donruss – Wax Pack Gods Mom didn't throw out your memories. Fri, 28 Oct 2022 02:05:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://staging.waxpackgods.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cropped-catcher-32x32.png donruss – Wax Pack Gods 32 32 5 Early Warning Signs that 1988 Score Baseball Cards Had No Soul https://staging.waxpackgods.com/1988-score-baseball-cards/ https://staging.waxpackgods.com/1988-score-baseball-cards/#comments Sat, 21 May 2022 18:47:00 +0000 http://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=6266 When 1988 Score baseball cards first hit the hobby, collectors were ecstatic.

Way back then, we were eager to get our hands on any cardboard we could find, and we were all convinced of three things:

  • We had to collect every card issued each year.
  • Ever card issued each year would go up in value, forever.
  • The quality of baseball cards needed to improve.

Thirty years on, those first two things have proven impossible, but our youthful fervor help to ensure the third came to pass.

Yes, we bought everything, but we also clamored for better photography, better design, better card stock. As it turned out we were willing to pay for those improvements, as evidenced by the success of Upper Deck in 1989.

1988 Score Baseball Cards Set

But before that, Score was the testing ground — the proof-of-concept.

Here was a set with beautiful action photos, color pics on card backs, even “tamper-proof” packaging. We ate them up to an extent that proved to UD they were on the right track.

Underneath Score’s shiny surface, though, troubles were already brewing.

We didn’t know at the time that the set was just as overproduced — or more so — as the other cards that year.

We didn’t know they wouldn’t hold their value.

But if you were a longtime hardcore collector in 1988, there was something that felt just … off … about the cards.

They were too shiny, too solid, too uninteresting.

To be dramatic about it, they had no soul.

And even if you didn’t recognize that fact right away, there were indicators even at those early stages that all was not well.

Here are five of those Soulless Warning signs that 1988 Score baseball cards screamed from every pack.

1988 Score unopened pack

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Plastic Wrappers

By 1988, we were all comfortable with the wonders of cellophane baseball card packages — we’d been searching through cello and rack packs for years looking for our favorite stars. And, while they didn’t impart the tactile experiences of ripping (or carefully unfolding, as the case may have been) wax wrappers, they were still part of the hobby fabric.

When Score pushed out their shiny new boxes, though, one of the first things we noticed was that those “wax” boxes were longer than their Topps, Fleer, and Donruss counterparts. One look inside told us why …

The cards were wrapped in colorful plastic, with extra space at the top and bottom for crimping. The result was an extra-long pack that required more room than the tight wax packs of the other companies.

Hence, the longer boxes.

But the problems with these packs went way beyond long boxes.

For starters, the excess room in each pack let the cards slosh around, and the floppy pack tops and bottoms made for a messy, crinkly box interior.

And, while the colored plastic would ostensibly make it harder to search packs, it didn’t take long for folks to realize you could still partially see the cards underneath. And, if  you moved things around just right, you could really get at a pack’s content.

How many old Score packs have you seen with thumb-nail gouges left by would-be hackers trying to get a peek inside? Why, 1988 Score is a plastic-and-cardboard archaeological dig!

But those plastic packs did something even worse …

1988 Score Ted Simmons (back)

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The Smell

Collecting baseball cards is an immersive experience if you do it right. All of your senses are involved:

Sight

The cards themselves are visual sensations, and veteran collectors can often identify specific cards based on just a glimpse of a corner or a hunk of card-back text.

Sound 

Each type of card makes a particular sound as it glides across one of its brethren. Old, mushy Topps cards, for example, sound like Q-tips sliding against a block of cheese. Thick, crisp Upper Deck cards sound like polished nails tapping on a glass desktop. Everything else is somewhere in between. Often, there are other sounds in the background — a baseball game played over a transistor radio is always a good choice.

Touch .

Likewise, every collecting experience has a certain physical feel to it. Old Topps cards are rough and fuzzy. Upper Deck cards are slick and hard. Wax packs are thick and sticky. Cello and racks are smooth and crinkly. And 1988 Score packs? Sorta crinkly, sorta papery, sorta puffy. In itself, not a soul-killer for Score.

Taste

Baseball card taste had already taken a real hit by 1988. After the courts came down on Fleer and Donruss for issuing their inaugural cards with gum in 1981, Topps was the only game in town when it came to pulling confections from your wax packs. So for most of us oldies, the taste of baseball cards is the taste of Topps bubble gum. You can offset the deficiency of the other companies in this area by popping open a box of Bazooka right along side your Score (and other) card packs.

Smell

Hand-in-hand with taste is smell, and this is where Score’s cardboard soul really starts to slide.

Topps baseball cards smell like gum

Fleer baseball cards basically don’t smell at all — maybe a vague wax scent.

Donruss baseball cards are a bit stronger in the aroma department — a peculiar mix of cardboard and ink, with that same essence of wax, that always lets you know you’re popping open a Big D pack even if your eyes are closed. It’s not altogether unpleasant, even if it’s not Topps.

Score baseball cards … man, these things stink. Literally. From the moment you pull open the box top, your olfactory system is attacked by an industrial bouquet that builds as you open more packs.

Plastic and more plastic (Magic Motion style) and ink (or other photo-related chemicals) and space-age cardboard — it’s a cocktail that can make even the stoutest among us dizzy and takes your mind anywhere but to baseball cards.

1988 Score Trivia Great Moments in Baseball

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Magic Motion Trivia

Every baseball card pack needs some sort of insert, and gum, stickers, and puzzle pieces were already taken when Score came along. So they opted instead for a set of  “Great Moments in Baseball” trivia cards that use the same Magic Motion “technology” that made Sportflics so … um … popular in the years immediately preceding.

Aside from being just about unreadable and only mildly interesting, the trivia cards had a few other problems:

  • They were thick and bulky and just didn’t fit in with the rest of the Score issue.
  • They were tiny compared to every other baseball card out there, making them difficult to store or display.
  • They multiplied when you turned the lights off at night.

As a result, “Great Moments in Baseball” are the cockroaches of the hobby — they’re everywhere, but nobody wants them or knows how to get rid of them.

1988 Score Don Mattingly

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Great Photography

In 1988, Score was heralded for its awesome photography, and for good reason.

Clear, crisp action photos dominated that inaugural set (and the ones that followed) and stood in stark contrast to the goofy, grainy, airbrushed monstrosities that sometimes infiltrated the other brands at the time.

It was great.

Too great.

See …

There was an old episode of The Twilight Zone where a man died and then found himself in a personalized Heaven. In the protagonists’s version of nirvana, everything was perfect — perfect food, perfect apartment, perfect bevy of women swarming around him ever day. In life, the guy was a pool hustler, and his Heaven of course featured a pool table.

And when the dude took up his cue?

He couldn’t miss.

After a few days of perfection, the guy started complaining to his caretaker — God or Gabriel or the like, we’re left to presume — that he wanted some variety.

A mole on the cheek of one of the girls.

A ham sandwich that was too hot or too cold.

The possibility of missing a shot.

After all, the dead guy reasoned, it was his Heaven. Why shouldn’t he be able to be happy — whatever form that may take?

To which “God” laughed. A full-on belly guffaw that sent shivers up the audience’s spine even though we already knew something bad was brewing.

“What gave you the idea this was Heaven?” the gatekeeper asked finally, or something to that effect.

Dark …

But you know what?

It turns out 1988 Score was kind of like that (Upper Deck would be even more so, eventually).

After 10 or 20 slinky packs of perfect photography, the soulful collector started to wonder — where are the posed shots? Where are the hatless wonders? The airbrushing? Claude Raymond with his fly unzipped?

Where, oh where, was the character?

I’ll tell you where … it was in your good ol’ local wax pack.

And Score couldn’t score on that front.

1988 Score Terry Francona error (Franconia)

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Terry Franconia

As “perfect” as the 1988 Score baseball cards were, they had flaws beyond just too much perfection.

I mean, check out the list of errors and variations at The Trading Card Database. Pretty massive but maybe not unexpected for a first-time issue. And, after all, the other manufacturers sill had some gaffes going each year, too.

But here’s the thing …

Score was supposed to be better than that.

And even worse, several of these errors involved misspellings of player names. Not just on card backs, either.

Right there on the front of card #126, Dave Valle became Dale Valle.

Bob Brenly and Lee Mazzilli saw their last names spelled wrong on both the fronts and backs of their cards.

But the one that really rubs your spine the wrong way is card #297, Terry Francona.

Now, back then Francona was a light-hitting utility man who was nearing the end of his uninspiring Big League career. He had played for the Cincinnati Reds in 1987 and would spend 1988 with the Cleveland Indians before wrapping up with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1989 and 1990.

Francona was well-known and respected around the game, though, and his father Tito Francona had been a legitimate star for the Indians in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

All of which is to say that issuing a baseball card of Terry Franconia was unacceptable in 1988.

More than 30 years later, with Tito (Junior? The II?) looking like a Hall of Fame manager, the flub seems even more egregious.

It’s like when your grandmother talks to you about FaceSpace.

Or when your mother or wife, knowing you’re in IT, regularly asks you how your “little programs” are coming along.  (Projecting for a friend.)

Soulless.

The Upside

Of course, the upside to having a great-looking, mass-produced, soulless 30-year-old set on our hands is that you can get them for cheap. (There’s also the pretty amazing 1988 Score Bo Jackson single.)

And by cheap, I mean you can find boxes and sets and singles for single-digits most of the time on eBay and on Amazon (affiliate links).

Any way you cut it, that’s pretty cool …

… as long as you’re OK with unsoulful baseball cards.

(Check out our other related card posts here.)

