A (probably) incomplete listing of his pasteboards from that year include:

• 1983 Fleer #81
• 1983 Fleer Star Stickers #26
• 1983 Donruss #90
• 1983 Donruss Action All-Stars #38
• 1983 Topps #200
• 1983 Topps #201 – Super Veteran
• 1983 Topps #386 – All-Star
• 1983 Topps #651 California Angels Team Leaders
• 1983 Topps Glossy Send-Ins #29
• 1983 Topps Stickers #39

Before that summer, I was only vaguely aware of Carew — or any other player — but these cards made me feel like I knew who he was, at least a little.

The Donruss and Topps base issues told me this was a man serious about fielding his position, even though his lithe body and in-the-dirt crouch made me think he was a second baseman.

I would later find out that he did, indeed, man the middle of the infield during his most productive years.

The base Fleer card, Topps Glossy, and Donruss All-Star inset told me that he was a focused batsman.

And, holy cow, the Topps Angels Team Leaders card and the backs of all his base cards, showed me the result of that focus. It didn’t take me long to realize that the cardboard I held in my chubby little hands depicted a living legend who could bang out 200 hits a season like he was mowing the lawn.

But Carew’s Topps All-Star card told me it didn’t all come easy.

There he is, rounding the bin toward 40 years old, wrapped up in a foil-lined sweatsuit with his Angels jersey overtop and armed with both his fielding cap and his batting helmet. This was a man clearly ready to battle age and pitchers with equal ferocity as he mounted his assault on 3000 hits and a Cooperstown plaque.

Through it all, there was an ease in his posture and a flame in his eyes that told me he loved what he was doing, that he didn’t want to be anywhere else.

And, every once in a while, as on that All-Star card or in profile as the Angels’ batting leader from 1982, Carew would flash his big, happy grin. 

“Can you believe I get to play baseball for a living?” he seemed to be asking the photographer.

To my 11-year-old eyes, nothing seemed more natural. Judging by the backs of his baseball cards, Rod Carew had been playing baseball forever.

And judging by the fronts of his baseball cards, Rod Carew would go on playing baseball forever.

Of course, we’re all human, even our Wax Pack Gods.

Sometimes, forever doesn’t last nearly as long as we thought it would, or as we had hoped.

Rod Carew only played two more seasons after that barrage of 1983 cards, and he never did hit .300 again.

He did collect his 3000th Big League hit in 1985, though.

He played his final game four days after his 40th birthday.

Carew was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1991, and more or less disappeared from public life until his recent health problems reminded us of how great he was and how human we all are.

We stop being great in our chosen fields. We get old. Sometimes, we get sick.

But for a generation of collectors, Rod Carew will always be out there in the field, turning the gears on the baseball fountain of youth under the California sun.

Just like he is in our cardboard dreams.

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There Eckersley was, posed on the front of his second-year pasteboard in cold-weather gear that included a long-sleeve “sweat” suit underneath a Cleveland Indians red home jersey. Of course, you might have been forgiven for thinking the top was actually pink and not red given Topps color scheme for the team that year.

And it was fitting, right?

The Indians were perennial doormats who couldn’t possibly hang with the big boys in the old AL East, so a nice, gentle color seemed appropriate.

‘Hidden’ Potential

Now, it’s true that Frank Robinson — the first black manager in the history of the Major Leagues — had guided The Tribe to an 81-78 record and fourth place finish in 1976, but no one really expected Cleveland to jump up and knock off the New York Yankees — right?

And who was Dennis Eckersley?

Fans outside of Cleveland may have known him as the young guy with a lively fastball, but he was no household name. Most would have simply thumbed past the card in a stack of gum-chalk-covered 1977s, but a few would have turned the card over.

For those who took the time to study Eckersley’s stats, card #525 was likely a revelation …

In 1975, he had won 13 games and lost only seven for a Cleveland team that finished 79-80, showing some glimmers of promise. Along the way, Eckersley struck out 152 batters in 187 innings and sported a cool 2.60 ERA.

In 1976, the ERA ballooned to 3.44 and his record fell to 13-12, but Eckersley racked up 200 Ks in 199 innings. Back in those days, you just didn’t strike out a batter an inning unless your name was ‘Nolan Ryan‘, so … maybe Eckersley was worth a second look after all.

