1986 Topps baseball – “A Tale of Two Eras”
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Ah, Charles Dickens. Whether you’ve heard the line in a game of Trivial Pursuit, or you were forced (as I was) to read the novel back in high school, we’re all at least somewhat familiar with the classic, “A Tale of Two Cities”. For me at the time, the year 1986 seemed to go hand-in-hand with that ever-popular opening line from the Dickens classic. And in retrospect, the happenings within the hobby world, as well as the MLB world, have only helped to reinforce these parallel likenesses.
It was March 1986, I was eleven years old and in sixth grade. Baseball practice was to begin soon, summer vacation was on the radar, and in a few months, I would be embarking upon my junior high school career. I was also currently skipping my bi-yearly tradition of wandering the hallways with a broken arm, as I had in 1982 and 1984. There was only one problem: the reason I hadn’t had a chance to break my arm yet was because I had been hospital-hopping due to some sort of digestive condition. I didn’t know it at the time, but eventually I would be diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, an inflammatory condition in the digestive system that, at the time, was rarely heard of. Apparently, I was the youngest person ever to have been successfully diagnosed; I’m in some medical journals somewhere, hooray for me. All that concerned me was when I would be able to get back home so I could put some weight back on and start throwing some pitches to Dad.
It was March, so baseball season had not yet started, which means there was no baseball to watch on television. That makes for some loooooong days of lazing around the hospital. Luckily, I had baseball cards to occupy the time, and keep me connected to the outside baseball world. Friends and family knew that I collected, so day in and day out I was showered with package after package containing a few packs of 1986 Topps baseball cards. As I ripped them open, I feverishly looked for the latest issues of the hottest young players – Don Mattingly, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Roger Clemens, Eric Davis; just to name a few.
As an informed monthly reader of Beckett Magazine, I did notice one thing was missing – a Jose Canseco rookie card. I was too young to know why Topps had not included him. I just assumed all of the same players appeared in all of the sets. I was familiar with his Fleer and Donruss cards, but where was the Topps? Later I would learn that it was a bad oversight on the part of Topps, much like later in 1989 when they did not include a rookie card of a promising prospect named Ken Griffey Jr. It was truly not “the best of times” for Topps in these years, as competitors like Donruss and Fleer, and upstarts like Score and Upper Deck wowed the collecting world with vivid photography, classic card designs, and top-level rookie inclusions.
In 1986, Topps missed out on top rookies like Canseco, Galarraga, and McGriff
“…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” Later that summer, I had a financial epiphany – I would use my allowance money to invest in baseball cards. So long as prices kept increasing like they had been for the past few years, I could invest a few bucks over the summer, make a few shrewd trades with my friends, and within a couple years my money would easily triple. It was a no-brainer, why wasn’t everyone doing this? Well, they were. So me and a few million of my hobby comrades all went into the same line of business – buying overproduced cards of overhyped (and in many cases over-“medicated”) baseball players that would eventually fund my college tuition, my wedding, a condo in the Hamptons, my dream car… When I was lucky enough to find Fleer or Donruss cards, the dollar signs danced around my head and I could almost hear the cash register. How was it possible that I could pull a $150 Canseco card out of a fifty-cent pack? The better question, as it turned out, was how could so many of us actually think that this was a sustainable real-world opportunity?
My 1986 retirement plan…as financially sound as Enron stock. Remember the haul this was back then?
“…it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…” So fitting that Dickens should use the word “season” in this line of the script. Of course, he could not have been referencing a baseball season, although in this text the meaning definitely brings forth so many memories, both light and dark. The MLB season started out like any other. The Cardinals were fresh off getting robbed of a World Series ring, courtesy of Don Denkinger. I have never been a Cardinals fan, even though they are technically my “hometown” team, but even I could see at age 10 that it was a brutal way to lose a World Series. One thing that I could always be legitimately accused of was that I loved to stir the pot. So, when I wasn’t able to take a 4 hour trip up I-55 to watch a White Sox game, I engaged in my second favorite pastime – annoying Cardinals fans.
The Major Leagues at the time was comprised of four divisions, and the Cardinals were most closely rivaled by the young and talented New York Mets. The Mets ended 1985 only 3 games behind the Cardinals in the National League East, but with no Wild Cards and no Divisional Series, all they got was an early offseason and the promise of “next year”. Well, it was next year and young talents like Darryl Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra, and phenom Dwight Gooden wanted nothing more than to end their franchise’s 16-year title drought. My dad would take me to Cardinals games where we would watch fans walk around with “Pond Scum” banners and “Mets Suck” hats. With the myriad of young players and the implications upon their baseball card values, coupled with the contrarianism of rooting against the Cardinals and rubbing their fans’ noses in the manner in which they lost the previous World Series – how could I NOT root for the Mets?