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]]> https://staging.waxpackgods.com/1988-score-baseball-cards/feed/ 10 Bubble Gum Dreams: Complete Guide to the Golden Era of Baseball Cards (1948-1994) https://staging.waxpackgods.com/golden-era-baseball-cards/ Fri, 13 May 2022 23:56:00 +0000 http://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=1549 Ask 100 baseball card collectors when their all-time favorite cards were issued, and you’re liable to get 100 different answers. But chances are pretty good that most of those responses will point to cards printed during the Golden Age of baseball cards, roughly 1948-1994.

Why that specific date range?

Well, these things are somewhat subjective, of course, but this one isn’t too tough to figure out …

After World War II and its paper rations, the fledgling hobby took a few years to get back on track. But in 1948, both Leaf and Bowman issued cards with bubble gum to set the stage for the modern pastime.

Baseball cards grew in popularity over the coming decades against a varied landscape of manufacturers and a changing game. By 1994, it seemed like every baseball fan was also a collector until … BOOM! … the strike changed everything.

Even though the game itself recovered and reached new heights, collecting has never been quite the same since, at least in the eyes of those who lived through the build-up and boom, and then the fall.

So that’s the deal with my definition of the hobby’s Golden Era.

Now, here’s the deal with this guide …

I’ve always loved to read about baseball cards, and I also enjoy writing about them. Naturally, I most love to read about cards from 1948-1994, and there are some great articles out here on the wild web.

But these awesome posts are scattered all over the place. Wouldn’t it be neat if you could go one place and read about any of the sets that made our hobby so fascinating for nearly 50 years?

I sure thought so, and that’s why this guide was born — to give us access to the best article about each of the regular-issue sets from 1948-1994, all from one page.

What follow are 101 articles from across the web chronicling the most important years of the baseball card industry, divided into four “generations”:

  • Post-War (1948-1955)
  • Topps Monopoly (1955-1980)
  • Hobby Boom (1981-1986)
  • Junk Wax (1987-1994)

A good swath of these are articles I’ve written, and my eventual goal is to write an “ultimate guide” type of post for each of these sets, right here on Wax Pack Gods.

For now, though, I’m confident you’ll love these articles.

After all, they’re the best, just like the cards themselves.

Post War

Post-War (1948-1955)

After Leaf and Bowman broke the seal on the hobby in 1948, Topps joined the fray in 1951. After a bitter battle for collectors’ hearts that lasted a bloody five years, the younger company dispatched Bowman to the scrapheap of history.

From 1948-1955, though, the hobby grew and changed and jockeyed for its place in the tableau of American boyhood, and we’re all the better for it.

Topps Monopoly

Topps Monopoly (1955-1980)

From 1955 through 1980, Topps reigned nearly unchallenged as the only major manufacturer of baseball cards. Even though they faced limited competition, The Old Gum Company continually experimented with innovative ideas to entice new collectors to take the wax-pack plunge.

Without a doubt, some of the most iconic cards of all time were produced during Topps’ quarter century alone on top of the mountain.

Hobby Boom

Hobby Boom (1981-1986)

When Fleer defeated Topps in an antitrust lawsuit in 1980, it set the stage for new manufacturers to crash the baseball cards party. In 1981, both Fleer and Donruss entered the fray, with Sportflics, Score, and Upper Deck joining them later in the decade.

As the 1980s progressed, fans and speculators from all walks of life jumped into the hobby with both feet, and “baseball cards” became synonymous with “investment.”

Competition and increased collector scrutiny changed the way baseball cards were conceived, manufactured, and distributed, resulting in a leap in quality that built a foundation for today’s high-end cards.

Junk Wax

Junk Wax (1987-1994)

Spurred by the increased interest in the hobby, card manufacturers ramped up production significantly in the late 1980s. It would take a decade or more before we realized just how much product was dumped on the market during these years, but even 30 years later, most of the cards from the “Junk Wax Era” can be had for a song.

Once the players’ strike wiped out a promising 1994 pennant chase and post-season, investors pulled back from the hobby, and even diehard collectors questioned their commitment and ability to absorb the hundreds of yearly issues that were being pumped into the market.

Still, the Junk Wax generation supplies today’s collectors with heaps of nostalgia on the cheap, and packs from this era can make us all feel young again.

Traded, Update, and Rookie Sets

Almost from the day they printed their first card, Topps has fought a valiant battle to keep up with player trades. In the early years, that meant sometimes making parenthetical notes on high-number cards, and, by the 1970s, it meant gawdy airbrushing jobs.

But in 1972, The Old Gum Company started dabbling with marking certain players in the high-number series with a “TRADED” stamp across the card photo.

They expanded the effort to small standalone sets in both 1974 and 1976 and then, in 1981, peppered the hobby with a full-fledged, 132-card Traded boxed set.

Those early Topps Traded sets were popular, and collectors anticipated their fall release after each season.

Then Fleer joined the game in 1984 with its first Update set, a limited edition gem that carried the first cards of notables such as Kirby Puckett and Roger Clemens.

Traded series were here to stay … at least through the end of the Golden Era.

Donruss jumped in with “The Rookies” in 1986, and Score joined in right off the bat with their “Rookie & Traded” set in 1988.

The values of these late-year offerings have fluctuated over the decades, but traded sets are distinctly Golden Era fodder. Here’s the best of the net in this regard …

Topps Traded Sets

Fleer Update Sets

Donruss The Rookies

Score Rookie & Traded Sets

Nostalgia Never Dies

The hobby was never quite the same after the 1994 strike and concomitant hobby “bust.”

But as we’ve come to realize that baseball cards are not the ironclad investment vehicles we once thought they were, a funny thing has happened for many of us who grew up worshiping our Wax Pack Gods in the 1980s and before — the magic is coming back, thanks in large part to the Internet.

Once again, we’re pouring through our cards — and virtual cards — just because we love them.

We love the way they look and the way they feel in our palms and the way they smell, even years after the aroma of gum has faded to nothing.

And, most of all, we love them because they transport us instantly to our own Golden Era.

Enjoy these articles, and check back here often for updates and additions. Do I hear Traded/Updated/Test issues in the future?

Could be!

Want a handy PDF version of this guide? Just click here to download your copy now.

]]> Oh, Say Can You “C” How 1981 Fleer Baseball Cards adn Craig Nettles Changed the Hobby? https://staging.waxpackgods.com/craig-nettles/ Fri, 25 Jun 2021 14:57:00 +0000 http://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=6348 Rarely does the course of human endeavor pivot so abruptly as baseball cards did in the spring of 1981. Just ask Craig Nettles.

That was the year, you might remember, that Fleer and Donruss joined Topps as major manufacturers, each pushing out a full set of 600+ cards. That advent was made possible by the culmination of Fleer’s lengthy antitrust suit against Topps the previous summer.

Fleer won their court battle and was awarded the hefty sum of $1. The real prize, though, was the end of Topps’ monopoly.

Of course, with the verdict coming late in the baseball season, Fleer might have been forgiven for taking some time to gather their wits and resources and set their sights on 1982. But they had waited too long for this opportunity to wait one second longer.

In fact, both Fleer and Donruss went into scramble mode and managed to pull off the impossible — they planned, designed, manufactured, and released their first sets within the span of several months.

1981 Fleer Wax Pack

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It was a cardboard miracle, really, though collector opinions at the time were mixed.

On the one hand, it was fabulous to suddenly have roughly three times as many cards to pursue.

On the other, the new sets were predictably, um, challenged.

The photos were dark and grainy, the latter a considerable weakness for Donruss.

The cardstock was suspect — Donruss cards were printed on Bible pages and Fleer cards tended to warp.

Both Fleer and Donruss cards came packed with gum, which was great, but plenty of old collectors tell stories about card fronts ruined by cemented-on pink slabs. (Topps successfully blocked other manufacturers from issuing cards with gum the next year, so that concern soon passed.)

But hobbyists didn’t really mind any of that. These shortcomings were a small price to pay for the largesse bestowed upon us by the wax pack gods.

Beyond all of these missteps, though, the 1981 card-collecting season was marked by a major turn of events: the error card craze found its footing — and its face.

1981 Fleer Craig Nettles

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As you might expect with such a cardboard rush job, Fleer and Donruss made all sorts of mistakes — I mean beyond a few terrible choices and Donruss backs that read like War and Peace.  (If you’re getting the idea that Donruss was the bottom of the commons barrel, well, there’s a reason for that.)

Just take a look at the list of 1981 Donruss errors and variations over at The Trading Card Database: http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Errors.cfm/sid/83/1981-Donruss

There are 77 entries if you’re counting.

And Fleer didn’t fare much better with 73 lines on their E & V list.

It didn’t take long for collectors to notice, either, and we were chasing down Pete Rose with that number and this photo or Steve Carlton with or without his Golden Arm on the right or wrong card number.

But of all the errors that flooded wax packs and dealer tables that summer, none captured the imagination like the 1981 Fleer “C” Nettles card.

Now, Graig Nettles admittedly spells his first name funny, so it’s easy to see why someone at Fleer might have thought his name was actually “Craig.”

And so that’s how it appeared on the back of his card, #87, in the first print run.

1981 Fleer Craig Nettles (back)

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Nettles was a pretty popular and productive player for the New York Yankees, though, and it didn’t take long for this gaffe — and others — to get noticed. Fleer scrambled to correct the error, and in no time at all Graig Nettles was back where he should have been, on both sides of his 1981 Fleer baseball card.

1981 Fleer Graig Nettles (back)

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But enough of the “C” version escaped into the wild for stories of its existence to spread throughout the hobby, and soon everyone was clamoring for a copy of this rare card.

