Chipper Jones rookie cards have been hot commodities since well before the former Atlanta Braves third baseman ever stepped foot on a Major League diamond.

Part of that is due to his timing — Jones was the first overall pick in the 1990 draft, right in the middle of the rookie card craze.

That combination came with some crazy expectations, both on the field and in the hobby.

And, although Chipper didn’t make his Big League debut until 1993, he made his cardboard debut in 1991 (if you don’t count a spate of minor league cards in both 1990 and 1991).

The heck of it all, though, is that Jones pretty much lived up to the hype.

Over a 19-year career, he collected 2726 hits, 468 home runs, and a .303 batting average, numbers that make him something like the fifth or sixth greatest hot corner man ever.

When you add in all those World Series appearances with the Braves, his 1999 National League MVP award, and his 2018 Hall of Fame election, it’s little wonder that Jones’ baseball cards still cause a stir after all these years.

So …

As a mini (micro?) celebration of one of the great players of the Junk Wax Era, here is a quick rundown of each Chipper Jones rookie card.

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1991 Bowman Chipper Jones (#569)

This was the third year of the resurrected Bowman line, which Topps brought back in an oversized format in 1989. They clipped the card size to the standard dimensions (2-1/2″ x 3-1/2″) in 1990 and beefed up the rookie card content to almost obscene levels. Of course, that trend has only continued over the years, with Bowman becoming the place to go for rookies and pre-rookies.

In 1991, Topps made sure to capitalize on the still-booming rookie craze by not only jamming their Bowman full of first-year cars but also peppering the U.S. with enough product to sop up the tears of “investors” when the bubble inevitably burst.

Today, Chipper Jones leads the pack, but you can usually find his raw card for less than a buck. Slabbed copies in Mint condition or better will set you back $20 or more

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1991 O-Pee-Chee Chipper Jones (#333)

In 1991, O-Pee-Chee broke with tradition and produced a set of baseball cards that was not a near-exact copy of the Topps set from the same year. O-Pee-Chee Premier was a venture into the world of premium cards, and came heavily hyped, as those sets tended to do.

Although OPC never really panned out as a super-duper brand, they didn’t abandon their roots completely in 1991. For collectors, that meant a Topps parallel set that you could only tell was not a Topps set by the premium white cardstock and the French copy on card backs.

Aside from those differences, the Chipper Jones OPC rookie is identical to his Topps issue, but the Canadian cards were issued in much smaller quantities. As a result, this card can bring $15-20 even ungraded, with PSA 10s busting through the $500 mark.

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1991 Score Chipper Jones (#671)

Ah, yes … here we have young Chipper Jones swinging away from the surface of the sun.

This card was hot hot HOT!!

Well, sort of.

It looked — and still looks — actually hot.

But like most baseball cards from 1991, Score pumped out enough of these to keep your family feeling Chipper for generations.

Expect to pay about a dollar for ungraded copies and maybe $50 for GEM slabbed specimens.

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1991 Topps Chipper Jones (#333)

This is a classic rookie card forged by the classy design Topps rolled out for their 40th anniversary, but it’s just so plentiful that it’s had a hard time building up much value over the years. Even with huge numbers available, though, the first base Topps card of Chipper Jones *feels* like a bargain at a dollar or two each, ungraded. That price climbs to $100+ for graded GEM copies.

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1991 Topps Desert Shield Chipper Jones (#33)

In 1991, Topps made a parallel set of their base issue for distribution to US troops serving in what would become the (first)

Gulf War. The cards were identical to “normal” Topps cards from that year, except each was graced with a foil stamp of the Operation Desert Shield emblem.

Colloquial estimates put the print run at 6500-7o00 of each card, which was tiny for the day.

As a consequence, even ungraded copies of this Chipper Jones rookie card can reach well into three figures. If you’re looking for a GEM graded specimen, be prepared to pay thousands, and to wait a long time to do it.

You should also beware that counterfeits exist — take a look at this piece from Cardboard Connection for tips on how to spot the fakes.

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1991 Topps Micro Chipper Jones (#333)

Topps always did like to experiment, and their lab work in 1991 produced a “micro” set, with each card measuring a scant 1″ x 1-3/8″.

These cards were never very popular with collectors and that, coupled with wide availability at retail outlets, limits the resale value of complete sets to less than $10. Most of that price is wrapped up in Chipper Jones, though, and his rookie card from the set brings $3-10 in nice ungraded condition.

But that’s not the end of the story for this card. Even though more than half of the micros submitted to PSA for evaluation have graded out at a GEM-MT 10, less than one-seventh of Chippers make that cut. As of this writing, only 31 Jones rookie cards exist with a PSA 10 rating.

As a consequence, you’ll have to pay well into three figures for a perfect 1991 Topps Micro Chipper Jones card, if you can even find one.

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1991 Topps Tiffany Chipper Jones (#333)

If this card looks familiar, well, it’s because you’ve seen it before. Up there, in the O-Pee-Chee listing.

And up there, in the Desert Shield listing.

And up there, in the Micro listing.

Yes, they all sport the same design, same photo, same Chipper.

But at least the Tiffany card is glossy and printed on creamy white stock and pretty limited, compared to most other 1991s, at any rate.