We all know how the 1986 season ended and what has ensued since. The Mets did in fact win their first World Series title since 1969. The following spring training found certain future-HOFer Dwight Gooden testing positive for cocaine, sending his career and life into a tailspin. Shortly after that, Darryl Strawberry was accused of breaking his wife’s nose, and began several years of criticizing teammates and his manager, missing practices and workouts, eventually checking into an alcohol rehab center. Lenny Dykstra fell to a gambling addiction. Keith Hernandez was found guilty of using and distributing cocaine to other Major League players. For this team, it was truly darkest just beyond the light.
At the time I pulled every Gooden, Strawberry, and Dykstra, placed them in semi-rigid top loaders, and dreamed of the day that I would eventually sell them off to purchase my dreams. Obviously that did not, and will never, happen. But as the title suggests, this is a tale of two eras. Not only in the sense that my financial take on the 1986 card issues has drastically changed from childhood to now, but also now that I am able to look back to that set a generation later, I can appreciate it for what it truly is, rather than in terms of dollars and cents. The 1986 sets, when it was all said and done, did not produce any must-have rookie cards. We have come to realize that the fads of Cecil Fielder, Andres Galarraga, Mickey Tettleton, and yes even Jose Canseco, have come and gone and only the wisest of us unloaded our troves of their cards at the height of popularity. Now that the playing field has been leveled, and players’ careers have ended, we are left with the card designs and set checklists as the very fitting ways to rank the sets and give them their place in collecting history. Fleer is very “Fleer-like”; long time collectors know what I mean. I have to admit that Donruss was exciting at first, but I also have to believe that the inclusion of Canseco and the hype surrounding the card most likely fed that fire. Over time the border colors and diagonal lines have put me to sleep. To me, Topps stands out as the forgone winner of the year, something I never would have said back then.
No Canseco. No Rated Rookies. No multi-player rookies to invest in. Oddly enough, in 2018 none of this matters at all. What we are left with is what I feel to be a beautiful set. It is a purist’s dream and nightmare in one, with an established border for centering issues and two black corners that reveal every touch of age and mishandling that have ever come upon each card. There is a large picture, with clean and clear fonts used for the player name and position. The font used for the team name has grown on me over the years, to the point that I have recently spent hours searching the web to try and find a suitable font style to use on my son’s mock-up cards. So far I have been unable to find one to use. Luckily my son has played for teams with names like Indians and Pirates, so I have been able to doctor up some scans and change the colors. His high school team is the Miners, so I am either going to have to get ultra-creative, or ultra-lucky in my ongoing font search…
The checklist itself looks like a veritable Who’s Who of historic baseball figures. It starts out with the lifetime card collection of Pete Rose, featured on a special subset and celebrating his passing of Ty Cobb on the career hits list. You have early cards of Clemens, Mattingly, Puckett, Gwynn, Sandberg, and Boggs. There are cards depicting the ends of storied careers of Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, and Rollie Fingers. There is a nice list of future HOFers smack dab in the middle of their legendary careers, players such as Nolan Ryan, Dave Winfield, Eddie Murray, Rickey Henderson, Ozzie Smith, George Brett – the list goes on and on. There is even a “Turn Back the Clock” subset featuring past Topps cards of Roger Maris, Frank Robinson, and Willie Mays. And last but not least are the cards of players whose stories must be told when preaching the history of baseball’s past, with promising cards of Dwight Gooden, Cecil Fielder, Darryl Strawberry, Eric Davis, and Vince Coleman eventually finding their way out of our display cases, but not out of our memories.
The 1986 Topps set has much to offer in the way of superstars and HOFers
When looking back, the 1986 Topps baseball set truly embodies the best and worst of times, both in the hobby and in Major League Baseball alike. As a life-long avid collector, I am happy that I can now enjoy this set for its beauty and for the never-ending list of players included from 1 through 792. I can appreciate a well-centered specimen alike with those lucky enough to have stood the test of time with two perfectly square and black top corners. And in many cases, I can do it all for the same price now as I did back then, even if that wasn’t exactly my original plan.
And for those of you wondering, I did manage to break my arm in my first baseball game of the 1986 summer, fresh out of the hospital. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
Lanny Ribes @DOCBZ17
Rock carries a pretty wide definition and I like just about all of it. The thing about rock music is that it usually has some deep meaning to the band and listener and takes a little bit more thought to write. That’s just my opinion so don’t lose your mind over it. The musician’s are generally creating their own music in most cases as well instead of a computer generating the tune or beat. The music is mostly original with very little sampling from other songs. It’s original and unique to me and that’s why I’ve always been drawn to it. I will not quibble over the fact that I am a rock snob.
There are some instances where I prefer a heavy riff and some screaming. That’s usually when I’m about to play a basketball or softball game or otherwise need some sort of adrenaline boost. That is another thing about rock music for me; it’s visceral. A song can put me in a certain state of mind or cure the blues or even bring me down from being too amped up. I’m not extremely picky when it comes to rock music but there are certain pockets of the genre that hit me harder than others. One such pocket would be the illustrious Power Ballad of the 80’s.
