From the Pedro Binder

2000 UD All UD Team

All-star teams can be interesting animals. Take a look at some past rosters. Every team has a bunch of players that probably have no business being called All-stars. By the same token, every year plenty of players are left off the team that fully deserved to be there. So, what’s a card company to do?

If you want to get more cards of star players into your set, the easiest way is to just make an extra card of all the all-stars each year. But, then you’re going to make a card for a lot of players you don’t want a card of, and miss a lot of players that you do. How do you fix it? Just make your own team.

The “All UD” team. Whatever that means. I assume it means, “We wanted to make more cards of all these players, but couldn’t think of anything catchier to call them, like ‘Fireballers’ ‘Super Sluggers’.” So, the UD team was born. Sorry, the “All-UD” team. So, if an “All-Star” team gets its name because the players a “all” “stars” wouldn’t that mean this team us made up of players who are “UD”? Huh.

Moving past all that, this is a nice card. Amazingly, I don’t find all the crazy graphics all that distracting. The positions on the right would suggest that the All UD team consists of a player from every position, and Pedro is the pitcher for the team. I’d have to look to see if that’s the case, or if there were several pitchers that year who were UDs. The little foil box that is around Pedro is a little odd…sort of like looking through a camera, but the set has nothing to do with a camera. Maybe if the team was the “All In Focus” team that would make more sense. I do like the bold blue background on the card. It makes Pedro’s white uniform really pop. Maybe that’s why all the foil garbage is OK. Pedro still manages to rise above it all and become the main element of the card. It still makes the player the most important thing you’re looking at. Which is important, because Pedro is absolutely a true star of the game.

And, apparently, a true UD.