MLB 1997 COLLECTION
GREEN CARD SERIES

Corinthian expanded their portfolio of licenses to acquire the rights to release figures from Major League Baseball, with the range being released under the Headliners banner.

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In total there are 35 different figures in the 1997 Collection of single blister packs, which consists of 31 different players, 3 were released for 2 teams as they were drafted during the season, those 3 are:

Jose Canseco(Boston/Oakland)
Dave Justice(Atlanta/Cleveland)
Kenny Lofton(Atlanta/Cleveland)

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 B013 Frank Thomas for the Chicago White Sox is by far the rarest one in this collection, the reason for that is that as Corinthian were packing the retail case assortments it became apparent there was an issue with the hands of Thomas, so the entire stock had to be recalled and destroyed.

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Corinthian scrambled to get another production run of Thomas done which of course took time, as a result not many were made before the production deadline and only 1 of each was added into the last case assortment for 1997. 

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Retailers did not really buy into this final case assortment as it lacked any real star players, plus retailers already held stock on the shelves, as a result very few Thomas ever entered the market, making him very rare and more valuable than others in the collection.

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The final figure to mention is B018 Andres Galarraga for Colorado Rockies, there are actually 2 versions of him, the first version released has the name on his base incorrectly spelt as GALLARAGA, Corinthian must have picked up on this after stock hit the shelves, and corrected it for another release which has his name correctly spelt as GALARRAGA.

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This is only something which came to light when i began adding the figures to my site (August 2023) and to my knowledge it has never been spotted before, even after all these years Corinthian can still surprise us.

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The figures were released on an oval base, coming with removable baseball cap, and each one was assigned a collector code which began with B, this would be changed to MLB for future series.

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Each blister pack contained the figure, his baseball cap and there was a collector's catalog which detailed the release, along with a sticker on the front which had the players name, team logo and printed player autograph.

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The blister packs are slightly taller than regular blister packs, this was done to accomodate the removeable baseball cap.