Thanks to card show buzz and press in Sports Collectors Digest and other publications, the hype built around “C” Nettles quickly and lasted for years.

At its height, collectors willingly paid $20 or more for a copy, and the Nettles error helped usher in a mad search for any other card mistakes we could find. Throughout the rest of the 1980s, error card mania was rivaled by only the rookie card craze in terms of collector fervor.

Today, the “C” Nettles card still draws hobby interest and can pull in decent money in higher slabbed grades. In raw form, it usually fetches $10 or less.  (You can find current prices for this hobby trendsetter on both eBay and Amazon — note that these are affiliate links).

So, is “C” Nettles really all that rare?

Well, as of this writing, PSA had graded 59 of the Graig Nettles variation and 69 of the “rare” Craig Nettles error card. Now, part of this discrepancy is due to the increased collector interest in the error version, but there seem to be enough of both to go around these days.

Demand ain’t what it used to be, after all.

Still, how often have you known a baseball card to have its own nickname?

It’s a rare honor, indeed, but the mere mention of “C” Nettles still makes any veteran collector’s heart go pitter-patter.

But then, history makers do tend to have that effect on folks.

(Check out our Fleer card posts here.)

]]> The Eternal Spring of 1987 Donruss Wax Packs https://staging.waxpackgods.com/1987-donruss-wax-pack/ Sun, 24 Feb 2019 05:33:56 +0000 https://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=8510 Every year, just when you think winter might go on forever and we’re all doomed to an eternity locked in snowbanks or ice capsules, the signs of Spring start to pop up like blades of green grass breaking through the brown sludge.

A warm day — above, say 40 degrees — sneaks into your week.

The groundhog sees his shadow, or doesn’t.

College basketball winds down and sprints headlong toward March Madness.

The Super Bowl becomes a distant cloud of dust in your rearview mirror.

Pitchers and catchers report.

For baseball card collectors, though, there is no surer sign that winter is losing its grip on the world than the first appearance of new baseball cards. These days, that means hobby boxes and Mylar packs and chase cards and all sorts of complicated (to me) stuff.

But in the 1980s and before, Spring came to the hobby with an onslaught of new wax packs.

I was well acquainted with this phenomenon as we started to dig out of our winter doldrums in February of 1987, and I was thrilled to find those first green packs of Topps baseball cards. Those woodgrain beauties are hobby classics and some of my favorite cards of all time.

What I really wanted, though, were 1987 Fleer and 1987 Donruss cards.

1987 Donruss wax pack

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See, we had already gotten word through hobby magazines like Baseball Cards and (especially) Sports Collectors Digest that both of Topps’ main competitors had dramatically scaled down their production for the new season. My experience at early local card shows bore out that notion, too — lots of Topps cards on the show floor, but very few Donruss and Fleer cards. And when a dealer did pop open a box or two of Donruss or Fleer, the suggested retail price went out the window.

It was pretty shocking, actually — the first time I saw new packs priced a $1, $2, $3, and they were selling. Like hotcakes.

If you paid close attention to the ads in SCD, though, you could see that not all areas of the country were created equal. In fact, it seemed that some states had plenty of Fleer cards, and others had no shortage of Donruss. (We were all awash in Topps.)

Collectors from different regions of the country started swapping Fleer for Donruss, or Donruss for Fleer, basically box-for-box. It was crazy, and awesome, to watch.

And that’s mostly what I did — watch from afar. I was just a kid with no access to these “scarce” cards and no resources to speak of. But then, ‘long about the middle of February, the unthinkable happened — one of the drug stores in town got a case of Donruss.

At 40 cents a pack, a whole box could be yours for $14.40. It’s a number that’s indelibly etched in my memory, because I somehow convinced my dad to float me a line of credit. Basically, he financed my attempts to corner the local market on 1987 Donruss.

I pretty well succeeded …

That first drug store yielded  maybe 12 boxes, and then a couple more local business got their Donruss cards, too. The next few weeks were a mad dash to various stores every day after school to see if any more of the cards came in. When they did, I sucked them up as fast as I could.

I ended up owing Dad something like $500, which means I must have eventually shagged down about 35 boxes. I had been dabbling in “dealing” cards at local shows by that point, and my newfound bounty only heightened my interest. I sold 1987 Donruss packs for years, well after the peak had passed and well after we found out that none of the 1987 sets were all that limited.

I do think I ended up repaying my dad, though not necessarily solely on the backs of the Donruss cards themselves.

Still, after all these years and all that has happened in the hobby and in life, not many sights can get my heart pounding like the gorgeous (to me) orange-brown of a 1987 Donruss wax wrapper, or the baseball bat on a 1987 Donruss wax box, or even the black-and-baseball borders of the 1987 Donruss cards themselves.

In just about every way I can imagine, they’re an embodiment of Spring and the hope for better, warmer days just ahead.

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

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]]> Coast-to-Coast Cardboard: Rocco Constantino’s Collecting Story https://staging.waxpackgods.com/coast-to-coast-cardboard-rocco-constantinos-collecting-story/ https://staging.waxpackgods.com/coast-to-coast-cardboard-rocco-constantinos-collecting-story/#comments Fri, 12 Oct 2018 10:01:45 +0000 https://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=8164 (Read all of our collector stories here. Want to share your own story? Let me know!)

There are certain formative experiences that just seem to stick with us, to mold us, for the rest of our lives.

1981 Donruss Mookie aWilsonMaybe those first sweet days of Kindergarten, filled with snacks and naps and a doting teacher, inspired you with a love for education you just can’t shake.

Or maybe you tagged along to see The Empire Strikes Back with your older brother even though you’d never heard of Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader … and you’ve been steeped in geekdom ever since.

And, if you’re a baseball card collector (and you are, obviously), there is no breaking free from the grasp of the first cards you pulled from fresh packs.

That’s part of the reason we still have cases and cases of 1990 Fleer and 1988 Donruss and 1982 Topps Kmart boxed sets just sitting out there taking up space, waiting. Deep in our hearts, plenty of us still love these things because they’re part of our past.

So it is, too, for Santa Barbara collector Rocco Constantino.

1981 Topps Baseball Cards Wax Pack

Rocco came to the hobby just as the hobby was becoming The Hobby. That would be 1981, in case you’re wondering. You know, the year Fleer and Donruss crashed Topps’ monopoly party and issued a couple of the most, um, interesting sets of the last 50 years.

Which is to say, Rocco loves the 1981 sets. All of them.

But more than that,those early influences of baseball and baseball cards stick with him today — from his work as an athletic director to the baseball books he writes to the cards he collects, still.

Here is Rocco’s collecting story …

How did you get started collecting?

1981 Topps George aBrettMy uncle owned a corner store and my dad used to take me and my siblings there to play arcade games. He sold baseball cards and stickers too. We were already watching baseball games and learning about the sport’s history, so we would always get cards and stickers when we went to visit his store. We used to sit and sort our cards for hours watching Yankees and Mets games. It was probably the only thing that could keep us quiet and in one spot as kids, so our family had no problems bringing us packs of cards or stickers on an almost daily basis.

What is the first card you can remember owning or buying?

I don’t remember a first individual card that I owned, but I remember so much about collecting the 1981 Topps cards when I was seven years old. I do remember some of my favorites from that set were the Reggie Jackson and George Brett cards. I also remember thinking it was strange that Dave Winfield was pictured in a Padres uniform even though he was playing for the Yankees. I don’t think I comprehended the idea of free agency at seven years old. One of the first cards I remember buying individually as a kid was the 1983 Topps Traded Darryl Strawberry. I was probably about 12 and the book price was out of my price range. However, I came across one in a store for much cheaper than the Beckett listing because there was a crease along the back. The card looked perfect from the front though and that was good enough for me.

Which sports do you collect?

1983 Topps Traded Darry aStrawberry

I mostly collect baseball, but I still will have interest in NFL, NHL, and NBA, in that order.

What other memorabilia, besides cards, do you collect?

Lately I have been collecting autographs in my copy of a baseball history book I had published in 2016. My book (50 Moments That Defined Major League Baseball) takes a look at interesting games and moments from the past 100 years and I have been getting many former Major Leaguers to sign my copy. Reggie Jackson wasn’t too happy to sign the chapter I wrote about his fight with Billy Martin in Boston, but luckily he signed it before he saw what the content was. It was cool getting Pete Rose to sign my chapter on his 4000th hit. Other highlights include Gaylord Perry and Goose Gossage signing my chapter about the Pinetar Game, Paul Molitor signing my chapter about his hitting streak, and Ron Guidry signing my chapter about the game the Yanke

1934 Diamond Stars Ernie aLombardi

es played the night of Thurman Munson‘s funeral.

What is the focus of your collection?

Right now I am most interested in pre-1970s cards; the cards that seemed like unreachable historical artifacts to us as kids. The fact that I own 1934 Diamond Stars or 1951 Topps Red Backs now would have

blown my 13-year old mind.

Who are your favorite players?

The Mets are my favorite team and my favorite Mets players are Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, and Mike Piazza. Historically, I’d choose Sandy Koufax, Roberto Clemente, and Satchel Paige. From a collecting standpoint, my favorites are Tom Seaver, Reggie Jackson, Johnny Bench, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron.

Which are your favorite teams?

1983 Topps Tony aGwynn rookie card

I have been a big Mets fan my entire life. I moved to the West Coast last year and have been rooting for the Dodgers despite their upset of the Mets in the 1988 NLCS.

Do you have a favorite card or set?

