Card Review: 9.9 I'm willing to acknowldege that maybe this isn't the best oil painting checklist card Wells ever did for Upper Deck. He did some great ones, and those '89 checklist were without a doubt the coolest thing I had ever seen in my nine years on the planet when they came out. But I don't care if this isn't his best work. This card felt like a huge personal victory for me at the time, and it still ranks near the top of my list of all-time favorite Wallach cards.
Every year Donruss found a way to snub Wallach for the Diamond King series, somehow managing to never give him one (he was a "Canadian Great" in the '88 Leaf set). Then when Upper Deck came out with these in 1989, I suffered through two more years of dissapointment before this one showed up in the 1991 set. It was an incredible feeling of satisfaction for me as an 11 year old when this card was included, serving as confirmation that my favorite player was in fact deserving of his own unique "drawing" card.
Vernon Wells Sr. (father of the former MLB player Vernon Wells) was the artist responsible for these cards. Here's a link to his website.
Number of this card in my collection: 52
2012 update: 54
2013 update: 86
2014 update: 105
2015 update: 149
2016 update: 185
2017 update: 202
2018 update: 217
2019 update: 258
2020 update: 288
2021 update: 297
2022 update: 314
2023 update: 341
2024 update: 375
2025 update: 404
2026 update: 405