And … PSA says only about 6% of the Chippers it has seen rate a perfect 10.

Put all that together, and you’re looking at close to 100 bucks for a raw copy and five grand or more for a GEM MT graded version.

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1991 Upper Deck Chipper Jones (#55)

By 1991, we all knew that Upper Deck cards would be thick, feature blazing white borders, dazzle with the best photography in the industry, and twinkle at us with their holograms.

The cards were great looking, and the Chipper Jones rookie card was no exception.

But it was all kind of … boring … after three years of pretty much the same (great) design. And there were so many UDs issued that year.

So now, decades later, we can either lament the fact that Chipper’s first Upper Deck card struggles to bring $1 on the open market (about $50 for a PSA 10) … or we can be happy that such a nice card is the rough equivalent, monetarily, to a Keurig pod.

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(Check out the rest of our posts on the 2018 Hall of Fame class here.)

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If your first exposure to Phil Niekro came through his baseball cards in the 1980s, then you probably think of him as an old man.

Heck, you may have even thought — upon first laying eyes on his cardboard — that the card companies had taken to making pasteboards of pitching coaches.

I mean, that can’t be an active player on Niekro’s 1987 Topps card, right?

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If not a coach card, then maybe a Senior League issue? Maybe MLB finally go tired of the Cleveland Indians‘ losing ways (back then) and traded them to the SBL? Maybe, except the Seniors didn’t start play until 1989.

Truth be told, even if you knew of Niekro earlier in his career, you probably still thought of him as an old man when he was throwing his knuckler off Major League mounds during a 24-year run that netted 318 victories and a plaque in Cooperstown.

Because for as long as most collectors can remember, Niekro was old-looking on his baseball cards.

But it wasn’t always that way.

Niekro signed as an amateur free agent with the Milwaukee Braves way back in 1958 when he was just 19 years old. And, although it took him six years to make the Majors and another three to really stick, Niekro looked fit, vital, and more or less young when his cards started rolling off Topps’ presses.

Here, take a look at his 1967 Topps card, which ostensibly shows him as he looked in 1966, his age-27 season:

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Not a kid, but definitely not a geezer.

So if Niekro was not born an old man, exactly when did the transformation happen?

When did Phil Niekro stop looking like a veteran MLB pitcher and start looking like a grandfather tossing Wiffle balls to his grandkids in the backyard?

It all depends on what your vision of a grandfather is, of course, but we can step through the cardboard ages to make a pretty decent determination.

Now, we know that Niekro was young(ish) on his 1967 card and really old on this 1987 Topps card. So, let’s use the bisection method to figure this out, starting with his 1977 Topps card:

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This is a tough call. Niekro’s body looks fairly fit here, but his face is much older.

I’ve definitely known grandfathers who look this old or younger. At the very least, Niekro is the dad of high-schoolers or your friendly Uncle Phil in this shot.

And since Topps was known to reach into the past for their pictures in the old days, it’s hard to tell when the photo was really snapped.

We need to go back and see what Niekro was up to a bit earlier.

Using bisection again, we find this 1972 gem:

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Pretty much primetime, not grandfatherly at all.

How about 1974?

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To my eyes, this is Dad, not Granddad.

And he looks pretty much the same in 1975 and 1976.

So … how about we go the other way?

Halfway between 1977 and 1987 is 1982. Here is what Niekro’s Topps, Fleer, and Donruss cards look like from that year:

Niekro is old here. Not ancient, maybe, but old. Heck, he can’t even get out of the dugout on his Donruss card, and I’ve known plenty of grandfathers who look better than Phil in these shots.

So, consider the shark jumped by 1982.

How about 1980?

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This is a really gray area (hardy-har-har) …

I mean, Niekro is pitching off a Major League mound, and the picture is far enough away and grainy enough that you can’t really see any wrinkles.

But he looks pretty stiff, and that body looks avuncular at least. To my eyes, it looks grandfatherly.

I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here, though, but not on the strength of his 1980 Topps card alone.

And not because of 1981 Topps or 1981 Donruss, either —

No, the saving grace for Niekro in the early 1980s was his 1981 Fleer card:

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Now, Niekro doesn’t look young here, exactly.

You can tell he has plenty of miles on his chassis. And it’s really not a very good photo.

Still, his eyes are bright … his skin is tanned and mostly taught … his hair is bushy in an Incredible Hulk sort of way and could at least pass for blonde.

And that gold chain around his neck doesn’t look completely out of place.

If not for the “PITCHER” designation on his card, Niekro might well be a coach. But he might be an active player, too. Maybe.

Once again, it’s a gray area.

But Phil Niekro does not look like a grandfather on his 1981 Fleer baseball card, and that’s the last time he would ever be able to make that claim.

(Check out our other player card posts here.)

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It happens all the time to me, even after all these years of collecting and after having spent a decade or more as a kid pouring over every card I could get my hands on.

It’s an amazing phenomenon and one that leaves me in disbelief every single time. But it also makes me feel giddy … there’s a new 1981 Topps card out there?

Well, no, probably not. But in that moment, it’s new to me.

