1995 Classic Five-Sport #163 Derrike Cope

Here at Cataloged Clutter, we spend time with overlooked basketball cards… Basketball… So I’m going through my collection and I find this card and I think, “How did this get here?” Classic didn’t know when to quit…lots of overprinting with their base sets. They’d been making a Four-Sport set from ’92-’94, but that clearly wasn’t enough in 1995 which brings us to the set this card came from, 1995 Classic Five-Sport! And that’s how this Derricke Cope found its way into my basketball collection. But it reminded me to respect the effort of trying to keep the tradition of the multi-sport set going! Remember 1933 Goudey Sport Kings? No dog-sled racing or billiards in this one…here we have basketball, football, baseball, hockey and NASCAR.

It doesn’t hurt to be reminded that this set exists. It’s a fun, affordable set. In addition to this Derrike Cope card, clearly the highlight of the set:), you have Kevin Garnett, Damon Stoudamire, and the other members of that particular Draft year… You got Steve McNair and Kordell Stewart… There’s Nomar Garciaperra, Dale Earnhardt. The hockey cards are, unfortunately, pretty weak, but maybe I’m missing something there. And the set ends with some established stars like Shaq and Alonzo Mourning, Barry Bonds and Emmitt Smith.

I don’t know enough about racing to talk about this card, but I want to point out one fact that makes it especially appropriate for a multi-sport set. Derrike Cope was actually being scouted by Major League Baseball teams before a knee injury ended his chances of making the pros. So he became completely dedicated to racing.

So once again, respect to Classic for at least trying to keep the multi-sport tradition going and even expanding their Four-Sport set to five sports here in 1995. And a reminder to subscribe to our channel where we spend more time than we should with overlooked basketball cards… Yep, basketball. But sometimes the sports collide I guess.