To celebrate the beginning of baseball season, and the end of March, I've returned with my first post here since October.
Yes, October.
It's been a long, cold, lonely winter.
For my return pack, I've chosen 1987 Topps' mini leaders, which I received from Offy at Sports Syzygy. I love it when people send me unopened packs.
I know collectors have opened cartons of this stuff, but I never did. In 1987, I was majoring in drinking and chasing. No time for cards.
So let's see what I missed:
#36 - Mike Krukow. Ugh. A Giant. And he's still with the team, as a longtime broadcaster. I'll move onto the next card before I get myself in trouble.
#43 - Bruce Hurst. I should say that the wood-border look continued the theme of the '87 Topps base set. In fact, this is the same photo that was featured on Hurst's card in the base set. That wasn't good then. It isn't good now.
#9 - Bill Doran. Doran was a hustle-type guy for the Astros. Zipping down to first after walks. And he walked a ton.
Spring Fever sweepstakes promo - 1988 was probably the last year I could have taken time off during March to watch spring training. Missed my chance.
#64 - Rickey Henderson. A successful pack any time I pull a Rickey card. Possibly the greatest player of my lifetime. I know he coasted into the Hall of Fame, but sometimes I think he doesn't get enough credit.
#73 - Jesse Barfield. Listening to Barfield works as a color guy on Blue Jays games for the area Canadian television station is excruciating. I have no idea whether he's still employed in this capacity, but I hope for everyone's sake he is not.
#10 - Bob Knepper. Getting two Astros in one pack was a good thing in 1987. Knepper was a little cranky about women in positions of power.
#5 - John Franco. Drafted by the Dodgers. Traded for Rafael Landestoy. Franco sure would've come in handy for L.A. during the '90s.
By the way, the Dodgers just won their season opener. I can't come up with a better ending than that.
5 comments:
Regarding the Hurst picture, normally I agree with hating on reused pics. However, they could put that ascot in every set until the end of time and I would be okay with it.
The Canseco picture from this set must have been taken seconds after or before the photo used in the base set. He's looking at the camera in the mini version and it always creeped me out how similar they were. -Andy
I have special memories of cards like these. I was visiting my grandparents in San Francisco for the summer of '86. I convinced them to take me to a dive-y card show off of the mission. All my limited budget could buy was a discounted box of the previous year's version of these.
I managed to construct a full set of these, and oddly, I still have that set in plastic wrap that packaged them into myself.
I remember looking at the duplicates over and over, dreaming about how they were going to be rare and valuable someday.
Yeah, right.
These wood-grainy '87s I remember not buying much at all, mostly because my dreams of a valuable hoard of '86s had already popped.
I like how Henderson's card perfectly concealed his entire right arm, like it was left at home plate and collected by the bat boy.
"RICKEY DETACHES OWN ARM TO GAIN EXTRA STEP ON BASE PATHS."
While I encourage any and all talk about the years 1985-89 since it is so rare but you are dead WROOOOOOOOOOOONG sir , WRONG! Those cards and their design are pure perfection and YOU should be ashamed of your self!
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