That’s sort of what discovering baseball is like for the new fan — you know the game has been there all along, but by golly, it’s so new and exciting to you that you’re on Cloud 9.

So I knew I  had to include this treasure-from-the-mundane thing in my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge, and that’s what this Day 15 post is all about — a baseball card that I’ve never seen before.

Most of the time, I stumble on these babies when I least expect it … like the aforementioned stack-thumbing.

This time around, though, I consulted my local Google machine to help me pan through a few hundred cards of various topics … Reds cards … Hall of Fame cards … 1980s Donruss cards … 1978 cards.

And that’s where I saw it — the 1978 Topps Zest Willie Montanez.

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The what what?

You heard me — the 1978 Topps Zest Willie Montanez. The one that jumped off the page at me like the baseball on a 1975 Topps wax pack wrapper.

Now, Willie Montanez himself is no stranger to me. I vividly remember pushing his early 1980s cards around my bedroom floor during sorting sessions that lasted deep into the night. I marveled at the long line of stats on his card back.

I also remember that he played for the Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, and New York Mets, though a couple of his other stops don’t register at all (for me).

Finally, I get an instant mental image when I think of “1978 Topps Willlie Montanez” — an image of Willie leaning in with his reaching left-handed batting stance, wearing a Braves warm-up jacket on the grass, looking off to his right rather than at the camera or toward the “pitcher.”

By the time that card made its way to collectors, though, Montanez was with the Mets. We’d get a Montanez-Mets card courtesy of 1979 Topps, but collectors were doomed to stale Willie cards in the summer of 1978.

Except …

Except that Topps teamed up with Zest soap to make a five-card set that collectors in certain states could nab through the mail, in exchange for some proofs of purchase from Zest. (There is a discussion of the cards and even a big old picture of the original order form in this thread at Collectors.com.)

Besides Montanez, the Zest-y players included Ed Figueroa, Manny Mota, Joaquin Andujar, and Bert Campaneris.

Cards were identical to those in the base Topps set, except their numbering (1-5) and the fact that they included both English and Spanish text on the back.

Oh, one other difference …

Willie Montanez is pictured in a smiling head-shoulders-and-bat pose, and he’s wearing his New York Mets hat and pinstripes.

And just like that, at least a few collectors had an updated Montanez cards … and, 41 years later, I stumbled across another card I’d never seen before.

Wonders never cease!

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

For me, this assignment brings visions of the big trades and free agent signings from my childhood, roughly the 1980s.

And during the 80s, there was no single more dominant team than the 1984 Detroit Tigers, who ran out to a 9-0 record in April and then streaked to 35-5 before “cooling” to a final record of 104-58.

The Bengals ran the table in the old American League East, holding first place wire-to-wire, and winning the division by 15 games over the Toronto Blue Jays.

The postseason was pretty much a formality, as the Tigers swept the Kansas City Royals in the ALCS and then met the San Diego Padres in the World Series. The Padres were a good story in their own right, having taken out the upstart Chicago Cubs (who had taken out the upstart New York Mets in the NL East) in the NLCS. The Pads also had a young batting title winner on their roster — one Tony Gwynn. Ever hear of him?

Didn’t matter to the Tigers, though, as they downed San Diego, four games to one.

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Now, most of that Tigers team consisted of homegrown players who all peaked — or close to it — at the same time. Guys like Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Kirk Gibson, Jack Morris, Barbaro Garbey, Chet Lemon, Dan Petry.

There was one notable “outsider” who contributed in a big way — closer Willie Hernandez made 80 appearances and pitched to a 9-3 record, with a 1.92 ERA and 32 saves. That was good enough to garner him both big American League awards … Cy Young and MVP.

Guillermo had pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies “Wheeze Kids” team the year before, and he appeared with the Phils on his 1984 baseball cards, so he’d definitely qualify for this piece.

But there was another guy on that ’84 Tigers team who sort of toiled in the shadows of his more flamboyant teammates and who, truthfully, didn’t play all that well in 1984.

After the San Francisco Giants let him walk as a free agent, aging slugger Darrell Evans signed on with Detroit to be their DH during his age-37 season. Though he had smacked 30 home runs on the Bay in 1983, that was his highest total since he hit 41 with the Atlanta Braves way back in 1973. And, even though he was (partially) hanging up his third baseman and first baseman gloves, no one could expect Evans to match that power output again.

He didn’t, either.

In 131 games for Detroit, Evans managed just a .232, 16 HR, 63 RBI output and sort of faded from whatever little bit of limelight he had garnered in his career. It didn’t help that he hit .061 in the World Series, either.

Probably just as well that he appeared on Giants cards all summer long, like his 1984 Topps issue.

Things didn’t go quite so well for the Tigers in 1985, though. They sported a winning record all season long but fell out of first place on April 30 and never got back there, finishing in third place in the East. Along the way, Sparky Anderson started to make some adjustments to try and rev up his team, and one of those was installing Evans as his regular first baseman.

Whether it was getting back on the field with more consistency or just a matter of adjusting to a new league and a new park (Tiger Stadium), Evans found his old power stroke, and then some.

At age 38, Darrell connected on 40 bombs and drove in 94 runs while upping his average to .248. He also drew 85 walks, good for a .356 OBP.