I’d say my favorites are all three 1981 sets (despite the Donruss being printed on tissue paper) because that set is the most nostalgic to me. I also like the 1975, 1978 ,and 1982 sets too. My favorite cards are the Dwight Gooden’s 1984 Topps Traded, Tony Gwynn‘s 1983 Topps, George Brett’s 1975 Topps, and Tom Seaver’s 1968 card.

Do you have a collecting project or goals you’re working on now?

I don’t have any specific goals I am working on now. Just like adding pre-1970 cards of Hall of Famers that I do not have.

How much time do you spend on the hobby these days?

I don’t spend much time on the hobby on a daily or weekly basis now. When I have some extra spending money, I will look around for some interesting purchases though.

1981 topps reggie ajackson

Where do you buy most of your cards?

Ebay.

Which card or set have you always wanted to own but has always eluded you?

Any of the Mickey Mantle cards from the 1950s; I don’t have any. Also Tom Seaver and Reggie Jackson rookie cards and early Sandy Koufax or Roberto Clemente cards.

What’s your favorite hobby memory?

My aunt lived in California when we were growing up in New Jersey. She used to ship us packs, sets, and individual cards she would find at swap meets. We never knew what we would get or when a package would show up. One day a package came in the mail and among the cards was a Nolan Ryan rookie card that I still have. To a kid in the late 1980s, that was the Holy Grail, and somehow I had it. I also still remember being very happy to finally complete the 1981 set as a kid. I specifically remember that among the last few cards I needed were Jim Slaton and the Yankees Prospects cards. I ended up getting them both in a rack pack my father’s aunt gave me.1968 Topps Nolan Ryan

Do you have any other funny or memorable hobby moments to share?

One of my best memories connected to cards came when I wrote my first baseball book a few years ago. I interviewed over 50 former MLB players, many of them who played in the 1970s and 1980s. Throughout the process of interviewing them, I just kept thinking back to collecting their cards 30 years earlier. I must have pulled dozens of Fred Lynn, Rod Carew, and Rudy May cards from packs in the 80s, and 35 years later I was interviewing them. As a kid, I would have never thought in a million years that I would one day be talking on the phone to the same players I’d be pulling from packs.

50 Moments that Defined Major League Baseball

Anything else you want other collectors to know about you or the hobby?

I think what makes baseball card collecting and baseball in general great is that it seems to span generations more than other sports. My connection to the game and to cards comes from my father and uncles passing their interest down to me as a kid. I would hope present day fans and collectors do the same. Collecting cards is the best way to learn about the history of the game for kids in my opinion.

How can other collectors get in touch with you?

My Twitter is @MLB100Years and I have a Facebook Group for my book 50 Moments That Defined Major League Baseball as well.

—

So much of this resonates with me, and, I suspect other collectors.

Who doesn’t love to bask in the glory of cards from the 1980s hobby boom years or dream about all those Mantle cards we might yet lay our hands on … someday?

1981 Fleer Rudy May

Thanks, Rocco, for sharing your story. It’s been a great ride!

Now, though, I have a hankering for some 1981 Donruss gum. Who’s with me?

(Read all of our collector stories here. Want to share your own story? Let me know!)

 

]]> https://staging.waxpackgods.com/coast-to-coast-cardboard-rocco-constantinos-collecting-story/feed/ 4 5 More Baseball Card Lots that Will Make You Salivate — June 1, 2018 https://staging.waxpackgods.com/5-more-baseball-card-lots-that-will-make-you-salivate-june-1-2018/ Fri, 01 Jun 2018 11:39:33 +0000 http://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=6539 Over the last couple of Fridays, we’ve looked at some of the more outrageous baseball card lots available on eBay.

These things will make your head spin in one way or another, either through the sheer volume of cards involved, the mindblowing awesomeness of the lots, or the sticker shock when you see the asking prices.

However they reel you in, one thing is certain — these cards will make you want to own them!

Here are the droolworthy lots for June 1, 2018.

(Note that this post contains affiliate links, which means if you click over to eBay and buy something, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra charge to you.)

Enough Milwaukee Brewers Cards to Make Bud Selig Look Exasperated (again)

Milwaukee Brewers Team Sets

How much of a homer are you?

Or, in hobby parlance, how many baseball cards of your favorite team do you have? Is it 10,000? 25,000? 100,000?

Or maybe it’s more than 350,000?

Well, if not, and you’re a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers, this lot can put you over the top with hundreds of thousands of Brew Crew cards from 1981 through 1994. According to the seller, they’re already mostly arranged into team sets, too.

So, you know, you could even fake it and just use this lot to become an instant Brewers superfan. Who wouldn’t want that?

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1960 Topps Baseball Complete Set

1960 Topps Baseball Complete Set

Not much to see here, really.

Just a Carl Yastrzemski rookie card.

And a Willie McCovey rookie card.

And beautiful cards of Roger Maris and Hank Aaron and Willie Mays and Harmon Killebrew and scads of other Hall of Famers. They’re all here, as is every other card in the 1960 Topps base set.

Now, these cards aren’t pristine or GEM. Heck, they’re not even graded.

But, man, just look through those pictures and you can imagine some kid — maybe your dad — putting this set together card by card, stopping to love each one just a little. Or a lot.

It probably didn’t happen that way. But it just might have.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1969 Nabisco Team Flakes Willie Mays PSA 10 GEM MT

1969 Nabisco Team Flakes Willie Mays

In 1969, Nabisco added a treat to the four-grain cereal they called Team Flakes — a box back full of baseball mini-posters. In truth, each “poster” stood about two inches high and had dashed borders to aid in cutting them apart from their box-bred brethren.

And, as with most food issues of this ilk, card backs were actually the inside of the cereal box and, thus, blank.

But the 1969 Nabisco Team Flakes baseball card set is jammed full of Hall of Famers, and it’s pretty hard to find any of the cards at all.

And if you want, say, a perfect PSA 10 copy of Willie Mays?

Well, PSA has graded 44 copies of the Mays card, and just one of them has made the GEM grade.

Guess which one that is …

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1973 Topps Mike Schmidt Rookie Card PSA 8.5 NM-MT+

1973 Topps Mike Schmidt Rookie Card

There is at least one smarty pants out there reading this who is just frothing at the mouth at the thought of pointing out that this card is also the Ron Cey rookie card.

It is not — Cey appeared on one of these multi-dude things in 1972.

And there is another smarty, or maybe the same one, who wants to point out that this is also the Dave Hilton rookie card.

meh

And besides, John went by Dave for most of his short career, so it’s really hard to even look him up on Baseball Reference. (I did that for you, there in that John Hilton link above).

All niceties dispensed, this is the Mike Schmidt rookie card. And Mike Schmidt was about as fine a player as you’ll ever find. Right there in the same class as my Reds’ own Dan Driessen and Cesar Cedeno.

There is nothing extraordinary about this particular copy of the Schmidt rookie other than it’s in really good condition and it will cost a lot to own.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1981 Donruss Baseball Unopened Wax Case

1981 Donruss Baseball Unopened Wax Case

Here we have a box of Bibles that have been chopped up into little 2 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ rectangles and disguised as baseball cards.

At least that’s always been my theory for how Donruss came up with the cardstock for their inaugural baseball set in 1981. They must have used pages from a carton of Bibles, so thin and flimsy are the cards.

And the volumes of text on card backs are reminiscent of the tiny type in The Good Book, too.

And the photos … and the errors … and the no-Fernando Valenzuela.

If the 1981 Donruss set didn’t have actual Biblical connections, perhaps it could have at least used some prayers.

But you know what?

This hunk of a mess of a set is part of hobby history, and this eBay lot gives you a shot at 20 full boxes. At 36 packs per box and 18 cards per pack, you’re looking at 12,960 swatches of ugly, terrible, junky … yet still spectacular collectible legacy.

And 720 pieces of vintage gum.

Yum!

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

Check out our other posts detailing baseball cards for sale here.

]]> 5 More Droolworthy Baseball Card Lots (5/25/2018) https://staging.waxpackgods.com/5-more-droolworthy-baseball-card-lots-5-25-2018/ Fri, 25 May 2018 11:19:46 +0000 http://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=6448 Last week, I dove into the far reaches of eBay to see what kind of unusual, big-ticket baseball card lots were on the block.

It didn’t matter if the prices were realistic or not — in fact, some were a bit outrageous.

Response to that post was overall pretty positive, so it seems I’m not the only one who enjoys seeing how the other half lives (even if that other half is imaginary).

So, while we’ll still call this experimental posting for the time being, I’m back with another round of droolworthy cards. Will this become a Friday staple? Time and interest will tell.

For now, here are some of the knockouts for May 25, 2018.

(Note that this post contains affiliate links, which means if you click over to eBay and buy something, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra charge to you.)

1972 Topps Monster Box (~4500 cards)

1972 Topps Baseball Cards

What red-blooded baseball card collector doesn’t get a rush of adrenaline every time he sees a monster box sitting there on a dealer table or at a flea market. Top off or slid to the side. Cards peaking out at you with their brown or white or gray edges, and may an occasional flash of glossy front or matte back surface.

How great is that? What treasures might await you?

Well, in this case, it’s 4500 cards worth of psychedelic archway fun, courtesy of a monster box full of 1972 Topps baseball “from estate.”

The mind shudders at the possibilities — and at the tagalong photo of some 1968s. Those aren’t included in the deal … right?

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1989 Upper Deck Randy Johnson Rookie Cards — 1837 Count (!)

1989 Upper Deck Randy Johnson Lot

You love rookie cards, right? I mean, you’re a baseball card collector.

And as a baseball card collector, you must also love 1989 Upper Deck … right? It changed everything, after all.

And … well, you’re a human not named John Kruk (unless you are — in that case … Hi, Mr. Kruk!).