Really curious collectors my have, at that point, glanced up at the bio section of this 1977 card and done a quick calculation — as the ’77 season got rolling, Eckersley was just 22 years old.

This was getting interesting for anyone who made it this far, and Eckersley definitely warranted further scrutiny.

Flipping the card back to the front — and armed with the knowledge that a few minutes of a statistical deep-dive can impart — you probably would have noticed it immediately.

It was the glare of an intense competitor. The humorless expression of a young athlete who had no time for doubters. And the slightly unkempt hair that hinted Eckersley might be a little … wild.

If you weren’t excited by this kid by that point, well, it would still be hard to blame you.

Not Good but Dominant

After all, he still pitched for the Cleveland Indians, and they were going nowhere fast. Despite the improvements they’d shown under Robinson since he took over at the start of 1975, they stumbled to an 18-22 record that left them in fifth place through May 29 of 1977, a day on which they beat the struggling Oakland A’s on a Duane Kuiper walk-off single (how many times have you heard that one?!).

Even with that victory and the good things F. Robby had done for Cleveland, his managerial seat was already plenty warm by Memorial Day, May 30.

That night, the Indians hosted the California Angels and their own young ace Frank Tanana. On the mound for Cleveland would be that same, still clean-shaven fireballer that collectors may or may not have noticed in their first trips through 1977 Topps wax packs: Dennis Eckersley.

Tanana entered the game 8-1 and turned in another amazing performance that included six strikeouts over nine full innings, allowing just five hits and a single walk. The only run he surrendered came on a bunt groundout by Jim Norris in the bottom of the first inning to score — yes — Duane Kuiper.

Unfortunately for Tanana, Eckersley was utterly dominant, striking out 12 and walking just one batter in a nine-inning shutout. And, oh, by the way — he didn’t give up any hits at all.

Take a look at that savage sidearm delivery in the grainy footage below as Eckersley Gil Flores for the final out of his stunning no-hitter, and you get a small hint as to what Angels batters faced that day.

Now, look back to that glowering young man on the front of his 1977 Topps baseball card.

Doesn’t he look just a tad more vicious? Don’t those stats on the back make more sense?

Of course, none of that really mattered for the Cleveland Indians that season, who would finish at 71-90 and in fifth place. For his troubles, Robinson would be canned less than a month after Eckersley’s gem.

And Eckersley himself finished a pedestrian 14-13, though he did make his first All-Star game. He’d be gone before the 1978 season began, though, traded to the Boston Red Sox, where he’d record his greatest season as a starter.

From there, “Dennis” went through a series of up-and-down seasons and battled a myriad of personal issues before he emerged a decade after his no-hitter with the Oakland A’s as The Eck to become one of the most dominant relief pitchers in baseball history.

Could we have seen all the twists and turns of his storied career just by reading our cardboard crystal balls?

Hardly, but there were plenty of clues in Dennis Eckersley’s 1977 Topps baseball card that the young man was something special on the mound.

Here … let me help you out …

The perfect Rickey card would have to include …

• A crouch, if he’s at-bat
• That other crouch, if he’s on the basepaths
• A steely stare
• The vibrant Green & Gold of the Oakland A’s
• The staid navy blue pinstripes of the New York Yankees if you prefer mid-1980s vintage
• A clean, classic card design
• His gaudy numbers on full display on the card back

And … well, this should go without saying, but … the card should spell Henderson’s name correctly. Both of his names.

The good news is that there are plenty of cards that check all those boxes.

His 1980 Topps rookie card is a pretty good example:

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His 1984 Topps card fits the bill, too:

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And this 1983 Topps Record Breaker …

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And his 1985 Fleer card …

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And even his 1989 Topps card …

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But you know which Rickey Henderson card wasn’t quite so perfect? That would be his very first card …

Humble Beginnings

Henderson spent the 1977 season as an 18-year-old prospect with the Single-A Modesto A’s. He did just OK … he hit .345, stole 95 bases, and scored 120 runs.

Pretty pedestrian stuff.

Anyway, a group named Chong Enterprises produced a team set for Modesto that season, and they included a card of Rickey.

And boy, was it a doozy!