Maybe more importantly, that summer of 1985 gave Evans some room to breathe and helped him tack on another three productive power seasons to his career. From 1986-88, he hit 85 home runs and collected 248 RBI, good for 9 WAR if your Sabermetrically inclined.

Though he finished with a forgettable one-year return engagement with the Atlanta Braves in 1989, Evans’ late push left him as one of the top 20 or so third basemen of all time and with 414 home runs to his name. It’s not inconceivable that he’ll get some Hall of Fame consideration from the Modern Baseball Era Committee one of these years.

Above all, though, his geriatric power show made Evans an undeniable part of Tigers history and leaves his 1984 Topps card looking not quite right.

Thank goodness for those traded sets, huh?

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

For most of his career,, catcher Vic Correll found his time at the plate much more challenging than his time behind the plate … but that all changed as he rounded third on his Major League tenure, and Topps made a big deal out of it.

Well, sort of, at least.

Let’s start at the beginning …

Correll was selected by the Cleveland Indians in the ninth round of the 1967 MLB June Draft, and spent six seasons working his way through the minor leagues. After all those bus rides and questionable meals, not to mention hopping to the Chicago White Sox and then the Boston Red Sox, Correll finally found his way into a game at Tiger Stadium on October 4, 1972.

The good news was, he started that game for the Sox against the Tigers, and he went 2-for-4 with a run and an RBI. The bad news was … well, he was back in the minors for all of 1973, and then Boston traded him to the Atlanta Braves for Chuck Goggin at the end of Spring Training in 1974.

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That was a sweet move for Correll, as it turned out, because he found some playing time with the Braves during Hank Aaron‘s crowning season. At age 28, Correll racked up 231 plate appearances and hit .238 with four home runs. He also performed well enough as a signal-caller for Atlanta to not only keep him around for 1975 but to bump up his playing time — in 375 PAs, Correll smacked 11 homers and drove in 39.

He also hit .215.

Not surprisingly for a 30-year-old coming off a Mendosa-esque campaign, Correll saw his opportunities start to dwindle. By the end of 1977, he was a 50-game player, a .200 hitter on the verge of free agency.

Also not surprisingly, it took Correll awhile to find work. So long, in fact, that the new season was already two days old when he signed with the Cincinnati Reds on April 8, 1978. He continued to “hit” like a defensive specialist in Cincy, clocking averages of .238 in ’78 and .233 in 1979.

Then, after staging a sort of mini-holdout in the spring of 1980, Correll tore his Achilles tendon in March. Surgery and the subsequent recovery sidelined him until August, when he began a rehab stint with Single-A Tampa.

It’s not the sort of thing that any player wants to go through, but something about the situation must have worked in Correll’s favor, because he played like a man possessed when he stormed back to the Riverfront in September.

OK, maybe not possessed, but at least bothered.

In ten games through the end of the season, Correll collected eight hits in 19 at-bats for a coll .421 batting average. Sure, his on-base percentage was also .421 and his slugging average was just .471, but still.

Topps must have thought, “but still,” too, because they took Correll’s outburst as a sign that he was coming back better than ever in 1981 and slotted him at #628 in their “great hats” set.

Problem was, the Reds released Correll in late October, and no other team picked him up.

And thus, Vic Correll and his lifetime .229 batting average and 29 home runs has a career-capper card, a distinction that eluded even greats like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Johnny Bench.

But , hey … none of them finished as strong as Vic Correll did!

(Check out our other player card posts here.)

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Baseball’s offseason is a time when fans of just about every team can get excited …

What moves will your club make? Will any big names land in your town? Will your team finally win something other than your heart?

And it’s all fueled by the trades and free agent signings that either happen or are whispered about from from November through early March.

For collectors, of course, any time a player changes teams, there are hobby implications — from chasing updated pics of all the big names in their new uniforms to adding new names to your master team set.

Now, if you’ve spent much time on this site or picking through our Twitter account (@WaxPackGods), you know that we don’t do much with new cards — they’re confusing, they’re slick, they’re overwhelming. We’re all about old stuff and nostalgia … or at least mostly about old stuff and nostalgia.

Rookie Card Grudge Match

But we’re also baseball fans, which means we follow all of the stuff that’s happening on the field and in the news now. And, there are at least some new cards that look great, even if we don’t understand them.

We also love that baseball is a game that spans the eras, and that it’s easy to see there are strong ties from one generation to the next, from your dad’s era to your era to today’s era, and on and on.

With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to compare the rookie cards of some of the guys who are making headlines this offseason (2018-19) with those of similar guys from years gone by. And by “similar,” I mean the guys who score high on the Similarity Score chart as presented for each player by Baseball Reference.

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Here’s how this will work …

• I’ll pick my favorite rookie card for each guy.
• “Rookie card” will be loosely defined and malleable to fit my druthers at the moment.
• I don’t know much about modern cards, so I’ll be picking them based almost entirely on aesthetics.
• I have a deep history with older cards, so I’ll pick them based on aesthetics and the general “feels” they give me.
• I’ll pit the cards against each other in three categories: front, back, feels.
• I reserve the right to use value considerations as a tiebreaker, but it doesn’t really matter much most of the time.