I was right in the middle of the young teenage years in the late 80’s so rock music and girls were pretty high on my priority list. Dances were also pretty popular around that time so the Power Ballad was the perfect opportunity to snuggle up to a cute girl and enjoy the tunes. I remember a lot of birthday party dances that were at friends houses and all that was needed was a boom box and open floor. Well, you also needed some tight-roll, acid washed jeans and hair gel but that was with any type of party. We learned all the words to the Power Ballad and we imitated the glam rock singers because it was obviously what the chicks were into. It was a crazy time!
Speaking of holding up better than others, let’s talk about a football set that has stood the test of time. I am going to call it underrated because I had really forgotten about how good the product was until I recently went through one of my old school boxes looking for “random” hits from the past. I think that 1991 Upper Deck Football has some of the best photograph for a football set outside of some possible current releases and it deserves a comparison to Stadium Club Baseball in the fact that it was a huge step up from what the market was offering at the time. Even Fleer Ultra was pretty far behind what ’91 Upper Deck brought to the table. Let’s call 1991 Upper Deck the Def Leppard of Junk Wax Football. Most Junk Wax is really good but some just stand out more than others.
The box was fairly standard for 1991; 36 packs with 12 cards per pack. Upper Deck football did not have any filler in the packs like puzzle pieces or gum or even the hologram stickers like UD baseball. The packs were all cards. They were very similar to baseball in that they were foil and sealed on each end for that UD standard “tamper proof” feature. The only feature I question is “Limited Edition”. I’m not sure how limited any sets were in 1991.
One of the best features of 1991 Upper Deck football was the team checklist sketch Cards. Here is a Prime Time that was just awesome! You know I’m a sucker for sketch cards and these were nice. I have the full spread of what I pulled later in the post but this one deserved it’s own photo.
Photography was a highlight for 91 UD. I mentioned that in my last post and it’s what prompted me to rip this box. This was one of my favorite Cards from 1991. You may recall the similar Nolan Ryan triple exposure card in baseball. This was a great card in the early 90’s and set the bar for innovative photos in football sets.
As for other QB’s I pulled, here are some of the Stars. You may not be able to tell from this photo but the Marino was taken in the snow. There is another Dolphin shot later in the snow, which was ironic for Miami.
I pulled the usual early 90’s studs at running back with the exception of Bo but I did pull a cool team checklist sketch I’ll show off later. Ickey is doing the shuffle in his photo! You may remember Marcus Dupree from the great 30 For 30; “The Best That Never Was.”
More great photography can be found in the wide receiver selection. Flipper Anderson is making a one handed catch while Mark Jackson is about to take a big hit.
Tight End was slim but these were great ones! Looks like Novacek is the holder for a field goal. How many Tight Ends are asked to do that these days?
If you read my last post, you’ll know that this Reggie is one of my favorites. The Fridge even looks good in 91 UD. Collectors from my generation will remember Dennis Byrd. For those of you who don’t, do yourself a favor and look him up.
Look at this Matt Millen card! I was not a huge fan of Millen (especially as a GM) but this card just screams old school football! My man Percy Snow was included too so, cha-ching!
I’m still blown away by how clear these photos are! Felix is getting stretched out, Scott Case just laid Cleveland Gary out and Rod Woodson is in his Pro Bowl uni.
The headliner of the Star Rookie Class was Dan McGwire (Mark’s little brother). Todd Marinovich got a lot of hype too. But that first QB on row 3 wound up being the best of the bunch. Russell Maryland, Alvin Harper, Ricky Watters and Eric Turner all had solid careers while Browning Nagle and Aaron Craver fizzled.
Here are the great sketch Cards! These are just awesome! I love the ones with the names on them. Bo and Herschel are my favorites but I also like Flash 80 and LT. Once again, Warren Moon is pictured with an actual moon in the background just like ’90 Score Hot Guns.
The Team MVP’s didn’t have very many surprises but there were a couple. Greg Townsend got the Team MVP for the Raiders. That Raiders team had Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson and Tim Brown. Bobby Humphrey also got the honor for the Broncos over Elway. I won’t complain about André Rison for my Falcons!
The season leaders insert covered the major individual stat leaders. I remember Mark Carrier being a real ball hawk on Tecmo.
Aerial Threats showcased prolific QB and WR tandems. Here is the other Miami snow card. I’m a little surprised Steve DeBerg made it into this insert set.
As with baseball, UD focused on a legend for its “Football Heroes” insert. Joe Montana got the call in 1991 and I pulled 7 of the 9 Cards on the checklist.
I pulled one Game Breaker in the box and it was the great Barry Sanders. I may check this subset out and try to put it together. This is a striking card in person but maybe even more striking with my reflection in it!