So that means you love Randy Johnson. Everyone loves the Big Unit.

What do you get when you put all that love together?

Why, this outrageous lot of oversized affection — 1837 Randy Johnson rookie cards from the fabled 1989 Upper Deck set.

Guess that means they’re rare.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

Ultimate Roberto Clemente Topps Lot

Graded Robert Clemente Topps Baseball Cards

Know who else everybody loves, maybe even more than Randy Johnson?

Roberto Clemente, that’s who.

Now, I’m sure there were some opposing players and fans who weren’t all that fond of the Pittsburgh Pirates great during his playing career. But in the wake of his tragic death in 1972 just months after he ended the season with exactly 3000 hits, Clemente is pretty much untouchable.

You can say the same for his early career cards, too, especially if you’re looking for graded specimens in great condition.

That’s what makes this lot so great — six sweet Clemente cards, including five in PSA 8 and his 1955 Topps rookie in PSA 6.

Yeah, untouchable seems like a good word.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1984 O-Pee-Chee Baseball Cards Unopened Vending Case

1984 O-Pee-Chee Baseball Cards Unopened Vending Case

If you love a particular set or just want to beef up your answer to “how many cards do you have?” in a hurry, it’s hard to beat the jaw-dropping mass of vending boxes.

Originally meant to be used in — you guessed it — vending machines to dispense cards for coins, Topps vending boxes contain 500 neatly packed an otherwise unwrapped cards of whatever set they’re targeting. In the 1980s, these amazing little packages started to come into the hobby proper. At 500 cards per box and 24 boxes to a case — 12,000 cards! — you could add heft to your collection in a hurry.

This 1984 O-Pee-Chee vending case is a bit lighter at around 8700 cards, but then there are only 396 cards in the set. They got all the good ones, though, including the Don Mattingly and Darryl Strawberry rookie cards. The winner of this lot should find several of those guys hiding within.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1981 Topps Baseball Cards Unopened Grocery Rack Pack Case

1981 Topps Baseball Unopened Rack Pack Case

The 1981 Topps baseball card set is not the greatest artistic achievement in hobby history, but it is historic seeing as how it’s the first Topps issue made after Fleer and Donruss busted their monopoly. It also sports the rookie cards of Tim Raines, Fernando Valenzuela, Kirk Gibson, and other standouts.

We saw a single grocery pack come up for sale earlier in the week, but this is much bigger — an entire grocery pack case. If you’re counting at home, that’s 72 of those toy-aisle hanging babies to help you relive memories of tagging along with your mom on carefree summer days.

Aaaaahhhhhh … memories!

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

]]> These Donruss Rated Rookies Just Didn’t Rate the Hype https://staging.waxpackgods.com/donruss-rated-rookies/ https://staging.waxpackgods.com/donruss-rated-rookies/#comments Fri, 16 Feb 2018 01:38:03 +0000 http://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=5552 (Check out our other “just-for-fun” posts here.)

If there was a single trend that defined baseball cards and the hobby in the 1980s, it was the explosion of the rookie card.

We began the decade with the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle (not-really-a) rookie card stirring long-dormant poetry in the hearts of thickening and balding Baby Boomers, and we ended it drooling over the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr., (true) rookie card.

In between, the 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly rookie lit the hobby on fire and stoked our imaginations … how great would Mattingly become? How high would his card prices rise?

That same year, Donruss rolled out an innovation they called “Rated Rookies” that really wasn’t an innovation at all. Borrowing from Topps’ old “Future Stars” and “Rookie Catchers” concepts, Rated Rookies was Donruss’s attempt to let collectors know which young players were really going to be something, someday.

And, of course, to cash in on the burgeoning rookie card craze as best they could.

1986 Donruss Jose Canseco

Through the years, Donruss Rated Rookies gave us gems like this 1986 mugshot of Jose Canseco with his puberty ‘stache and a still teen-greasy Greg Maddux the next year.

But not all of Donruss picks made it big.

In fact, some of them were pretty much busts.

Just like big brother Topps!

The great thing about busts, though, is that they are often more fun to rehash than the guys who became great.

So, if you’re ready for some Rated Rookies fun, here are Donruss’s 10 worst picks, one for each year from 1984 through 1993.

Sit back and enjoy the show, because these are some great cards … just don’t expect much in the way of gaudy stats or resale value …

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1984 Donruss Rated Rookies

1984 Donruss Rated Rookies Chris Smith

The hobby was really just starting to pick up steam when the first Donruss cards of 1984 rolled off the press, and there wasn’t nearly the amount of pre-release information available as there would be even a few years later.

So, for many collectors, the “Rated Rookie” logo that appeared on some of the cards sliding out of our wax packs was confusing.

Rated by whom?

Rated on what scale? And where were the scores, the ratings themselves? Certainly not on the cards anywhere that I could find.

Still …

These were rookie cards … they said so right there on the obverses.

And they were rated, somehow, which seemed like it had to be better than not being rated.

So, we definitely wanted these babies, and the inclusion of Kevin McReynolds gave the subset a gravitas it might not have had otherwise. Even in those prehistoric days, McReynolds had received plenty of advance press, and we all knew — knew — he was going to be a huge power hitter.

When you looked at Tim Teufel or Dion James or Mike Stenhouse, and he had the same waving RATED ROOKIE banner that Kevin Mac had … well … you knew you were looking at another special player. A future star, even.

Donruss did pretty well with their picks, too. I mean look at the RRs from that first group who would eventually go on to be All-Stars:

That’s a pretty solid list, even if McReynolds is a notable exclusion. To be fair, he did bang 211 home runs in a 12-year career and finished third (behind Kirk Gibson and Darryl Strawberry) in the 1988 National League Most Valuable Player vote.

So Donruss didn’t really whiff on him.

Also missing from that All-Star list is Chris Smith.

By the time Smith was a Rated Rookie, he had appeared in 31 games for the Montreal Expos and San Francisco Giants over the course of three seasons (1981-1983). He was also 26 years old and, despite a solid .328/.403/.493 for San Fran at the end of 1983, Smith never appeared in another Big League game.

He is our “winner” here in this inaugural version of Rated Rookies.

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1985 Donruss Rated Rookies

1985 Donruss Rated Rookies Russ Stephans

By the time Donruss went all 1971 with their black-bordered 1985 set, collectors were getting the hang of this Rated Rookies thing.

We were ready.

And Donruss rewarded us with solid guys like Danny Tartabull, Larry Sheets, Calvin Schiraldi, and Shawon Dunston.

They all had some degree of success in the Major Leagues.

Donruss also rewarded us with Russ Stephans, a 26-year-old catcher in the Kansas City Royals farm system. He had spent five years working his way toward the Majors, landing with the Triple-A Omaha Royals in 1983.

Unfortunately, he would stay in Omaha through 1986 without ever tasting the Bigs.

That’s a whiff-winner on Donruss’s part if you’re scoring along.

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1986 Donruss Rated Rookies

1986 Donruss Rated Rookies Dave Shipanoff

The 1986 Rated Rookies subset is the one that really put the brand on the map thanks to a slew of sluggers: Fred McGriff, Cory Snyder, Andres Galarraga, Paul O’Neill (slugger light), Danny Tartabull (again), and (of course) Jose Canseco.

Snuggled in there among all the bash muscle was 23-year-old Chicago Cubs pitching prospect Johnny Abrego, who made six appearances on the North Side in 1985 but would never return to the Majors.

Dave Shipanoff nearly mirrored Abrego, as the rightly logged 26 appearances with the Philadelphia Phillies in his only Major League action in 1985

Shipanoff gets the nod here since he was already 26 by the time his RR card made it to collectors.

And, more deliciously, because his name sounds an awful lot like “ship ‘im off,” which is exactly what the Phils did after 1985, Donruss’s mysterious rating system be darned.

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1987 Donruss Rated Rookies

1987 Donruss Leaf Rated Rookies Bruce Fields

Card #46 of the 1987 Donruss set was the Mark McGwire Rated Rookie and, as Big Mac heated up that summer, his RR climbed through the stratosphere.

He dragged the rest of the subset along with him, and soon collectors were stockpiling guys like Pat Dodson, Jerry Browne, and Duane Ward.

While those players never developed into superstars, Donruss did alright for itself that year.

In addition to McGwire, Donruss hit it big with Rafael Palmeiro, Greg Maddux, Benito Santiago (who was revered for awhile), and slightly lesser lights like B.J. Surhoff, Terry Steinbach, and Randy Myers.

Then you had Ken Gerhart, who was nearly 26 years old when his Rated Rookie hit the hobby and who lasted just through 1988 — in a part-time role with the Baltimore Orioles — before disappearing from the Majors. He did smack 14 bombs in 1987 and 24 overall, though.

And then you also had Bruce Fields, an outfielder and pinch-hitter for the Detroit Tigers who was already 26 years old in the spring of 1987. Although Fields played in 16 games for the Bengals in 1986, he was a MLB no-show in 1987. He did make it back to the Majors for a total of 42 games with the Seattle Mariners in 1988 and 1989, but that was the end.

For his diminutive career totals — 31 hits in 58 games — and for his disappearing act the year his RR was released, Fields is our guy here.

(And, yes, that’s a Leaf card up there, but Donruss didn’t get it any more right with their Canadian version than they did in the States.)

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1988 Donruss Rated Rookies

1988 Donruss Rated Rookies Shawn Abner

The 1988 Donruss set was no fun, really.

First, they had those funky blue-red-black-white-undulating borders that just made/make you feel sad in the worst 1980s sort of way.

Then, they coupled that design with cardstock they made from the pages of discarded Bibles.