Consider …

• The photo was in black-and-white.
• The photo was about half bat.
• The photo was grainy enough that you can’t really see his eyes very well. Maybe he’s glaring?
• The back is blank.
• The card number appears prominently on the card front, in the upper left-hand corner, like so:  “5)”
• There is no card design to speak of.

And, oh my — Rickey’s name is spelled wrong.

So Rickey Henderson’s first-ever baseball card is actually a “Ricky” Henderson baseball card, and it could be a Dave Henderson baseball card for all we can tell from the photo.

Looking at pictures of the card, you also get the feeling it might actually just be an old newspaper clipping.

The thing is, though, looking at pictures of the card may be just about as close as you’re ever going to get to one of these things. You see, the Chong cards are about as rare as a game without Rickey on base.

According to Matthew Glidden, an estimated 500 of the team sets were issued in 1977, at a time before everyone thought every baseball card would be worth a fortune someday. You can be sure that not all of those sets made it through the last 40 years, in other words.

So far, in fact, PSA has graded 29 of the Henderson cards, with none scoring a perfect 10 and only one rating a flat out 9 with no qualifiers.

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As you might imagine, sales of this first Rickey (Ricky) card are pretty unusual, too. According to a PSA post from nearly a decade ago, an off-centered PSA 9 Rickey sold for $1300+ way back in 2007.

The card comes up for auction occasionally these days, but it’s not one you’re likely to find on an eBay whim or at your local card shop or show, and it’s hard telling how much you’d have to pay for an actual copy at the moment. Huggins & Scott auctioned a PSA 7 Henderson for $1400 (11 bids) in October 2014, so today’s price undoubtedly would be north of that.

As Glidden notes in the piece above, Chong reprinted the card, with some modifications, as part of their 1989 Modesto A’s alumni issue. And, considering the *ahem* quality of the originals, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to find counterfeit versions of the 1977 card running around out there (though I haven’t explicitly heard of any).

All told, if you want to own Rickey Henderson’s first baseball card, his 1977 Modesto A’s issue is the only game in town.

You’ll need lots of persistence and good luck to catch one, though — just like Rickey himself.

(Check out the rest of our player-focused posts here.)

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No one is immune to those ravages, but some of us are more susceptible and impressionable than others.

Like children, for instance.

And baseball fans.

Both groups are often searching for information about things they don’t yet know well, and both are often looking for sunny forecasts. Tell them (us) what they (we) want to hear, and you probably have a receptive ear.

And when you have young baseball fans, the effects can be compounded. That reality played out on a personal level for me in the summer of 1983, just as my friends and I were starting to get into baseball cards.

One day, one of those guys and I arranged a “play date” — we lived in the country, so getting back and forth between each other’s houses was sometimes an ordeal, and required planning. After a few hours running around in his yard, looking for and finding plenty of adventures, his mom called us in for lunch.

While we downed our bologna sandwiches, potato chips, and grape pop, the afternoon rains set in. Soon thereafter, so did the sleepiness, and we decided it would be much more fun to find something to do inside for the afternoon.

Luckily, he had accumulated a few baseball cards that spring, and so had I — and I just so happened to have brought some along with me. (Truth be told, we were all always looking for an opportunity for a pop-up trading session).

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I probably had a couple hundred cards in a small box I lugged along that day, and I’m guessing he had maybe 500-600 in his collection. Our options were limited, in other words, but we didn’t really know that at the time. We were too busy devouring every glimpse of a “new” card or unknown player, and every morsel of information on card backs.

By that point, I had already spent many hours reading through all my card backs, inadvertently memorizing stats and facts. I knew my buddy had done much the same because, in an earlier get-together, he had recited some glowing bit of Topps text about Barry Foote that I had only recently come across myself. My friend made out like it was his own original thought, and I let him have it — but I knew the truth.

On this day, my trade partner was looking through my box of cards to see if there was anything of interest to him when his eyes went wide and his body tensed. I knew he’d found some cardboard gold.

“Not much here,” he said, poker face stiff and flushed. “I might be able to give you something for this Dave Laroche … I guess.”