This was a very easy set to score. The box cost me $14.95 so price is a plus. Photography is top notch and unrivaled for football at the time. One of the key rookies is Brett Favre. It’s loaded with stars and Hall of Famers. The design is clean and classy. It has great sketch cards littered throughout the checklist. This is about as perfect a set for the early 90’s as you will find. I would highly recommend you find a box and rip it just because the quality is so good for the “Junk Wax” era. This was an easy “5” on the Dub-O-Meter and may be the highest quality set I’ve reviewed for under $20 per box. Give it a shot and let me know what you think!
Memories are what sustain me and I love it. I remember the time me and Coop stayed up all night playing Nintendo and in a fit of disappointment, he flailed his arms and brought down a shelf of photos and decor in my living room, waking my mother at 3 am. I can’t think of a time throughout middle and high school that didn’t include my cousins Coop, Trent, Corey or Jared either. I was blessed with some really cool cousins growing up. Me and Coop would play basketball at his house until one of us scored 100 points and we would start all over again. Coop’s family also had a place at Fort Gaines with us so we spent a lot of time together their too. We almost flipped a golf cart there and I did push him off the back of it once and he broke his wrist.
I spent time at Trent’s watching Arnold movies like Total Recall and Predator. My favorite movie was Aliens at one point and I remember watching it with him and my Aunt Nancy for the first time. I always got my scary movie fix at their house!
Corey, Jared and I would play sports in the yard during the day and on Nintendo at night. When it comes to random memories, I specifically remember staying up late one night and sorting baseball cards while Corey and I listened to “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O’Connor on a loop. We would talk about cards and girls while we listened to those cheesy popular songs of the 90’s. I also remember endless ping pong tournaments and RBI Baseball battles!
I remember going through a cheese biscuit phase when I was a kid. I’m not talking about something fancy like Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster either. This was the canned Pillsbury biscuits I would bake and when they were just getting ready, I’d pop the top and throw a piece of American cheese on them and let it melt. I would eat the entire 10 biscuit can! That was nowhere near the weirdest food phase either. Does anyone remember gummy peaches? They were peach flavored gummies in a ring shape and they were delicious. Well, I would dip those in Frito Lay Jalapeno Dip from time to time. Yeah, peach gummy candy dipped in jalapeno cheese dip….mmmmmm.
What is fun about the gummy jalapeno memory is that it is always tied to some event that happened at my friend Michael’s (Munt) house where we were usually playing pool or wiffle ball or Shaq Fu on SNES. Munt was one of my best friends and he hung out with us at the Video Superstore and we always tried out the new releases before they hit the shelves. Shaq Fu was a classic; as was Lightning Jack and Little Big League. No matter what we had going on, we had a great time together. The only time I ever got crossways with Munt was that time he and Hickey played basketball against me and Brewer in my backyard. He had scored a few times and I stuck my leg out a little too far when he made a move around me one time and we had words. The game ended without really ending and that really is the only time I can ever remember he and I having words. Sorry about that one Munt.
Then there was my buddy David from high school and we have plenty of memories too. He had a 9-hole mini golf game that we would set up throughout his house and compete with each other for the title of greatest mini golfer. We were always competing! We played home run derby with ping pong balls and tennis rackets, tennis balls and wooden bats and any other combination we could think of. We were also competitive with sports cards. I remember him pulling the Elite Andre Dawson and wanting to be happy for him but really being as jealous as I had ever been about a baseball card. He was also a Minnesota guy so he had a lot of MN trinkets around his room that made me want that ’91 World Series more than anything. Just like the Dawson Elite, David won that competition as well. David is one of the friends from growing up that still collects and we text each other photos of our recent purchases from time to time. I guess we are still competing!
I always liked Marcus Allen and thought he was underrated (if that’s possible) in my generation because of him being tied to Bo in the Raiders backfield. He is the first player by alphabet in my “don’t toss” pile.
Biscuit was another player that I thought was somewhat underrated. He was well known but he got lost sometimes on a team with Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed and Bruce Smith. This was always one of my favorites.
Another Raider, Tim Brown was one of my favorite wide receivers of the 80’s-90’s, which I’ve covered here many times before. When I think of Brown, this is the card that always comes to mind.
QB Eagles was the man! I remember sitting in my room all by myself and trying to rush for 500 yards in a game with him on TSB. This is the first of several ’91 Upper Deck entries.
You probably knew I would have to include a Pro Vision. This Irvin was always a trip to me. His shadow was the Lombardi Trophy and that horse in the background was a little over the top. But again, it was Pro Vision and they were really taking a turn in ’93 to the psychedelic side.
I don’t believe I have ever put a Bo card to the side when sorting for it to be put in the common box. I hold these in the highest regard whenever I pull them. And this ’91 Upper Deck was always a great photo to me.