Happy with their handiwork, Donruss proceeded to produce enough of each 1988 card to fill the entire Astrodome and even build a little flag on top.

And, on top of all that, they sort of aced their Rated Rookie list, in the most boring of ways.

Here are the dudes on that checklist:

Alomar was great, a Hall of Famer.

Grace was good-to-great.

Meyer could blast baseballs a long way, sometimes.

McDowell won a Cy Young award.

And Al Leiter is on TV now.

But who flamed out?

Nobody, really. Not many of the rest of these guys were All-Stars or anything like that, but they all had long Major League careers, ranging from 3-4 year all the way up to way over a decade.

So … who to pick?

I’m going with Shawn Abner here simply because he was supposed to be a superstar but ended up collecting just 191 hits in over six seasons in the Majors.

Such are the perils of being the overall #1 pick, as Abner was in 1984, especially when the pickers are the New York Mets.

As a bonus, Abner was once traded for McReynolds (sort of, in one of those my-mosh-pit-for-your-mosh-pit mega swaps.)

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1989 Donruss Rated Rookies

1989 Donruss Rated Rookies Alex Sanchez

Alex Sanchez was the 1987 first-round draft pick of the Toronto Blue Jays, and he lit up the minors for two years, striking out 343 batters in 305.1 innings.

That performance earned him a Donruss Rated Rookie card, and a Triple-A slot to start the 1989 season. After logging 141 more Ks to go along with his 13-7 record, Sanchez got the call.

In just under 12 innings pitched with the Blue Jays, Sanchez went 0-1 with an unsightly 10.03 ERA. He was terrible but young, so another shot at the Bigs was in order, right?

Wrong.

Sanchez bounced around the minors until 1995 and had a stint with a couple independents in 1998 but never made it back to The Show.

He’s also doing a pretty good Aaron Rodgers impression on is Rated Rookie card.

And thus, he wins our 1989 award.

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1990 Donruss Rated Rookies

1990 Donruss Rated Rookies Brian Dubois

The 1990 Donruss set is often dubbed the “Red Menace” thanks to its garish, bloody borders. A (very) few collectors love the look, but most cringe when they see the cards.

Still, Donruss banged out a few hits with their 1990 Rated Rookies selections: Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile, Sandy Alomar, Delino DeShields, and others were all solid (or better) Major Leaguers.

And then, well, there were the foul tips.

Brian Dubois was 25 years old in 1990 and went 3-5, 5.09 in his second taste of the Major Leagues with the Detroit Tigers. Then … well … he was done, never to appear in the Bigs again. Donruss liked his chances, though, as evidenced by this Rated Rookies card, which maybe buoyed Dubois’ confidence enough to keep pushing in the minors through 1996.

Dubois takes the cake here, but …

Alex Sanchez made a return appearance as a Rated Rookie, too. Donruss just couldn’t give up on the dream.

1990 Donruss Rated Rookies Alex Sanchez

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1991 Donruss Rated Rookies

1991 Donruss Rated Rookies Kevin Belcher

Donruss pretty much had their rookie-selection muscles in prime working order by the time they pushed out their 1991 set.

Among the Rated Rookies who made the cut that year were Tino Martinez, Bernard Gilkey, Hensley Meulens, Derek Bell, Jose Offerman, Moises Alou, and Ray Lankford. All of those gents enjoyed at least a few successful seasons in the Big Leagues, with Martinez and Alou flirting with superstar status on occasion.

But no matter how good you get at picking out future stars, baseball prospecting is risky, tricky business. It’ll trip you up even when you seem to be standing on flat rock.

The flat rock — and the tripping foot — for Donruss in 1991 was Texas Rangers speedster Kevin Belcher, who stole enough bases and hit enough homers in the minor leagues to get a call to the Bigs just after his 23rd birthday in 1990.

In 15 at-bats for the Rangers, Belcher hit just .133 but did draw two walks.

Donruss was convinced.

Texas was not.

And so, Belcher joined that exclusive club of players who not only did not appear in the Major Leagues the same season they appeared on a Rated Rookie, but who also never appeared in the Bigs after they appeared on their RR card.

Belcher spent 1991 and 1992 split between Double-A and Triple-A, then wrapped up his professional with the Chicago White Sox‘s Triple-A team (Birmingham Barons) in 1993.

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1992 Donruss Rated Rookies

1992 Donruss Rated Rookies John Ramos

In 1992, Donruss got fancy, adding high-gloss glitz to their cards (all over) and full-color player head shots to card backs. They also dropped Diamond Kings from the base set and turned them into inserts.

*sigh*

That shifted Rated Rookies from their customary two-hole into the leadoff spot, garnering a bit more limelight for future solid Major Leaguers like Mark Wohlers, Ryan Klesko, Roberto Hernandez, and Eddie Taubensee, and superstar Kenny Lofton.

They also got bitten by the D.J. Dozier bug and included the gridiron star in their RR lineup even though he was already 26 and had put on a good but not great showing with the Triple-A Tidewater Tides at the end of 1991.

Dozier made 25 appearances with the Mets in 1992 and then was done.

John Ramos was also 26 years old in the spring of 1992, and he was coming off his first cup of coffee with the New York Yankees in 1991. In 10 games, the catcher and designated hitter batted .308 with a walk. Not spectacular, but he was a Yankee and they were Donruss, so we got the Ramos Rated Rookie.

He never appeared in the Majors again, though he did hang around the minors until 1996

For his 17 days on an ML roster — all before his Rated Rookie card was ever born — Ramos is our winner here.

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1993 Donruss Rated Rookies

1993 Donruss Rated Rookies Fernando Ramsey

Donruss continued to trounce all over tradition in 1993 when they busted up their 22 Rated Rookies cards and scattered them throughout the 792-card base set (hmmmm, now why does that number sound familiar?).

Among the players included in that disjointed subset were recognizable names like Eric Wedge, Tim Wakefield, J.T. Snow, Tim Salmon, Bret Boone, Mike Piazza, Damion Easley, Dmitri Young, Chipper Jones, and Javier Lopez.

That’s some major talent who produced some pretty awesome Major League numbers, and you could probably have won a lot of games with a roster of only those 10 guys.

Of course, not every player can be a world-beater, so Donruss decided to also make Rob Maurer a 1993 Rated Rookie.

Maurer was a 26-year-old first baseman and pinch hitter for the Texas Rangers who hit .063 in his first call-up with the big club in 1991, spanning 13 games and 19 plate appearances. He also made it back to the Majors in 1992, raising his BA to .222 in eight games. As with Kevin Belcher, Donruss was more impressed than the Rangers were, and Maurer was done in the Big Leagues.

But, as specious as Maurer’s Rated Rookie case was, our 1993 winner is Fernando Ramsey.

Ramsey was a speedy centerfielder for the Chicago Cubs who had made 18 appearances in the Majors in 1992 and batted .120. He was also 27 years old in 1993 and would never see the Bigs again. He edges out Maurer here because of his age and because he tallied four fewer plate appearances in his Big League career (25 to 29).

Amazingly, both Ramsey and Maurer racked up 25 total at-bats in the Major Leagues, and both collected exactly three hits for a cool .120 career batting average.

Rookies don’t come much less rated than that!

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]]> https://staging.waxpackgods.com/donruss-rated-rookies/feed/ 4 50 Auld Lang Signs the New Year is Here — Old-School Collector Edition https://staging.waxpackgods.com/new-years-baseball-cards/ Sun, 31 Dec 2017 19:08:39 +0000 http://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=5067 (Check out our other “just-for-fun” posts here.)

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As the old year whithers away and gives way to the bright and shiny New Year, people take stock of what they’ve been doing and what they want to do differently this time around.

For baseball card collectors, the New Year means early glimpses of new card issues, thoughts of Spring Training and a new baseball season, football playoffs, and visions of hobby grandeur for the coming 12 months.

1987-Topps-Wax-Pack

But sometimes the New Year just sneaks up on you, right? I mean, you’re chugging along a couple of days after the World Series, making holiday plans when, BAM! — the New Year is bearing down on you.

If you ever find yourself in this situation and can’t quite get your bearings, your old-school hobby roots can help you right the ship.

Here, then, are 50 foolproof collecting signs that the New Year is upon us …

1. You’re saving a wad of 1987 Topps wax wrappers because they’re going to be worth something someday.

2. You got your first monster box full of new commons and are considering using them to paper your bedroom walls.

3.  Upper Deck

1989-Topps-Gary-Sheffield

packs are space aged and impenetrable … but you suddenly realize you like wax better.

4. Topps increases prices by 1/6th, to 35 cents per wax pack.

5. You’re excited about Gary Sheffield.

6. Your local card shop owner is considering giving you his empty wax boxes from last year.

7. You’ve read all the baseball books you got for Christmas and started working through The Baseball Encyclopedia, page by page.

8. Sports Collectors Digest devotes a cover to the new 1985 Donruss Action All-Star cards.

9. Someone mentions that Spring Training is less than two months away.

10. You inexplicably organize your football cards to match the playoff Atari 2600 Baseballbrackets.

11. Your rounds of Atari baseball are fueled with the fire of anticipation of a new baseball season.

12. The new Fleer baseball cards have tiny little player photos on card backs."1978

13. Pat Tabler is Mr. Clutch.

14. You can’t wait to see what Kevin Mitchell will do for an encore.

15. You start making grand plans for finishing your Mario Soto collection.

16.The new Fleer wax packs contain 17 baseball cards and bubble gum.

17. You hear that Donruss cards will be scarce this year.

18. You wonder if you could trade your dried-up Christmas tree for more baseball cards.

19. You get a hankering for Street & Smith’s.

20. The new Topps cards are made with the same old soft card stock for the 109th year in a row, and you wonder when they’ll use something better.