Them’s the rules …

So, where to start?

Well, as of this writing, there is a lot of buzz around Cleveland Indians first baseman Yonder Alonso. And who is the most comparable player to Alonso?

That would be none other than NLCS legend Sid Bream.

For Bream, the choice comes down to two 1985 cards — Topps and Donruss.

While I loved the 1985 Donruss set as a kid (and still do) because it was so Donruss-y, I’m going with the Topps card. It’s  shot against a blue spring sky, and Bream looks great in his Dodger Blues.

For Alonzo, there seem to be several 2011 cards from which to choose. It’s probably not a surprise, though, that I’m going with the 2011 Topps Heritage, an homage to the 1962 Topps set.

So that’s our battle: 1985 Topps Sid Bream v. 2011 Topps Heritage Yonder Alonso.

On to the tale of the tape …

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Card Fronts

As mentioned above, the Bream rookie makes me long for Spring and, while the 1985 Topps design was nothing groundbreaking, it’s a solid offering that’s very 1980s in its presentation. And the red and blue colors make the card stand out in a crowd.

The Alonso card, meanwhile, features those classic 1962 Topps woodgrain borders, along with a “2011 Rookie” star in the upper lefthand corner. Both big pluses.

But it’s also cluttered with two more logos, and the pic of Alonso is pretty boring.

Winner: 1985 Topps Sid Bream

Card Backs

The 1985 Topps card backs were a snore for the most part, thought the burnt-red and green color combo does lend a Christmas-y feel. Still, generic trivia questions and a lack of “extra” player info leaves the whole thing flat.

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Topps card backs in the 1960s and 1970s were a lot of fun, generally speaking, and the 1962s were great. With just two lines of traditional stats encompassing the previous year and lifetime totals, these cards don’t have a lot to offer hardcore Sabermetrics geeks. But they more than make up for it with narrative about each player and the little cartoons that no one did or does like Topps.

In Yonder’s case, we learn that he ranked 2nd on his Louisville squad with 31 doubles in 2010 and that the Reds were considering him in left field since Joey Votto had first base locked down for Cincinnati in 2010-11. Fun stuff.

And good enough to make this a clear-cut choice.

Winner: 2011 Topps Heritage Yonder Alonso

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Feels

Full disclosure — I don’t own the 2011 Topps Heritage Yonder Alonso card.

I own, or at least have owned, probably dozens of 1985 Topps Bream cards over the years. It was issued in my collecting heyday, and I was all in for every card I could lay my chubby little mitts on. I know how these cards feel in my hands, I know what they look like, I know what they sound like as they slide across each other.

And I also know what it felt like to watch Bream lumber home from second base on Francisco Cabrera‘s two-out single in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series to send the Atlanta Braves to the World Series.

Even though it unfolded at the pace of War and Peace, it was the most excited I had ever been watching a baseball game on TV.

All of that and more comes rushing back when I hold the gray mush of a 1985 Topps Sid Bream rookie card, even today.

Winner: 1985 Topps Sid Bream

Overall Winner

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While Yonder Alonso scores bonus points for having once been a member of the Cincinnati Reds, and while his 2011 Topps Heritage rookie card is niftily retro, it can’t overcome Bream’s history and the nostalgia of actual old Topps cardboard.

Both contenders turned in a strong fight, but in the end, the 1985 Topps Sid Bream rookie card is our champion of the day.

(Check out our other player card posts here.)

He was also the subject of two rookie cards — 1982 Topps Atlanta Braves Future Stars and his own 1982 Donruss solo card.

Over the next couple of decades, Butler crafted a solid career that left many wondering if he might have a shot at the Hall of Fame. Along the way, that 1982 Donruss rookie of his danced in and out of the limelight as Butler’s own fortunes waxed and waned.

As fate would have it, Wax Pack Gods and that classic Donruss Butler card both ended up on a make-believe episode of the old Dick Cavett Show in the fall of 2018 to discuss the upstart Atlanta Braves and their impact on Junk Wax baseball cards.

We caught up with the Brett Butler Baseball Card backstage, in the famed “white room.” He agreed to speak with us and was his usual reflective self.

Enjoy the memories.

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Wax Pack Gods (WPG): When you were issued, the Braves had only been in Atlanta for 16 years and had posted seven straight losing seasons. What was it like to be born into such a bleak culture?

Brett Butler Baseball Card (BBBC): I was just happy to be there, honestly.

Wax Pack Gods: And how did that opportunity arise?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Well … Brett Butler was a rookie in 1981 and then Donruss made baseball cards in 1982. So, really, it was the luck of timing. I just as easily could have been a Dark Crystal card.

Wax Pack Gods:Dodged a bullet there!

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Yep. *looks off to the side*

Wax Pack Gods: You’re thinking about what it would have been like to be a Topps card, or even a Fleer card, aren’t you?

(Here, cardboard Butler’s eyes teared up, and he bit his lip.)

Brett Butler Baseball Card: I don’t want to talk about that.