1991 Score had some great art cards in both football and baseball. I’m going to rip some baseball soon to enjoy those but this Marino has been in my collection since the day I pulled it in ’91.
This may be my favorite football card of all time. This card takes me back to 1990 every time I see it and I have so many fond memories. I have to figure out a way to tell Mrs. Dub that I want to be buried with this card.
I didn’t know much about Okoye before TSB but when I found out about him, I went to my card box and started trying to find a card of him. This is the first card I found and it’s been in my keeper box ever since.
Sweetness was winding down his career by the time I really started collecting football cards. This was the first card I ever pulled of him and I always thought it was one of the more classy ProLine cards, which was par for the course for Payton.
This card was from the latter days of my childhood collecting but I loved Action Packed and Jerry Rice. I have a TON of Jerry Rice cards but this is one of my favorites.
Have I mentioned before that I loved Andre Rison when I was a kid? How strange that one of the cards I have in my “untouchable” box is a card that doesn’t even feature Rison on the card. Classic error card!
This was ’91 Pro Set and the set from the previous year is when I really fell in love with sketch cards. But this Barry Sanders has always been a highlight of my collection. It has so much detail from the jersey to the lines on his face. This is such a great card to me!
More love for ’91 Upper Deck. Deion was decked out in his gloves, towel, armbands earrings and bandana for this photo. I remember the “You Gotta Believe” slogan and this card is representative of my early passion of the Falcons.
This is a latter 90’s card but it’s one of my favorite sets from that timeframe. Fleer Metal Universe was awesome in 1998 because we had never seen anything like it. I bought a ton of this and they still look good to me.
More great photography from ’91 Upper Deck; this time of Derrick Thomas. Even though DT was a Bammer, I was a huge fan. I remember a clip from the early 90’s VHS classic, NFL Rocks, where Marty Schottenheimer has a heart to heart with him about keeping focus in an overtime game. What a great video. If you haven’t seen it, the whole thing is on YouTube 
Thurman Thomas was such a great back. I really wish Buffalo had won at least one of those Super Bowls in the early 90’s because these guys deserved it. As for Wild Cards, they didn’t have as solid a run as the Bills but I have an unusually high amount of these cards sitting around from my early collecting days.
I just pulled one of these a few days ago in my ’89 box break but this particular card has been in my old school box for a long time as it was one of the first trade hauls from when I was a kid. I don’t remember what I Traded to get it but I really love this card.
I’ve mentioned Fred Washington on the blog before, I think from my ’90 Topps post. This card was always striking to me because of his jersey and the photo but when I found out he was killed in an automobile accident his rookie season, I held onto this card. It’s still in my old box some 27 years later and he is but a distant memory to most NFL fans.
Well, this card has convinced me that I need to pick up a box of ’91 Upper Deck for a Retro Review. I know that Stadium Club is known for photography and ’89 Upper Deck Baseball is the king in UD history but these cards look so great! This set is really good and I’m going to make a point of trying to build it in 2018.
Everyone who is over the age of 30 likely remembers the Sears Wishbook. This 600 page publication had just about everything your heart could desire. Kids loved this book but now that I have a couple kids of my own, I can imagine that parents didn’t get the same enjoyment from it. I found the 1989 book online and was able to sift through the entire 683 pages. It brought back some great memories but one thing that stuck out to me was how expensive some of the items were some 28 years ago. If they seem expensive now, imagine how that felt in 1989 currency!
For example, can you believe that VCR’s in 1989 were as much as $300? You can buy 8-10 BlueRay players for $300 today. You had to rewind tapes and constantly adjust tracking on your VCR too! I do remember these old sports videos though and they were certainly worth the $15 price tag.
You had to have a TV to watch those videos on as well. I’m pretty sure we actually had the middle TV when I was a kid. This is a 27 inch TV for $750! Computer monitors are bigger than 27 inches now. But these were top of the line in 1989.
And what about communications? A normal corded phone would run you anywhere from $50-$100. If you wanted a cordless, it would cost upwards of $125! For the fun loving teen, there was also the Garfield phone for $50. I’m going to guess that this phone outsold all other designs throughout the course of history.
If you wanted personal music, that was going to cost you as well. Some of these Walkman’s were over $100! We are talking about cassette playing, wired headphones, AM/FM devices that cost a Benjamin. I totally feel for my parents and what I probably put them through.
Video games were certainly more important to me back then than VCR’s. And for half the price of a VCR, you could own the sweet Nintendo Entertainment System. No piece of technology has ever been more important to me throughout the course of my life. And just look at these games; Friday the 13th, Marble Madness, Double Dribble, Excitebike and Tecmo Bowl! I really think time could have stood still in 1989 and I would have been just fine.
There were other choices in 1989 for video game consoles but I was a couple years away from the 16-bit Sega and had outgrown the Atari.