He pushed the card forward just a smidge from the rest of the stack, and I could see it was a 1983 Topps Super Veteran card. I had opened enough packs that spring to know that the Super Veterans included guys I knew pretty well, like Pete Rose, Reggie Jackson, and Steve Carlton, but also a few players who were mysterious to me as recently as January of that year– Kent Tekulve, Jim Kaat, Ted Simmons.

And Dave LaRoche.

I still didn’t know much about LaRoche as the days grew hot, but I did know — thanks to that Topps card — that he had been around since 1970, which was basically forever. And, from the card back, I knew he was 10th on the all-time saves list, with 125. And that he had some All-Star and postseason credentials to his name.

Oh, and he sort of looked like my friend.

LaRoche, then, was a star. At least in our eyes. No wonder my bud wanted that card!

But that was just fine with me, because I had spied the perfect return as I thumbed through my friend’s cards — a 1983 Donruss Storm Davis.

I didn’t know it was Davis’ rookie card, and I only vaguely knew what a rookie card was, anyway.

I didn’t know Davis was a pretty good prospect for a good Baltimore Orioles team.

Nope, what I knew was that he looked like a real ballplayer on the front of that card … and that his name was, “Storm.”

That was plenty, and the deal was swung.

Looking back, neither one of us really got the better end of that trade, but both of us won because we got to spend time with new cardboard, we got to learn about new (to us) players, and we were able to strengthen out friendship.

What more could you ask from a rainy summer afternoon?

(This look at “a card I traded away” checks in at Day 43 in my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge.)

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

How will the new guys who came to the team over the winter pan out?

Will any new stars emerge between now and Opening Day?

Is there real hope that “we” will contend this year, finally?

They’re all valid questions, but maybe the most emotional and awaited developments each spring revolve around the comeback candidates — those guys who once held lofty positions in the game but, for one reason or another, have fallen on hard times in recent seasons (even if “recent seasons” has thus far been limited to last season).

These days, it seems, we most often watch our comeback candidates trying to catch on with another team rather than reclaiming their status with the clubs that made them what they were, and vice versa. Teams are much more likely as we head into the 2020s to just cut ties with a player whose production tanks than they were in years past.

But, man, in those years past, like 30, 40, 50 years ago, fans lived and died not only with their teams, but with the individual players on their teams. You think Pete Rose fans didn’t follow along with him to the Philadelphia Phillies and then, briefly, the Montreal Expos before he headed back to the Riverfront in 1984?

Pretty sure we did.

And when one of “our” guys fell on hard times in the olden days, we really pined to see him reclaim his former glory. It’s hard to let go of heroes, after all, and there’s always the hope they can pull it all together again. Nowhere does that hope bloom brighter than in Spring Training camps across the land.

So that’s why I knew I had to talk about a comeback player sometime during my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge, so that’s what I’m doing here on Day 34.

If you were a Boston Red Sox fan in the 1960s, or really a baseball fan of any sort in the 1960s, a young man named Tony Conigliaro undoubtedly came into your purview. As the BoSox were developing into a solid year-to-year contender in the middle of the decade, Conigliaro was busy busting out as masher in right field.

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The two developments were not coincidental.

In 1964, when the Sox were still dwelling nearer the bottom of the American League standings than the top, Conigliaro logged a rookie season that included 24 home runs and 52 RBI to go along with a .290 average.

The next two seasons brought more power (32 and 28 home runs), and a handful of MVP votes.

As 1967 dawned, Conigliaro was still just 22 years old, and he was poised with teammate Carl Yastrzemski to lead Boston toward baseball’s promised land — a berth in the World Series.

Through 95 games, Conigliaro did his part and more, slamming 20 home runs, driving in 67, and raising his average to .287. Then, on August 18, tragedy struck. In the fourth inning of a game against the California Angels, Conigliaro stepped into the box against Angels starter Jack Hamilton.

It should have been a normal power v. power at-bat, but a Hamilton fastball got away from him and crushed into Conigliaro’s left eye. The young outfielder crumpled to the ground and was rushed to a local hospital.

After copious exams and after the initial swelling and bruising subsided to some degree, a diagnosis began to emerge — broken cheekbone, dislocated jaw, and retinal damage.

Conigliaro was done for 1967, and he missed all of 1968, as well, all in the name of recovering from an incident that went down in a flash.

