Overview:
Todd Tobias has been a card collector all his life and has written about the hobby for a variety of publications. He manages the Lax Card Archive (www.laxcardarchive), the hobby's most complete lacrosse card resource. Todd welcomes contact from lacrosse fans and collectors, and can be reached at toddtobias1942@gmail.com
The modern era of lacrosse cards began during the 1992-93 Major Indoor Lacrosse League (MILL) season.
The 1992-93 MILL set was initially the brainchild of former Syracuse and then-Philadelphia Wings star Gary Gait who collaborated with equipment manufacturer STX and Long Island-based marketing firm Nastasi International to produce this 75-card release.
This set was groundbreaking for many reasons, but chief among them was that it marked the first time a lacrosse product received standard trading card treatment as a league-based set issued in packs and boxes, and given widespread, if not national distribution. Additionally, this remains the only dedicated, league-wide trading card set featuring professional box lacrosse. To date, a similar set featuring the National Lacrosse League (NLL) has not yet been produced.
The cards themselves are equally important. The base set consists of 70 cards, an average of 10 per team for the seven teams in the league: Baltimore Thunder, Boston Blazers, Buffalo Bandits, Detroit Turbos, New York Saints, Philadelphia Wings and Pittsburgh Bulls. Five separately numbered (A, B, C, D, E) insert cards were also available, with three of the cards dedicated to the Gait brothers. Gary and Paul were each shown on their own foil cards, while a popular studio image of the two brothers was used on a third card that advertised upcoming Gait lacrosse camps. The other two cards were a checklist and STX advertisement.
As the first major lacrosse issue since the 1910-1912 Imperial Tobacco sets, nearly every card in the MILL set is considered a rookie. Tim Soudan, Kevin Alexander, Darris Klilgour, Rich Kilgour, John Tavares, Jim Veltman, Sal Locascio, Dallas Eliuk, Kevin Finneran, Gary Gait, Paul Gait, Tony Resch and Dave Pietramala all make appearances with only Veltman having a previous card, a team issue from 1989 with the Coquitlam Adanacs.
The next step in major lacrosse card production came more than a decade after the MILL set. Panini, owner of the popular Donruss hobby brand, inserted lacrosse cards into several of their multi-sport sets between 2007-2010. The difference here is that only one player was featured, two-time Tewaaraton Award winner-turned-musician, Mikey Powell. Powell was shown in Syracuse and Boston Cannons uniforms in the 2007 Donruss Extra Edition, 2008 Donruss Sports Legends and 2010 Panini Americana Century collection sets.
Aside from featuring one of the most popular players in recent memory, these sets were important for introducing popular modern trading card elements to the lacrosse world. For the first time lacrosse cards could be found with pack-issued autographs, embedded memorabilia swatches and limited edition serial numbering.
In addition, these sets included parallels. In hobby terms, a parallel is a slight variation of the standard base card (different colored border, variation of the background, etc.) produced in significantly smaller quantities and designated by a serial number. These types of “chase cards” are now the basis of collecting for a large portion of the hobby.
As an example, the 2008 Donruss Sports Legends set includes base Mikey Powell cards. Additional Powell cards in the set include signatures and memorabilia pieces (relics). Base, signature and relic versions can be found with red, blue, gold, emerald and black backgrounds, which are limited in quantity to 502, 250, 100, 25, 5 and 1, respectively.
Also of note in the 2008 Donruss set is the Signature Connections Combos insert set. These cards, of which only 25 were produced, pair two famous athletes who attended the same college or university. The Syracuse card features Mikey Powell and legendary NFL running back and former SU lacrosse star, Jim Brown. Though pictured wearing a football helmet, his collegiate lax history and pairing with Powell makes this the closest Brown has to an officially licensed lacrosse card.
After Panini/Donruss, the next significant move in the lacrosse card world came from Upper Deck, a company that broke decades of hobby tradition by issuing the first ultra-high-end baseball cards in 1989, that were offered with a then-staggering price of $0.99 per pack.
Upper Deck attempted to capitalize on the sport’s growing popularity by issuing lacrosse cards featuring Major League Lacrosse (MLL) players in multiple products between 2010-2012. First was a 100-card MLL set. Rather than issuing packs, this set was available only as a complete boxed set. Like the 1993 MILL set, this set represents the first trading card appearances for the majority of players from this era, thus qualifying them as rookie cards.
Players such as Nicky Polanco, Drew Westervelt, Brendan Mundorf, Matt Danowski, Chazz Woodson, John Christmas, Zack Greer and Lee Zink made their trading card debuts, while others who already had team or league issues like Paul Rabil were also included.
In 2010 and 2011, Upper Deck released its World of Sports sets. These were multi-sport issues that both contained 45 lacrosse cards in their 375- and 400-card base sets. Lacrosse autographs and relic inserts were also issued.
Following the 2010 MLL set, Upper Deck issued two more boxed lacrosse sets in 2011: MLL Materials and MLL Premium Materials. The 20-card sets were nearly identical. The exception being that the Materials set generally had single-color relic patches, while Premium Materials added “Premium Series” in small print to card fronts, and relic patches were typically multi-color.
The final Upper Deck lacrosse issues of this era came as part of their Goodwin Champions releases in 2011 and 2012. A spinoff of the late 1880s multi-sport sets of the same name, Goodwin Champions presented athletes via artistic renderings. Four lacrosse players were included both years and could be found in base, autograph, relic and multiple mini-card variations.
While not issued in the traditional manner, the children’s magazine Sports Illustrated for Kids began including nine-card sheets of perforated cards in its nationally distributed editions in 1989. All types of traditional and non-traditional sports have been included in these cards over the years. The first SI for Kids lacrosse card featured Maryland’s Kelly Amonte in the September 1996 issue.
More than 20 lacrosse cards have been issued since, with notable first-card appearances of Ryan Boyle (August 2003), Paul Rabil (September 2007), Taylor Cummings (September 2014), Wesley Berg (July 2015), Tehoka Nanticoke (May 2019), Jamie Ortega (May/June 2020) and Izzy Scane (July/August 2023).
Legendary trading card manufacturer, Topps, dipped its toe in the lacrosse card waters with its 2013 Allen & Ginter issue, which will be discussed at length in next week’s article!