2000 Fleer Focus Baseball Review

This next box brings back some very good memories. Shortly after its release, a pack of 2000 Fleer Focus yielded one of my biggest pulls of that time, a Feel the Game Alex Rodriguez jersey card. Game jersey cards were still rare then, and those cards were no exception, being seeded only 1 in 288 packs! That’s only 1 per 12 box case! Boxes of 2000 Fleer Focus contain 24 packs of 10 cards each. Seeing how I’ve been lucky with this product before, I thought it’d be a great box to review on my blog. I picked up this box for $30 and here’s what I got…

Base cards: There are 250 base cards in this set with 225 veterans and 25 prospects. On each veteran card, the player’s name and information is written in gold foil, next to a little picture of his team’s cap. Each prospect card has red foil on the front and is numbered to 3999. However, each prospect card has 2 variations. Of the 3999 of each prospect, the first 999 feature a different photgraph. The first 999 feature a close-up portrait shot, while the remainder feature longer-distance action shots. In this box, I received 216 of 225 basic cards with 17 duplicates. I pulled 1 regular prospect card (Chad Hermansen: 1684/3999) and 1 portrait prospect card (Mario Encarnacion: 0691/3999).

Masterpiece Mania: All 250 cards in the set have a parallel called Masterpiece Mania. Basically, these just feature green foil on the front and are numbered to just 300. I pulled a Brad Radke that sure as heck doesn’t look like it has green foil in the scan! There are also Masterpiece and Masterpiece Error parallels, of which I pulled none of either. The Masterpiece parallel has purple foil and is numbered 1/1. The Masterpiece Error versions have the same purple foil, but lack the numbering on the back. These cards were test issues that were never meant to be released. They don’t book for very much and I’m not sure how many found their way into packs, but I don’t think it was the whole set. Can you imagine finding a card in your pack with the purple foil and then finding out it was just a stupid error card?? That would be horrible!

Focal Points: The first inserts I pulled were the Focal Points inserts. These cards are seeded 1 in every 6 packs. These cards feature a solid color background, which also contains a second faint picture of the player. The players I pulled were Derek Jeter, Frank Thomas, Juan Gonzalez, and Jeff Bagwell. There is also a parallel to this set called “Striking,” but I did not receive any of those. They are limited to 50 copies.

Future Vision: Next is your obligatory prospect-filled insert set, called Future Vision. These vibrant inserts can be found 1 in every 8 packs. I pulled inserts of Ruben Mateo, Kip Wells, and Chad Hermansen. (Chad Hermansen hot box! LOL)

Focus Pocus: Here’s a clever play on words by Fleer. Despite a corny name, these are another attractive insert set. These cards are seeded 1 in every 14 packs. I received Tony Gwynn and Ken Griffey, Jr. in this set. Doesn’t it look like the player’s body is emitting some kind of crazy rays?

Club 3000: This was a major cross-brand insert set put out by Fleer in 2000. 14 different members of the 3000-hit club could be found in 5 different products. Besides Focus, the other products were basic Fleer, Mystique, Showcase, and Ultra. Despite what product you opened, you were pretty much guaranteed to hit 1 of these inserts per box. If you were real lucky, you could find one with 1, 2 or even 3 swatches of game-used material on it! All of the game-used cards had varied serial numbering on them. I pulled a plain basic insert of Stan “The Man” Musial, but it’s still a cool card! (Did you know that of Musial’s 3,630 career hits, exactly half of them came at home and half came on the road?)

Fresh Ink: Last but not least, came my hit of the box. The Fresh Ink inserts are found only 1 in 96 packs, but there is no shortage of stars in the set. Potential pulls include Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, Cal Ripken, Jr., Tony Gwynn, Josh Beckett, Mike Mussina, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, Edgar Martinez, and others. I saw the authentication on the back at first and thought, “please let me get a nice star autograph!!” I flipped it over and saw Andruw Jones! Despite the fact that he’s started to fall off a little in the past couple years, I was still very happy with this pull.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this box break. I nearly finished the basic set, falling only 9 short. I found some pretty cool inserts in this box and pulled a pretty nice autograph to boot. With that said, I think it’s a pretty enjoyable product overall. The set is a decent size for a set collector (shortprints included), the inserts look very nice, and there’s potential to get a pretty nice hit as well (mainly in the Fresh Ink or Masterpiece sets). The only downside I could see is perhaps getting duped with the Masterpiece Error set, like I mentioned before. 😉

As always, thanks for the read and good luck with your own box breaks!
-John