you, Topps…

2020 Topps Archives

Eight years after I started this post, it has finally happened – Topps has released a Lee Mazzilli autograph! It only took them to the, um, 72nd Mets Fan Favorites Autograph (and 79th base Mets Archives autograph overall) to get him into Topps Archives. Still, it’s a beauty – portrait orientation, on-card autograph, full MLB licensing, and a proper Mets pinstripe jersey. An early ’80s Mets pinstripe jersey from his first stint with the team and not the iconic mid-’80s racing stripe jersey… It’ll have to do, we might not get another one of these. Well, other than the multitude of parallels. Four parallels join the base version, including a gold border 1/1 not shown here. That brings our total to 22 different Lee Mazzilli autographs, five of which I may never see. And I’d say that’s enough.