So, as Red Sox camp opened in 1969, the question that hung in the air like a curveball waiting to be planted over the outfield wall was, can Tony C. come back?

The answer would take several years to unfold.

In the short term, and on the surface, it appeared that Conigliaro indeed would be what had been before, if not more. After 20 homers and 82 RBI over 141 games in 1969, he pumped up the power to 36 and 116 in 1970.

But then in October, Boston sent him along with Ray Jarvis and Jerry Moses to the — why them? — Angels for Doug Griffin, Jarvis Tatum, and Ken Tatum.

Things didn’t go well in Cali, and, with vision problems plaguing him, Tony C. managed just four dingers over 74 games in 1971, and his OPS fell from .822 to .620. The Angels released him in November, and he was done at 26.

Except he wasn’t quite done … hope springs eternal, remember.

In March of 1975, Conigliaro signed on as a free agent with his hometown Sawx and eventually made it into 21 games. But, at age 30, too much time had passed, and not enough healing had gone on in between, and he managed a meager .466 OPS before the Red Sox released him in September.

But, even though things didn’t turn out how anyone thought they might have, Tony Conigliaro made it back — all the way back, for at least a couple of seasons there. And there is some cardboard evidence that’s what was expected of the slugger all along.

Because, not only did Topps keep him in their base set for 1969, when his last season-plus had been a wash, but he also made an appearance in the 1969 Globe Imports set of baseball “playing cards” — an issue of 55 blank-backed cards that you could purchase at gas stations in the southern part of the United States that summer.

The set contained superstars like Yaz and Frank Robinson and Mickey Mantle, but also lesser lights such as Rick Reichart, Bob Aspromonte, and Gene Alley.

And there among the greats and the might-be-goods, Globe Imports placed a bet on Tony Conigliaro with the three of hearts. He might not have won the whole shebang, but he at least turned in a couple more strong hands before it was all said and done.

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

But I don’t mean it’s difficult for a player to achieve Cooperstown enshrinement, though it undoubtedly is.

No, what I mean is that it’s really hard for us as fans (or writers or players or whatever you might be) to figure out who should be in the Hall of Fame.

Sure, some of the choices are clear — Willie Mays, in. Von Hayes, out (though it pains me to say that). But then there are all the in-between guys. Guys who either played for a long time and put up big overall numbers because of it, or guys who didn’t play all that long but were fairly blistering in their primes.

In that first group, you have dudes like Tommy John and Harold Baines.

In that second group, you find the likes of Albert Belle and Sandy Koufax.

And then, of course, there are the pariahs, guys who have somehow or another alienated a large swath of fans and voters. Guys like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Pete Rose, Curt Schilling, Vince Coleman. (OK, maybe Coleman has other issues affecting his HOF candidacy.)

On top of all that, you have shifting ideas about what makes a great player. More and more, modern evaluators of all types don’t care much about things like batting average, runs batted in, ERA, or pitching wins. At the same time, Sabermetrics has helped establish new standards with strange names like Wins Above Replacement (WAR), OPS+, ERA+, defensive runs saved, and on and on.

All in all, the picture is messy.

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But that also makes it fun. I mean, we’re no longer just debating whether Mike Trout is better than Mickey Mantle, but also the relative merits of Jim Rice and Bobby Grich. Did Rice’s dominance in the late 1970s and early 1980s in traditional areas like home runs and RBI trump Grich’s long-term excellence when viewed through more analytical lenses.

To this point, you’d have to say yes since Rice is in and Grich is out, but you’d get plenty of arguments these days if you said Rice was the better player overall.

So when I laid out my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge, I knew Day 33 (today) would be particularly, um, challenging. Because today, I’m charging myself with talking about a card of a player who made it to the Hall.

I could have taken the easy route and picked out a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie or some achingly beautiful Frank Robinson card from the 1950s or 1960s. But, as great as those players were, they weren’t all that fun when it came to the Hall of Fame, because everybody knew forever that they’d both slide right in.

You want a guy who made the debate really fun? One of the first I can remember is Bert Blyleven.