If you wanted your gaming on the go, you could opt for the GameBoy. I played it a ton but I actually never owned a GameBoy of my own. I never really wanted one all that bad but I did enjoy the occasional playing of my friends games.
Some people were lucky enough to even have a computer. This Commodore wasn’t much more costly than the Nintendo but that didn’t include the monitor and the mouse. If you wanted those necessities, you were approaching $500. And you certainly had to have the disk drive, which was another $200. By the time you threw in the printer, you were looking at a $1,000 setup. The games were pretty awesome though!
For the gamer on a budget, you could always go with these gems. I had several different baseball and football handhelds during my youth.
When I had to put down the video games and actually go outside and play, I would throw baseballs at my pitch return. I threw at that net for hours on end and learned just as much about fielding as I did pitching.
I always wanted one of these pool tables as well but the closest I ever got was the small pool table in the picture. This wasn’t the easiest table to navigate but I remember playing quite a few games on it.
Then there was the clothing. Pajamas and Sweatsuits were my go to choices back in the day. The Nintendo sweatsuit was pretty sweet. And the team pajamas were pretty awesome too.
I’m pretty sure I had one of these get ups as well but it was UGA. I think there is a picture floating around somewhere with me wearing it. Maybe I’ll find that one day.
And of course, I had a couple of pairs of the sweatpants with the team names down the leg. I had some bicycle shorts too but they weren’t Lakers design.
I had to include this because who didn’t love a great sleeping bag. I remember taking mine to spend the night parties and zipping myself up in it to get all cozy. My daughter sleeps in her sleeping bag now in her bed so kids must still like them.
Finally, for the collectors out there, Sears offered some pretty sweet sports card deals. They had the exclusive Sears Ingots, which I bought at a recent card show(’85 version). They also had “Talking Baseball”, Baseball Star Pop Ups, the Baseball Card Collector’s Case, Price Guides, Binders and more! But item #8 could be had for $14.90 and it’s one of my favorite football sets from my youth; 1989 Topps.
I recently picked up a wax box of 1989 Topps to relive some of the magic of the greatest year ever. Even though some of the key rookie cards from this set are found in the Traded Set, the base set is still loaded with stars and some of the classic rookies from 1989. I love the box and wrappers from 1989 and who will argue over a .45 cent pack?
There were also box bottom cards as was customary for Topps in the 80’s. This year was Players of the Week and I picked up Week’s 13, 14, 15 and 16.
Also a customary inclusion in late 80’s football were the 1,000 Yard Club cards. These were glossy inserts at 1 per pack and covered a plethora of players that hit 1,000 yards. There are familiar names here!
The late 80’s were loaded with Hall of Fame and Star QB’s in the NFL. I pulled Boomer, Jim Kelly, Moon, Cunningham, Elway, Marino and many others.
It’s hard to beat the stud running backs in 1989. Bo Jackson and Christian Okoye were on the way in while Herschel and Craig were mid stride and Tony Dorsett and Eric Dickerson were wrapping up their illustrious careers.
Wide Receiver was not devoid of stars either. Jerry Rice and John Taylor were both 1,000 yard receivers on the same team. Sterling Sharpe, Cris Carter and Andre Reed were some of my favorites.
In 1989, Tight Ends were more blockers than pass catchers. While that isn’t too much the case today, these were some good pass catchers back in the day. And we have the rare Jay Novachek in a Cardinals uniform.
The Defensive Line in 1989 was nasty! Bruce Smith, Richard Dent, Chris Doleman, Reggie White and Howie Long?? These dudes were absolute beasts!
Things didn’t get easier for the offense if they got to the second level of the defense either. LT and Mike Singletary were legendary at the linebacker position but all of these guys were studly.
Finally, the big hitters were in the secondary. Ronnie Lott was a man among men and Joey Browner and Rod Woodson could cover as well as they could hit. Now I am pretty sure Chuck Cecil wouldn’t have had a long career with today’s NFL safety rules. This guy was not scared of anything and he would absolutely take out receivers any time they came across the middle.
The Record Breakers were pretty dang good players too! Tim Brown, Eric Dickerson, Steve Largent and Dan Marino are all 80’s Icons!
I pulled 5 of the League Leader cards and I’ve always loved the Herschel/Dickerson card.
I pulled a ton of these team leader cards as well but I’ll only picture a few to show the design.
The “Super Rookies” were solid in ’89 with the inclusion of Brian Blades, Mark Rypien and Chris Spielman. Though there were two others I pulled that deserve their own photo spots.
Michael Irvin was the man and was one of the key players that helped turn the Cowboys around in the 90’s. This RC is always a welcome addition.
Then there is the gem of the base set, Thurman Thomas! I used Thurman so many times on Tecmo because the Bills were loaded. I wish they had won at least one of those Super Bowls because those guys deserved one.