Wax Pack Gods: Fair enough. So, you mentioned Brett Butler’s rookie year — that came in 1981, during the strike-shortened season. He only played 40 games but slashed .254/.352/.315. Were you proud to wear those stats on your back?

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Brett Butler Baseball Card: “Slashed?”

Wax Pack Gods: Oh, right. Sorry. Butler hit .254 with nine stolen bases and one caught-stealing.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: What’s a “caught-stealing”?

Wax Pack Gods: OK. He played 40 games and hit .254.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Yeah, solid.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: So what happened in 1982?

Wax Pack Gods: That’s the year the Braves got good.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Right, but what happened with Brett? He played in 89 games, but his average fell to .217

Wax Pack Gods: With 21 stolen bases, though.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: That’s true, but then in the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals …

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Um …

Brett Butler Baseball Card: I mean …

Wax Pack Gods: Anyway, Brett had some pretty good years later in his career.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Yeah. Those were some good times.

Wax Pack Gods: Right. As one of Brett’s two rookie cards, you were pretty popular for awhile in the 1990s.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: For a time there, I thought …

Wax Pack Gods: It looked like Butler might make the Hall of Fame, right?

Wax Pack Gods: I mean, almost 2400 hits and more than 500 stolen bases are nothing to sneeze at.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Tell that to collectors. All they want are home runs. Home runs or strikeouts. Plush, studio-quality photos. It’s not fair, or realistic, really.

Wax Pack Gods: Seems like I’ve touched a nerve here. Let’s move on.

Wax Pack Gods: How do you spend your time these days?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: In the commons bin, mostly.

Wax Pack Gods: Oh, man. That’s rough. Sorry to hear that. You ever see any of your old pals from the glory years?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: A few. 1984 Donruss Mike Stenhouse and I are pretty close. Those 1982 Topps Chicago Cubs Future Stars — Jay Howell, Carlos Lezcano, Ty Waller — they’re regulars, too. Every once in awhile, 1980 Topps Rick Sutcliffe or even 1981 Fleer Joe Charboneau shows up. It’s great to see them, but it’s tough. People don’t have any sense of history, I’ll tell you.

Wax Pack Gods: Right. Speaking of history, do you still follow the Braves?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Sort of. I mean, it’s tough to get baseball news where I am. We don’t really have internet.

Wax Pack Gods: But you know they were in the playoffs in 2018?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: I heard about it from 1983 Fleer Bob Horner.

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Wax Pack Gods: Oh, wow. That one’s still around? It’s had a rough go of it.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Yeah, it’s still out there. Makes me realize how lucky I am. I mean, there but for the grace of the Wax Pack Gods goes me.

Wax Pack Gods: Amen. So, about these Braves …

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Look, they made it to the playoffs, right? They weren’t supposed to be there yet, so seems like a win to me.

Wax Pack Gods: True. But those bats had some troubles against the Dodgers. What do you think went wrong?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: I don’t know. Orel Hershiser‘s pretty good. And Fernando Valenzuela … always tough to hit.

Wax Pack Gods: No, no. The braves lost to Hyun-Jin Ryu, Clayton Kershaw, and Ryan Madson.

Brett Butler Baseball Card: And Tom Niedenfuer can put it together every once in awhile.

Wax Pack Gods: I don’t think you’re following me here. Do you think you could have hit better than Ender Inciarte in the NLDS?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Who?

Wax Pack Gods: Well, hmmm. Let’s talk about the pitching staff. What went wrong with Mike Foltynewicz in Game 1?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: Who?

Wax Pack Gods: OK. It’s been great talking with you. Any last words for collectors?

Brett Butler Baseball Card: The commons bin is real. And it’s a terrible place to spend eternity. There are plenty of us there who would love a new home, and you loved us once. Big names — 1990 Fleer Kevin Maas, 1984 Topps Ron Kittle, 1978 Topps Mitchell Page, 1983 Topps David Green. 1985 Topps Benny Distefano. Isn’t there still a nine-pocket page or top-loader in your heart for us?

Wax Pack Gods: Well, that got weird, but it was great talking to you, Brett Butler Baseball Card.

(Check out the rest of our 2018 playoffs posts here.)

Baseball cards reached something like a local maximum in 1987, when all three major manufacturers issued sets with definable character and at least a hint of scarcity (well, maybe not Topps).

It may not have been Everest, but it looks like a pretty nice peak from the vantage point of the 21st century.

At the time, we all thought baseball cards would only get better and better every year, but that was probably too lofty of an expectation from the beginning. It only took until the 1988 cards hit store shelves that spring to figure out we were in for an adjustment …

Topps looked pretty, but it was everywhere.

Donruss looked pretty awful, and it was everywhere, including places Topps wasn’t.

And Fleer …

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Well, Fleer seemed a bit scarcer. It wasn’t bleeding out onto the streets like Donruss was.

But whereas in 1987 Fleer had taken a step toward what we imagined a premium set might look like, the 1988 cards seemed … gimmicky. Cheap.

The red-white-and-blue-with-sprinkles design always reminded me of a Little Debbie Fourth of July snack cake and combined with the cheesy backs to make the whole thing seem like one of Fleer’s cheapo box sets.

On growth hormone.