A quick rundown of Blyleven’s Major League resume reveals …

• 22 years spread among five different franchises
• A 287-250 record with a 3.31 ERA
• 3701 strikeouts over 4970 innings
• A single 20-win season (1973)
• Three top-five Cy Young award finishes (1984, 1984, 1989) but no top-two finishes
• 430 home runs allowed, including 50 in 1986 and 46 in 1987
• A World Series championship with the 1987 Minnesota Twins
• A 1.198 career WHIP
• A 118 career ERA+
• 95 (!) career WAR

Basically, on the surface, Blyleven falls into that Tommy John-Harol Baines class of players who stuck around forever and consequently piled up a bunch of numbers. But those last three lines tell us something else.

They tell us that Blyleven was more than just an “accumulator” — he was an elite pitcher for two decades, at least by Sabermetrics standards.

In fact, JAWS has Blyleven as the 16th greatest starting pitcher EVER, nestled right between Phil Niekro and Steve Carlton, and far, far ahead of recent inductee Jack Morris. Like Morris, though, Blyleven had to wait a long time to get the Cooperstown call. In fact, it took him 14 full turns through the electorate, finally gaining enshrinement in 2011.

But Blyleven didn’t have to wait that long to get his due from everyone.

In 1984, Donruss complemented their breakthrough base set (you know, the one with the Don Mattingly rookie card), with a couple of oversize issues.

First, Action All-Stars returned for a second year, and Blyleven was included.

More pertinent for this discussion, though, “Be Home” Blyleven also found his way into the 60-card Donruss Champions issue. That set showcased then-current players who excelled in one phase of the game or another, then compared them to the all-time leader in that category.

For instance, Mike Schmidt was paired with Hank Aaron since both gents knew a thing or two about home runs.

Blyleven drew an even tougher comparison partner, as Donruss linked him on the career strikeouts list with the great Walter Johnson. Admittedly, Blyleven’s stats look anemic there in black and white underneath those of The Big Train, but the Dutchman would indeed eventually surpass Johnson’s mark of 3508.

And, while that Donruss card does mention Blyleven’s otherworldly curveball, it doesn’t touch on another area where he was at least within Johnson’s universe: shutouts.

While Johnson finished with an out-of-reach 110, Blyleven stands ninth on the all-time list at 60, just one behind Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan for pitchers who began their careers after 1960.

So, is Bert Blyleven in Walter Johnson’s class as a starting pitcher? Of course not, but he’s not as far removed as you might think on an average day full of hyperbole around players with bigger “names.”

And Blyleven is, absolutely, a deserving Hall of Famer … and a Champion.

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

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If you’ve ever been to a Major League stadium or even paid attention to the non-action shots on a television broadcast, you know there are plenty of dark crannies that aren’t readily accessible to the average fan.

What lurked in the shadows beyond the bullpens in the old cookie-cutter stadiums like Riverfront Stadium and Veterans Stadium?

What happens behind the Green Monster scoreboard when winter sets in and the Boston Red Sox are scattered to the winds.

And what sort of aquatic secrets do the Kauffman Stadium waterfalls harbor?

I’m sure a select few folks know the answers to these individual questions, but the rest of us are left to speculate.  And it was these types of mysteries that began stirring in my addled brain as I considered which card to profile on this Day 27 of my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge.

See, my task today is to talk about a card showing a stadium I want to visit but never have. The field for this one is wide, because I’ve only made it to a handful of big-league parks — Riverfront Stadium, Great American Ballpark, Fenway Park, Jacobs Field, Busch Stadium (though not to see an actual game).

So I decided to first pick the park I most want to visit, then find a card that shows that park to some degree. If said cardboard could also help me answer one of the game’s lingering questions, all the better.

And, with all due respect to Dodger Stadium, AT & T Park, and Camden Yards, the place I most want to visit is Wrigley Field. It shouldn’t be all that hard to accomplish considering my Hoosier roots, but the trip to Addison and Clark has somehow eluded me to this point.

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I’ve seen Wrigley in its televised glory hundreds of times over the years, though, and it seems to me there’s no other venue that can capture the neighborhood feel and deep history all in one fell swoop quite like the Chicago Cubs‘ home. Maybe someday I’ll prove that notion to myself.

In the meantime, I’m left to ponder how wonderful the place must be, but also to wonder what sorts of creatures might be hiding in the fabled Wrigley Field ivy. I mean, that stuff’s been there since before World War II, right? There’s been plenty of time for an infestation of one sort of another to develop.