Because I wanted to make this post complete, I also swiped the Traded Set for $7.95 from my LCS. Not including the big guys, there are still some solid names in this Traded Set that make it well worth the price. Steve Young, Don Beebe and Herschel headline the non-big guys. And I didn’t forget about you Scotty; Mr. Steve Grogan is included!
Here are the studs (except one) in the traded set. The rookies of Aikman, Deion, DT and Rison make this Traded Set worth so much more than the cost!
The best card in the entire 1989 Base and Traded Set is this awesome Barry Sanders. I love this card and it might be my favorite 80’s football card!
I don’t think anyone would argue that the 1989 Topps set is loaded and a great addition to any collection. I give it an easy “5” on the Dub-O-Meter because the design is classic 80’s and the checklist is star studded! This was such a great rookie year and still included many big stars that were either in the middle of their careers or winding down. There is really nothing I don’t like about this set, except for the 28 year old gum!
Let’s talk about Billy Volek, Drew Bennett and the 2004 Fantasy Playoffs for a moment. The mere mention of these names gives me the shakes this time of year. Billy Volek took over in Week 12 for an injured Steve McNair in Tennessee and had what seemed like his long lost best friend at wide receiver in Bennett. I had the misfortune of running into the team that rostered both that fateful Week 14. That week, Billy Volek threw for 492 yards and 4 TD’s. He became only the 4th QB in NFL history to throw for back to back games of 400 yards. Drew Bennett caught 13 of those passes in Week 14 for 160 yards and 2 scores.
At QB, I had Donovan McNabb. Donnie Football went 13-2 in 2004, throwing for 3,875 yards, 31 TD’s and only 7 INT’s. In Week 14, 2004, he threw for 223 yards and 1 TD.
At my RB1 position, I had the great Clinton Portis. He rushed for 1,315 yards in 2014 but couldn’t find the end zone in Week 14 so I was stuck with his 110 yards for only 11 points.
At RB2, I had a running back that has likely been forgotten by most football fans but he was an absolute beast for about 2 ½ seasons. Dominick Davis had 1,188 yards and 13 TD’s in 2004. One of the shortest tenured studs I can remember, he rushed for 1,000 yards his first 2 seasons, winning ROY in 2003 and followed up in his 3rd season with 950 yards. Then he disappeared. He ended 2005 on IR and was released by the Texans, never to be heard from again. He worked out for a few teams up until 2010 from what I can find but he just never made it back to the league. He actually helped me out in Week 14 that year with 158 yards and a score.
WR1 was the unforgettable Chad “OchoCinco” Johnson. Ocho finished 2004 with 1,274 yards, good for 6th in the league. He also added 9 scores that year. In Week 14, he was completely shut down, registering only 2 catches for 10 yards. What a bust!
WR2 was a mainstay on my fantasy teams for several years. Reggie Wayne was automatic during the 2000’s with Peyton Manning at QB. In 2004, he hauled in 77 catches for 1,210 yards and 12 scores. He even had a serviceable Week 14 but failed to reach the end zone so his 8 receptions for 88 yards felt a little short.
Finally, my TE was a Falcon favorite, Alge Crumpler. Alge is another player that is many times forgotten by football fans but he was a favorite in Atlanta. In 2004, he finished with 48 grabs for 774 yards and 6 scores. He was pretty reliable all season from the TE slot; until Week 14. He caught 3 balls for 38 yards that week and was the final nail in my lineup’s coffin.
I don’t really remember the other players my opponent had. I really haven’t had to. Billy Volek and Drew Bennett would’ve combined to take me down as long as my opponent had any combination of warm bodies in his lineup. I cultivated this team all year and Billy Freakin Volek swooped in and ended my season. This wasn’t the only time but it hurts the most when I think back. My season was ended by a 19 tackle performance by DeMeco Ryans one year. Another year, it was the Colts sitting their studs. Last year, I lost in the Championship to Kirk Cousins and David Johnson so that was easier to stomach but I did have Andrew Luck and Zeke.
This year has been a rough ride. I’ve gotten up and down weeks from Jordan Howard and this week was down. Russell Wilson was the #1 QB in the league coming in to this week and finished with 13 points. I lost Zeke 5 weeks ago and was trying to hang on for 1 more. One of my keepers, Andrew Luck, never played a down. Michael Crabtree and JuJu Smith-Schuster both had suspensions late in the season. I lost Chris Hogan to a shoulder injury for much of the second half. I lost Greg Olsen week 1. Golden Tate was one of the steadiest receivers for the whole year and gave me a lame 3 for 36 this week. You win some and you lose some but it really hurts when you lay your biggest egg in the playoffs.