Like a big ol’ “Revco Presents Baseball Superstars and Sorta Stars and Commons and Guys You’ve Never Heard Of” box set that you could pick up for $30 with the purchase of any piece of home medical equipment (minimum purchase $100).

Part of the cheese that I suppose was intended to be artsy and sophisticated was the ghosty white fade-in at the top of cards, where each photo jutted over top for a flat 3-D effect.

Now, Fleer had used a similar device in 1987, and I wasn’t crazy about it then, either, but it was something fresh to try.

Once.

When the fade came back in 1988, though, it seemed to eat even more photo real estate. As a result, there are tons of posed shots and up-close action shots that really aren’t action shots and tiny little figurine pictures.

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But one guy who shows up as none of that is Chicago Cubs catcher Jody Davis (#414).

Davis makes no concessions for this card.

He is a catcher in the middle of a play at the plate, and he has a tag to make.

Runner dude looks out to me.

Davis is in full lunge mode, ready to eat dirt if he has to. You can keep your little misty stuff at the top of the card, too, because Davis is having none of it.

He’s more than happy to duck down, not just to nab the runner but also to stay the hell away from your cakey white perfume, Fleer.

He will, however, doff his catcher’s mask because, you know, gotta show off the grill.

So, yeah, I picked another catcher.

And?

It’s Jody Davis. He’s railing against the degradation of our hobby. He’s fighting the Fleer frou-frou and winning.

He’s got the best card of the 1988 Fleer baseball set.

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(This is the 24th in our series of posts about the best baseball cards from the 1980s. Check out the rest of those posts here.)

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What does a Hall of Famer look like?

Is he muscular or wispy, maybe even fat or skinny?

Is he short or tall? Does he have any discernible physical abnormalities?

Does he have all his hair and, if he does, how does he care for it?

These are all questions with unknowable answers, of course, because there are as many different types of Hall of Famers as there are Coooperstown enshrinees themselves.

And the task becomes all the more difficult if we’re talking about future Hall of Famers, especially if we’re trying to predict that ultimate status before guys even really get underway in their careers.

But that’s sort of what we all do when we buy into rookie cards of young players, whether we consider that speculation, investing, or just collecting.

Back in 1987, as the hobby was booming in earnest, we didn’t care too much about those labels — we just wanted to get our hands on the RCs of guys who would become superstars and, eventually, Hall of Famers.

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Some players were easy to pick out …

Will Clark and Mark McGwire had both played with the USA Olympic Baseball Team and went on to craft stellar college careers. They projected as solid (or much better) Major League hitters.

Bo Jackson was a physical specimen unlike any we’d ever seen, and he had the raw talent — with at least some polishing already in place — to succeed on the gridiron and the diamond. He was in our buying fold, too.

All of these guys were big, strong, and/or charismatic even on their cardboard, like their 1987 Donruss Rated Rookie cards.

On the mound, pitchers like Randy Myers had the eye of the tiger on their cards and were physically imposing, by the numbers at least — 6’1″ and 190 pounds in Myers’ case, with tons of strikeouts in his bio on the card back.

Rated Rookies made it easy to zero in on players Donruss thought were can’t-miss, but would any of them become BIG TIME stars?

All we had to go on was the RR designation, whatever scouting reports we could get our hands on (if we bothered with such things), and our eyes. Did the guy look like a Hall of Famer in the making?

Consider one case as an example exercise, another Rated Rookie who

• Had long, scraggly hair flapping out from beneath his Chicago Cubs cap.
• Sported pipe-cleaner arms and legs that were just a touch girthier.
• Wore a stringy mustache with a big gap in the middle that made him look like a high school sophomore trying to flex his newfound puberty.
• Gazed toward the plate as he pitched with half-open eyes that didn’t seem to give a damn.
• Stood 6’0″ and weighed *what?* 150 pounds according to the back of his card.
• Had pitched 31 innings for the Cubs in 1986 and crafted a 5.52 ERA while allowing 55 base runners.

How would you rank this guy as a Hall of Fame candidate?

That Rated Rookie status notwithstanding, I’m guessing your socks are still firmly on your feet, having not been knocked off by Greg Maddux‘s early presentation through his 1987 Donruss card.

And most of the hobby felt the same way.

None of us took much notice of the young man whom the Cubs selected out of high school in the 2nd round of the 1984 draft until at least 1988, when he went 18-8. Even then, his cards were still pretty much buried by McGwire, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Clark, and others.

But when we did our yearly scan of our personal commons bins looking for guys who had broken out since the last time we scanned — you did this, too, right? — we probably went ahead and promoted Maddux to the box that held Dan Driessen and Mark Davis and Joe Magrane and Lonnie Smith.

The semi-stars.

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If not in 1988, then in 1989 or 1990 or, certainly, in 1992 when Maddux won his first Cy Young award.

And years later, when Maddux was a household name for the Atlanta Braves and looking like a HOF lock, we marveled at how such a greasy looking kid had turned into something more. So much more than we ever imagined he could be.

It’s that long-term journey that we take with our cardboard heroes, from commons to veterans to superstars to Hall of Famers, that make baseball cards such an unbreakable habit. Like the game itself, this hobby is an epic novel that spans generations and allows us to watch boys grow into men, even as we ourselves grow into men.