So I went searching for a card that might give me an insight into he secrets of the ivy, and my first stop bore fruit. As an ancient man who has been collecting baseball cards since they were made out of granite, I remember vividly that roughly 112% of all 1981 Donruss cards featured the Wrigley Field ivy in the background. (The other -12% were the test cards that were actually better than their Topps counterparts.)

I could have picked anyone of those cards for this piece, but there was only one that really made any sense: card #553 of Dave Kingman.

By the time Kingman signed as a free agent with the Cubs before the 1978 season, “Kong” was already pretty much who he was going to be — a monstrous dude with a monstrous swing who could hit the ball out of the Grand Canyon but couldn’t get on base or do a whole lot else, including stay in one place for long.

Still, it’s somewhat astounding it took him so long to land with the cubs, considering how “cozy” the Cozy Confines were, especially with favorable wind conditions. You might say he was born to play with the Cubs.

In his first year by the lake, Kingman turned in a Kingman-esque season, featuring 28 home runs and 79 RBI. In 1979, though, it all clicked, and Kingman slammed 49 homers, drove in 115, and even hit .288.

The perfect marriage was working perfectly.

Then, 1980 brought injuries that limited Kong to just 81 games and saw his production fall to .278, 18, 57. Before the 1981 season could even begin, Chicago traded him to the New York Mets in exchange for Steve Henderson.

Nothing could erase the work he’d done with the Cubs, though, or the idea that Kingman’s rightful place would always be there among the ivy, tantalizingly close to home plate, especially for a slugger of his stature.

To drive that point home, collectors spent that first summer of Kingman’s Mets tenure pulling his ’81 Donruss card from fresh wax packs. Captured there in cardboard bliss for eternity was a smiling Kong, enveloped by the green ivy of his natural habitat.

And, this card also solves one of baseball’s mysteries — we know what lives (or lived) in the Wrigley Field ivy. It’s Kong himself.

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

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But, man, nothing compares to the electricity that courses through your body when you first step foot into Big League territory.

The sensations are incredible …

The intermingled smells of pretzels, popcorn, beer, and hot dogs (and less savory aromas).

The faint, constant murmur of the crowd that permeates every corner of the place.

The green, green outfield grass.

The bigger-than life physical presence of the players as they take the field for the first time.

The crack of the bat and the pop of leather as teams practice before the game.

The excitement of the first pitch.

Man! I’m ready to head to the ballpark right now!

And that’s one of the reasons why, on this Day 25 of my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge, I decided to look at a card showing a stadium where I’ve seen an actual, real-live baseball game.

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Now, the easy route for me here would have been to choose yet another Cincinnati Reds card, with Riverfront Stadium looming in the background.

Thankfully, though, I have other choices. And one of those choices is an all-time classic.

See, when I was just beginning my professional career in the late nineties, my employer at the time sent me to the east coast for a conference … in June.

And by “east coast,” I mean … Boston.

And, the Red Sox just happened to be in town those days.

I had basically no expendable income at that point, but I somehow scraped together enough change to hop on the subway and head toward Yawkey Way.

After getting turned around and making a few poor choices in terms of where to get off the train, I finally landed at whatever stop put me within viewing distance of Fenway Park. I walked the couple of blocks — or however far it was — on a cloud of air and hesitated only briefly when I found out the cheapest ticket I could get at the box office was $28.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, right?

Right.

I felt that old zap of electricity that had buzzed me years before on my first trip to Riverfront, and the history of the place (Fenway) oozed from floors, off the rafters, and down every pole.

And that’s pretty much where my memory stops — behind the pole planted right in front of my seat.

I don’t remember much about the game other than that the Red Sox were there and that the seats were small. Tiny. And I couldn’t see much of the action on the field.

I could see the field, though, and from my position tucked up under some overhang on the first-base side, the Green Monster lurking in left field.

It was not a great overall experience, but I was satisfied — I had stepped into the belly of the legendary beast.

All of that makes the 1975 Topps Mario Guerrero card a perfect choice — for me — to celebrate Spring Training and the stadiums I’ve visited.