"1987

21. You’re excited about Tim Pyznarski.

22. You woke up face down on your bedroom floor in the middle of a pile of baseball cards. The overhead light wason. It was 4 am. Thank God for Christmas break.

23.The new Fleer Baseball Greats cards come with bubble gum and a team emblem.

24. Your grocery store has marked down their football cards to 15 cents a pack.

25. You feel like this is the year you will finally o

1988 Score Magic Motion Trivia Card

rganize your collection.

26. The new Topps cards are made with thick white stock … and you think you liked the old soft gray stuff better.

27. You hear that Fleer cards will be scarce this year.

28. The new Donruss baseball cards come with puzzle pieces.

29. Your room is littered with odd-shaped Magic Motion Score trivia cards.

30. You wonder when baseball cards will replace chocol1981 Ray Guy Marketcom Sports Illustrated Posterates as standard Valentine’s fare.

31. You’re excited about the Cleveland Indians.

32. The new Fleer Ted Williams cards come with bubble gum.

33. You just bought a Ray Guy poster from a gum machine at the front of the grocery store.

34. You have a new piece of exercise equipment to stack your baseball cards on.

35. The new Donruss wax packs contain 18 baseball cards and bubble gum.

36. The Dallas Cowboys trash can your grandma bought you for Christmas even though you’re a Chicago Bears fan is jammed in the corner of your room and you feel guilty because you think it looks pretty neat.1963 Fleer Baseaball Wax Pack

.37. You’ve opened all your cards from Christmas but got only one Gary Redus rookie card and it’s still only the Wednesday before school starts and you won’t have any chance at more new cards for at least two weeks. Ugh!

38. The new Fleer baseball cards come with a cookie.

39. The new Donruss cards smell like a chemical factory.

40.The new Fleer baseball cards come with team stickers.

41. Beckett doesn’t have pricing for the current year’s cards yet.

42. You’re considering buying last year’s empty wax pack boxes from your local card shop owner."1981

43. You wonder how Donruss can fit so many cards into wax boxes that are so thin.

44. Rick Rhoden is a Diamond King.

45. Ty Gainey is a Rated Rookie.

46. Your local newspaper just told you that your favorite team traded for Hubie Brooks at the Winter Meetings in December — a month ago.

1985 Donruss Box Bottom Panel47. You just spent the day scouring your collection for Hubie Brooks cards.

48. You get your hands on the supercool new Sportflics cards but end up disappointed … and confused.

49. You start itching to get a look at who’s on the Donruss box bottoms this year.

50. The new Fleer Baseball Greats cards come with bubble gum and a “decal and sticker too”.

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]]> If the Characters of ‘Dallas’ Were Played by Baseball Cards … https://staging.waxpackgods.com/dallas-baseball-cards/ https://staging.waxpackgods.com/dallas-baseball-cards/#comments Fri, 22 Sep 2017 13:12:20 +0000 http://staging.waxpackgods.com/?p=4104 (Want more of that #FridayFeeling that only baseball cards can give you? Check out the complete series here.)

When I was a kid, nothing gave me that Friday feeling like setting down on my bedroom floor with a blanket and bowl of popcorn or candy to watch The Dukes of Hazzard.

And by the time Waylon Jennings talked me out of whatever mess the Duke boys had cooked up, I was primed for the capper on the night and the real start of the weekend … Dallas.

Looking back now, I realize I was probably too young to be watching either show, and I wouldn’t have let my son watch them at the same age, but …

How exciting was it when the Dallas theme song kicked off? And imagery of the opening, with Texas Stadium, and oil rigs, and ranches, and skyscrapers … it was like being transported to some sort of cowboy wonderland.

When I got just a bit older, by the mid-1980s, I was joined in my Friday night camp by my new cardboard friends. I can clearly remember sorting through stacks of cards, with hundreds of others spread around me on the floor, while J.R. Ewing eviscerated one of his rivals on the screen.

Friday feeling, indeed! What could be better?

Well … what if we got a little fanciful with our memories?

What if …

We recast Dallas with those selfsame baseball cards that dominated so many of our lives for so many years.

Here’s how it might have played out …  

 

Jock Ewing ……………… 1964 Topps Casey Steng1964 Topps Casey Stengelel

Jock Ewing was the grizzled patriarch of the Ewing family who spent the midJock Ewingdle of the 20th century building an oil and ranching empire that would serve as the basis for the show. By the time we met him in the 1970s, he was circling the drain health-wise but still had strong opinions about his business and strong, gravelly advice to his sons.

On his 1964 Topps card, Casey Stengel is likewise in the process of giving advice, or perhaps telling off some unwitting reporter. Like Jock, the creases in Casey’s face and his sage, aged eyes tell you that he has the experience to deliver the wisdom you need.

Of all our cast members, this one probably bears the strongest physical resemblance to the original.

 

 

Digger Barnes …………. 1984 Fleer Glenn Hubbard

Digger1984 Fleer Glenn Hubbard Barnes was the bitter rival of Jock Ewing, but he always seemed to draw tDigger Barneshe short end of the stick when going up against his nemesis. Digger lived long enough to see his son, Cliff, take up the family battle and suffer the same sorts of losses and indignities against J.R. that plagued Digger throughout his life. When we met Digger as an old man, he was holed up, living the life of a bitter hermit and a full-on eccentric complete with wild silver hair and mustache.

While neither Glenn Hubbard nor the 1984 Fleer set can compete with Digger as characters on their own, they’re a formidable duo when paired up on Hubbard’s famous “snake” card. And if you squint just a bit, doesn’t Glenn look like a younger version of ol’ Digger?

 

J.R. Ewing …………….  1952 Topps Mickey Mantle “Rookie” Card

When you think of Dallas, which character springs to mind? Chances are, it’s J.R. Ewing, oldest son of the Ewing clan and JR Ewingthe driving force behind most of the show’s juiciest plot lines.

And when you think of baseball cards? Well, there are gazillions to consider, but I’ll bet the one that a plurality of collectors think of first is the 1952 Topp Mickey Mant1952 Topps Mickey Mantlele (sorta) rookie card. For many years, it was the driving force behind overall card prices and hobby hype.

J.R. and the Mickey rookie … both glamorous, though not exactly gorgeous, and both with their foibles.

J.R. was a money-grubbing, philandering oil baron who would do anything for the deal … or the next pretty face that walked through the door, even though he was married to Sue Ellen.

And that Mantle rookie? Well, it’s not really a rookie at all, since that honor belongs to The Mick’s 1951 Bowman card. The ’52 Topps Mantle is also oversized (like J.R.’s ego) compared to modern cards, and it’s flashy but not beautiful. It’s also been the subject of many counterfeiting and tampering efforts over the years.

So, yeah, this is the role of a lifetime.

 

Bobby Ewing …………   1968 Topps Nolan Ryan Rookie Card

Bobby was J.R.’s younger brother, and he was always trying to do the right thing and keep the Ewing name out of the Bobby Ewingmud. He was a talented oil man in his own right but could never seem to escape his sibling’s shadow. Bobby built a nice life with wife Pam and had his moments in the sun, but he never had the entire Ewing empire to himself.

And, as hard as Bobby tried, he made his big mistakes, too. He was more likable than J.R., though, so his missteps didn’t seem as dastardly.

Bobby was the guy you’d want on your pick-up football team or to hang out with at the lake, and you might even have beene OK with his dating your daughter. He’d make you a lot of money if you installed him in your boardroom, too. Heck, he even came back to life after getting run down in his driveway!

But if you had to pick between J.R. and Bobby as the guy to start a company with, the guy to take you to the very top? The devil man would win every single time.

The 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan rookie c1968-Topps-Nolan-Ryanard began life in a burlap bag, definitely more of a humble start than Bobby. But while the Mantle rookie was forging a new path in the hobby and while younger rookie cards were shooting through the stratosphere only to crash back down to the earth, The Ryan Express and his rookie card kept plodding along.

Well, ‘plodding’ at least in the sense of doing the same thing year after year … after year … after year. In Nolan’s case, that meant striking out more batters each season than the Ewings had cars, pitching until he was as old as Jock, and throwing in the occasional no-hitter.

By the end of his career, the kid who had once been too wild to be considered a legitimate ace left the game as a bona fide legend, and Ryan’s 1968 Topps card was the most sought-after hunk of cardboard issued in the 1960s.

Still …

No matter how well Ryan did on the field, or how long he did it, and no matter how out of control the demand for his cards became, Mantle and that 1952 Topps non-rookie of his did nothing but widen their lead on the field.

Nolan Ryan was a tough Texan who inspired all sorts of tributes, but Mickey Mantle was Mickey Freaking Mantle, the golden boy of all time against whom all future golden boys have been and will be measured.

And his rookie card is on the Mt. Rushmore of cardboard along with the T206 Honus Wagner card and maybe a couple of others.

The Ryan rookie is still a cornerstone of many collections and an object of desire for adult boys everywhere, but if you had to pick between Mantle and Ryan to start a team?

If you had to pick between the Mantle and Ryan rookies to start a collection?

Nolan and Bobby would end up on the bench together every time.

 

Miss Ellie (Ewing) ……… 1981 Topps Rob Wilfong

1981 Topps Rob WilfongMiss Ellie was the beloved mother figure of the Ewing clan and the glue that Miss Ellie Ewingheld together the raucous, testosterone-driven gaggle of men that threatened to tear apart the family, the business, and Dallas itself in every episode.