For all its symbolism and its lessons about judging a book by its cover and its significance in the history of the hobby and the game, the Greg Maddux Rated Rookie card is the best card from the 1987 Donruss set.

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(This is the 20th in our series of posts about the best baseball cards from the 1980s. Check out the rest of those posts here.)

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By almost any objective measure — and many subjective ones — the 1981 Topps baseball card set is the best of a flawed lot of base issues from that strike-shortened year.

Consider …

• Topps checked in at 726 cards, 66 more than Fleer and 121 more than Donruss.
• Topps squeezed in a ton of rookies thanks to their “Future Stars” cards.
• Topps added All-Star banners to the guys who participated in the 1980 Midsummer Classic.
• Topps dedicated a handful of cards to the 1980 playoffs and World Series.
• Topps featured a solid baseball design with a team cap on every card.
• Topps celebrated 1980 highlights with Record Breaker cards.
• Topps continued their tradition of team cards.
• Topps offered a variety of image types throughout its set.
• Topps cards were relatively error-free, in stark contrast to Fleer and Donruss.

Lots of good stuff.

Still, it wasn’t all (Butch) Wyne(gar) and (Pete) Roses for Topps.

Many of the photos were dark and dingy. Several were grainy.

The mushy brown cardstock came back for another year and felt cheap compared to Fleer (though not necessarily to Donruss).

Also, Topps was inconsistent in where they stuck young stars — Kirk Gibson got a solo rookie card, but Tim Raines got lumped in with Roberto Ramos and Bobby Pate as Expos Future Stars, and Fernando Valenzuela ended up as Dodgers Future Stars fodder. (Donruss managed to get Raines a single of his own, and Fleer featured “Fernand” Valenzuela all by himself.)

Still, 1981 Topps was a solid set with plenty of choices for “best” card.

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You could make a case for plenty of singles as the top of the heap, in fact. Here are a few that rank high on my list:

• Pete Rose — this was the first superstar card I pulled from a pack.
• Manny Sanguillen just looks so darn happy.
• Roland Office can’t believe what’s lurking over there, behind the cameraman.
• Bob Boone has great hair even in the middle of a play at the plate.
• Mike Schmidt looks like he could whip your team with his bare hands.
• Kent Tekulve follows through, upright, while a New York Met (Bruce Boisclair?) looks on from second base.
• Gary Carter is ready for battle.
• Ellis Valentine protects his face with dinosaur bones.
• Tom Hausman is all passion and motion.

So which one actually is the best?

Well, that’s another question rife with subjectivity and moment-to-moment whims.

But right now, and given the cards I’ve already picked for various of these types of posts, I’m having trouble looking past the 1981 Topps Bruce Sutter card.

Now, critics can ding me right away because there is a ton of background in this image, and none of it is Wrigley Field.

But none of that matters.

In fact, it’s part of what makes the card great.

We get an almost full-body Sutter following through on a pitch that’s almost coming at us head-on but is skewed to our right just a bit. It’s like we’re standing in a very close-to-the-plate on-deck circle. Or like Bruce is putting some gusto into an intentional walk.

The ball is in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, just under the green N.L. All-Star banner.

It’s balanced — not quite symmetrically — with the TOPPS baseball in the lower right-hand corner, and Sutter straddles a Cubs hat as he finishes off his offering.

His long hair flies like wings from under his own cap and gives you the unsettling feeling that he might be a bit wild. A chilling thought when the baseball is coming in head-high.

Had this been any pitcher other than Sutter, it would have still been an effective card, but knowing that Sutter was perhaps the top reliever in the game when this shot was snapped makes it all the more impactful.

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The card back helps reinforce this idea, too, especially the cartoons:

Was winning pitcher in 2 straight All-Star games.”

And …

Holds N.L. record for saves with 37 in 1979.

Sutter was so good during that 1979 season, in fact, that he won the NL Cy Young award, even though J.R. Richard and Phil Niekro might have had stronger cases.

And if all that isn’t enough to make this card a keeper in your mind, consider that it’s also the very last time Sutter appeared on a base Topps card in his Chicago Cubs uniform.

On December 9, 1980, the Cubs shipped Sutter to the St. Louis Cardinals for Leon Durham and Ken Reitz (the Cards would throw in Ty Waller on December 22).

Durham helped the Cubs to a division title in 1984, but Sutter kept chugging right along for St. Louis and was a key part of their pennant-winning team in 1982.

The Cardinals let him walk as a free agent after the ’84 season, and Sutter finished up with a three-year run with the Atlanta Braves.

All-told, Sutter crafted a relatively short (12 years) but dominant career during which he racked up an even 300 saves and helped bring the split-fingered fastball into mainstream use. For his efforts, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006, just the second reliever — after Hoyt Wilhelm — to achieve that status.

And, if there were a Cooperstown for 1981 Topps baseball cards, Bruce Sutter’s last Cubs card would be right there with him.

(This is the third in our series of posts about the best baseball cards from the 1980s. Check out the rest of those posts here.)

(Check out our rundown of the most valuable 1981 Topps baseball cards.)

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