Guerrero was a light-hitting middle infielder who made it to the Sawx in 1973 and stayed just two years. He appeared in 66 games in 1973 and 93 in 1974, enough to land his Topps card in ’75.

There, we find Guerrero doing the old “big-bat follow-through” into the camera with the Fenway infield stretched out behind him. He’s standing to the foul side of the first-base line, and the “Buck Printing Co.” sign looms in right, against a beautiful blue sky.

I like to think that, if Guerrero panned to his left just a skosh and looked into the stands, he’d see a younger version of me craning to get a better look.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d wave.

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

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.

Heading into 1986, there were two things that baseball card collectors knew for sure …

Rookie cards would set us free … AND …

Jose Canseco was going to be the greatest rookie — and maybe the greatest player — ever.

The evidence was all around us after three years of monster rookie campaigns and/or rookie cards got us frothing at the mouth. Consider …

• Darryl Strawberry was one of the most exciting rookies ever in 1983 and might become the greatest player ever if Canseco didn’t beat him to it.
• Fellow New York Met Dwight Gooden was an even more exciting rookie in 1984 and and even more exciting Dr. K than that in 1985.
• Don Mattingly rookie cards — especially that 1984 Donruss card — were going up, up, up and pulling the whole hobby with them.
• We were awash in more rookie-card talent than we knew what to do with — Eric Davis, Mark McGwire, Oddibe McDowell, Roger Clemens, Cory Snyder, Fred McGriff, Kal Daniels, Ty Gainey, for goodness sake!

Things were great and they were only going to get better.

And then … they did get better.

But a funny thing happened while we were all waiting for Canseco to live up to his initials.

Out there in the old American League West, Canseco’s own division, the California Angels bobbled around .500 for awhile, then ended April on an 8-3 run that left them in first place by two games. They were bolstered by a fairly potent if aging offensive attack that included Reggie Jackson, Brian Downing, Doug Decinces, and Ruppert Jones.

But one power source no one foresaw (or, at least no one in my limited circles) was a young first baseman named Wally Joyner.

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Just 23 entering the season, Joyner had spent three years working his way through the Angels’ minor league system after California drafted him in the third round in 1983. He had shown just brushes of power with 12 homers in 1984 and 1985 being his high-water mark, and he had zero Big League appearances.

But as the Angels jockeyed for position heading into May, fans and collectors suddenly realized that Joyner had connected on six bombs in the season’s first month. Canseco had “just” five.

With May came warmer temperatures and, unbelievably, even more heat from Joyner, who joined Canseco in clubbing 10 more home runs.

At that point, all heck broke loose in the hobby because, while Jose appeared on cards in both the 1986 Donruss and 1986 Fleer sets, Joyner was nowhere to be found from a cardboard perspective.

And what’s worse, we knew we’d have to wait until the year-end sets to get our first look at Big League Pasteboard Wally Joyner. Oh, the humanity!

But just as Major League teams jostle for the best possible position in the standings, so too did the card companies slug it out for our hobby dollars. That was especially true of the still upstart Fleer and Donruss, so it wasn’t too shocking when one of them went to their idea well and pulled back a brand spanking new Wally Joyner card.

In that era of cheesy 44- and 33-card box sets that ran the gamut from Kmart to Woolworth to Billy Bob’s Fish ‘n’ Scoot, no company had to be without their own branded set, even if that company was Fleer itself.

So the Philadelphia gum maker fired up the printing presses and cranked out a set of “Baseball’s Best Sluggers vs. Pitchers.”

It was a limited edition.

It was available, like, now.

And it included the first-ever widely available Major League card of Wally Joyner at number 19. It was not a work of art by any means, and it was only “limited” by the number of trees on earth at the time, but we loved it.

I can remember this card selling for a few bucks each before Joyner cooled waaaaaaayyyyyyy down, connecting on just six homers over the final four months of the season to finish with 22.

Meanwhile, Canseco managed 33 and won the Rookie of the Year award.

And, of course, we got Joyner and Jose and Kurt Stillwell and plenty of other rookies in our Topps Traded, Donruss Rookies, and Fleer Update sets that fall.

But for awhile there, at the beginning of summer in 1986, no one meant more to the hobby than Wally Joyner. And if you wanted his baseball card, Fleer — and only Fleer — had you covered.

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

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