Miss Ellie was everything a mother should be — serious but sunny, tough but loving, judgmental but forgiving. If you were her child or spouse, you would have grown tired of her constant, well, mothering, but you also would have been Friday-night happy to see her after a long, hard day or at the breakfast table every morning.

And that’s why the 1981 Topps Wob Wilfong is the perfect choice to play her part in our cast. After all, Wilfong was the card you found in every pack of cards that summer — the summer after we were all asking “Who shot J.R.?”.

You resented him and his card every time you pulled another one, but nowadays, you smile ever time you catch a glimpse.

 

Cliff Barnes …………..   1963 Topps Pete Rose Rookie Card

Cliff Barnes was Digger’s son and Pam’s brother.

Cliff BarnesHe was bor1963-Topps-Pete-Rose-RCn with an inbred hatred for everything even remotely related to the Ewings, and his sole goal in life was to take down J.R. and make “Barnes” the biggest name in Texas oil.

Like his daddy, though, Cliff just couldn’t compete with the Ewing brothers — he wasn’t as good looking as them, he wasn’t as smart as them, he wasn’t as rich as them.

Heck, he wasn’t even as tall as them.

And his sister didn’t help his cause, either, having taken up with the enemy — neither did the fact that Cliff was smitten with the bride of the devil (Sue Ellen).

Though Cliff would never, ever give up on his mission, he needed a little booster now and then, which he always seemed to find at the bottom of a bottle. Not surprisingly, he spiraled in and out of control and always seemed to be on the brink of complete disaster.

Looking back on the career of Pete Rose, it’s pretty easy to see the parallels, right?

Pete was a blue-collar kid from a blue-collar family in a blue-collar town who hustled his way to superstardom. He climbed to the heights that Cliff Barnes could only dream about, but Pete, too, was a slasher who would do anything to get ahead.

And, like Barnes, Pete needed a release, the most visible and damnable being his gambling habit — including the penchant for betting on baseball that eventually brought him down.

Pete’s rookie card didn’t escape the Cliff Barnes parallels, either. While the Mantle rookie drove the hobby and the Mattingly rookie opened it to a whole new generation, the 1963 Topps Pete Rose pushed forward any way it could.

Famously, that included several rounds of well-done fakes that eventually built a market for themselves.

Drinking, gambling, slashing, counterfeits … it’s hard to separate the character from the player from the card.

 

Sue Ellen Ewing ………   1986 Donruss Jose Canseco Rookie Card

Sue Ellen Shepard was a young beauty queen who caught J.R.’s eye and reeled him all the way in to a marriage made in Sue Ellen EwingHell.

Now, you can quibble over what initially attracted the two to each other, and what each one got out of the relationship, but you can’t argue with just how perfect Sue Ellen was as the fiery romantic counterpart to her entitled husband. In many ways, she was the equal that J.R. couldn’t find anywhere else.

Consider …

Each was glamorous and power-hungry.

Each had copious extra-marital affairs — Sue Ellen’s suitors included bitter J.R. rival Cliff Barnes.

Each wanted to stick it to the other’s self most of the time.1986 Donruss Jose Canseco

Each seemed to have some real love for the other.

Each found it difficult to stay away from the other.

But whereas J.R. was generally fully in control of what was happening around him, Sue Ellen was a hot mess most of the time. Passionate and angry and jilted and ambitious and smart and impulsive … Sue Ellen was a mix of everything great and terrible that Dallas had to offer.

About in the middle of the show’s run, a young slugger made his debut for the Oakland A’s, and the game would never be the same.

Jose Canseco was a Cuban-born enigma who slugged his way into the Majors at age 20, stroking five home runs for Oakland in 29 late games to close out the 1985 season. That was enough to stoke up the hype machine and land Jose cards in both the 1986 Donruss and 1986 Fleer sets.

As expected, Jose broke Spring Training with the parent club in 1986 and spent the summer bashing homers throughout the American League. As Canseco heated up, so to did his Donruss Rated Rookies card, his only solo rookie card.

By Thanksgiving, Canseco had copped the AL Rookie of the Year award, and his card was the next 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly — destined to only go up in value, crashing past $5, $10, $15, on its way to the stars.

The next season brought more of the same as Canseco paired with rookie Mark McGwire to form the Bash Brothers, and their bulging biceps were all the *ahem* rage.

Jose won the MVP award in 1988, but by then folks had begun to notice that our new superstar was a tad mercurial and eccentric. And not long after that, it became clear that we could never really depend on anything when it came to Jose.

One night he’d hit three dingers, the next he’d bounce a fly ball off his head, the next he’d blow out a shoulder trying to pitch, the next he’d get pulled over chasing down Madonna at 300 mph, the next …

And so it went for 17 tumultuous years until Jose hung up his gym bag … er … spikes in 2001. Along the way, his rookie card spiked and dipped and flat-lined and was resuscitated, and you never knew whether to feel blessed or cursed when you found one in your collection.

You know, the same way J.R. must have felt when he sat down across from Sue Ellen at the dinner table.

 

Pam Ewing ………………. 1989 Donruss Ken Griffey, Jr., Rookie Card

Pam Ewing had everything going for her …

Pam EwingShe was the daughter of an oil barron.

She was beautiful.

She was personable and nice.

She was smart (enough).

And she was married to Bobby, the good-looking Ewing brother with the winning personality.

Together, t1989 Donruss Ken Griffey Jr. Rated Rookiehey were THE rising power couple in Dallas, and their future was brighter than the Texas sun at noon on the Fourth of July.

Of course, life has a tendency to get in the way of destiny, especially in soap operas (and baseball). So there were affairs and failures and losses and stupid dreams, and in the end, Pam was really just a shell of the woman she could have been.

And, always there to complicate matters was the fact that Pam was Digger Barnes’ daughter and Cliff Barnes’ sister. Talk about sleeping with the enemy!

Just as Pam was leaving that golden halo of promise and we were beginning to see her in the harsh reality of daylight, Ken Griffey, Jr., was embarking on  his professional baseball career. Everything that Brien Taylor was going to do for pitching, Griffey was going to do for hitting and fielding and having fun on the diamond.

Only … Griffey pretty much delivered on all that promise. Within a few years of his debut, The Kid was one of the two or three best players in the game, and people were starting to whisper his name in conversations about the greatest players ever. Notwithstanding the way he gutted Reds fans over and over, Griffey was darn near a perfect player.

His rookie cards, though …

Everyone knows that Griffey’s 1989 Upper Deck RC is an all-time classic that is a must-own for serious collectors of the era.

But that card wasn’t alone on the Griffey landscape. No, both Fleer and Donruss issued base-set cards of Griffey in his rookie season, too.

And, believe it or not, there was a fair amount of debate in the hobby about which you should be buying. Now, the UD card was always more expensive and more desirable, but there was a fair contingent of experts and collectors who thought it was too pricy and that the other options had a lot more room for value appreciation.

That Donruss card was pretty decent looking, too, so you couldn’t go wrong buying it, right?

Basically, that’s right. Unless you dropped 15 bucks a pop for 100 or more of the cards, you didn’t take to much of a bath, and that Donruss rookie is still a solid historical piece today.

But, man, on the cultural reference bookcase over there in the corner, there is a shelf labeled, “Pretty Awesome but Still Disappointing.”

Pam Ewing lives on that shelf, and she sits there shuffling through a stack of 1989 Donruss Ken Griffey, Jr., rookie cards every night.

 

Ray Krebbs ……………… 1975 Topps Bobby Murcer

Ray Krebbs was the ranch foreman at Sourthfork, the Ewing homestead where much of the show’s 1975 Topps Bobby Murcerdrama played out. Ray Ray Krebbswas a carouser who had eyes for the young Lucy Ewing and also collaborated with J.R. on a couple of dastardly schemes. All in all, though, Ray was a good guy and seemed to have a pretty bright future with the Ewings on his side. Then, in 1980, we found out that he was Jock’s illegitimate son, setting up years of nail-biting around whether he would ever learn the truth. After several very human mistakes and the continued rise to prominence of both J.R. and Bobby, we realized it didn’t really matter — Ray would never equal his half brothers in the world of business.

Similarly, Bobby Murcer broke in with the New York Yankees at the age of 19 in 1965, and the buzz was that he was the next next Mickey Mantle. That was a tall order, but Murcer gave it a good go for several seasons, becoming perhaps the best all-around outfielder in the American League by the time Mantle retired in 1969. Mercer peaked (in a WAR sense) in 1972 when he was a legitimate MVP candidate at age 26 but declined sharply thereafter. After the 1974 season, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants

As if to underline the point that Murcer would not, indeed, be the next Mantle, Topps went to work with their airbrush and made the trade official in time for their 1975 set.

 

Lucy Ewing …………..  1991 Classic Brien Taylor

Once upon a time, Lucy Ewing was young and hot and exciting, and every man from Weatherford t1991 Classic Brien Tayloro Emory would line up Lucy Ewingto get a chance to dance with the sassy flaxen-haired lass. She caused all sorts of trouble for Ray, and plenty of heartache for other suitors, too. But as time went on, folks began to realize just how immature and petulant Lucy really was, and it didn’t take long until her physical beauty just couldn’t compensate for the risk and the hassle of pursuing her.

The 1991 Classic Brien Taylor is an almost perfect cardboard proxy for Lucy because Taylor was young and “hot” — the hottest pitching prospect since before Dwight Gooden — and he was going to rewrite all the record books. But after being drafted out of high school by the Yankees and signing for a big bonus, Taylor self-destructed and never even made it to the Majors. Lots of collectors held onto his rookie card for several years, though, just praying for a miracle.

It was like pulling out your high school yearbook five years after graduation and hoping against hope that the head cheerleader would come looking for you.

 

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