Despite this season’s results, I will be back again next year and hopefully Zeke and Andrew Luck will as well. I enjoy it too much to give it up, even if it is a cruel mistress more often than not. Fantasy Football is the only reason I’ll sit down and watch the Jets play the Raiders during the regular season. I have no interest in watching the Dolphins unless I have Jarvis Landry or Kenyan Drake. And I wouldn’t be caught dead rooting for the Patriots unless I needed that touchdown from Rex Burkhead or Chris Hogan. It makes football as a whole more interesting for me since I don’t play Super Tecmo Bowl anymore. It also helps me stay current with the hobby happenings.
Daunte Culpepper
Rudi Johnson
Jerome Bettis
Priest Holmes
Muhsin Muhammad
Donald Driver
Chris Cooley
One day my list will probably include Andrew Luck, Zeke, Golden Tate, Jimmy Graham, Julian Edelman and others but for now, these guys are in the Ring of Honor for the Ballers. It’s funny how you remember certain plays, certain games, particular players and otherwise insignificant moments in football history when you are involved in fantasy football. You remember that one catch that Alshon Jeffery didn’t haul in, the extra couple of yards Marshawn Lynch could’ve picked up if they had just given him the ball one more time and that tipped interception that Matthew Stafford threw in a Week 8 win, even though he shouldn’t have made that last pass attempt. Sometimes you are on the right side of history but more times than not, you are left scratching your head at the end of the season and you start to question whether the season has burned you for the last time. As I wrap this up, Michael Crabtree just caught his second TD pass and Khalil Mack has 2 sacks so I’ve defied the odds and pulled off the comeback, barring a cruel stat adjustment. But don’t think for a moment that it is lost on me that my opponent could write this same article tomorrow because he fell victim to the same cruel mistress that I was tortured by just a couple of hours ago.
Sports cards became a highly sought after gift when I turned 12 and I have been receiving them without fail for the last 27 years. My mother asked me last week what I needed for Christmas and I told her sports cards. Let’s face it, I still need them! I mentioned that the first complete set I got for Christmas was 1990 Topps but there was another set that year that was pretty prevalent. My stocking was loaded with them, my grandmother got me several packs and I used some of the money I got that year to buy more at Wal-Mart when the stores reopened after the holidays. That was when I was turned on to Score and the great rookie class of 1990. Score had some up and down years but I would submit that 1990 was their best effort.
Junk Wax Score can never be accused of being bland, that’s for sure. The box for 1990 was a bold yellow and the wrappers were the same. The wrappers were those little plastic baggies that I have mentioned here before. You could see straight through the pack to the front and back card but that wasn’t highly unusual for the time. And the box is the standard behemoth for 1990 with 36 packs of 16 cards each.
The Base Cards were broken up into three basic colors; Blue, Red and Green. These were broken up by sections of the checklist. First group was Green, mid was Red and the end of the checklist was Blue. Each section had the highlighter yellow trim.
As was typical for Score in the late 80’s-early 90’s, their pack inserts were “Magic Motion” Cards with ’90 focused on MVP’s.
The infielders were highlighted by some of the usual suspects; Sheffield, The Wizard, Boggs and McGwire. Of course, I had to include Sabo and Dunston as well.
The outfield is well represented by Bo, Puckett, The Hawk and Tim Raines. Unfortunately, no Griffey or Canseco.
The pitchers were slim in this box but Ryan, Doc and Maddux are definitely welcome.
There were several “Draft Picks” included in the set and these three were some of the hottest. I missed out on the biggest hit in the set, Frank Thomas. Mo Vaughn looked svelte here!
Here is where this set stands out! Look at some of the rookies included here; Sosa, Deion, Olerud, Alou, Tino, Bernie, Larry Walker and Juan-Gone! There were also three strong prospects here that could land in my “Dated Rookies” Autograph project; Eric Anthony, Dean Palmer and Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens.
The “Highlight” Cards we’re in all sorts of designs. They were blue, white, landscape, portrait and had multiple fonts used. All over the map!
The Dream Team became one of my favorite inserts but not in 1990. These were ok because they had a sketch look but I think they were just airbrushed to some degree. Aside from Sandberg and Boggs, the pulls here were pedestrian.
There are things to like and dislike about 90 Score. As for dislike, the “Draft Pick” Class didn’t pan out besides Thomas, Knoblauch and Mo to an extent. There are also a ton of mediocre players who were included in the full checklist. This also wasn’t my favorite Dream Team Set. However, I do personally have the bright design as one of my favorite Score efforts. It was similar to ’88 but I like it because it’s a little bolder. You would also be hard pressed to beat this rookie class from a depth standpoint. The rip is very affordable and that makes it even more appealing when trying to pull those rookies. I’d give the set a shaky “4” because of the colors and the rookie class. It could easily be a “3” if the rookie class weren’t so deep. It may have been a solid “4” if I had pulled a Big Hurt. Regardless of the final mark, it certainly belongs on my list of favorite all time Christmas gifts!
I fancy myself as having a little bit of Al Bundy in my personality though. I can be crass, to the point and say things I probably shouldn’t at times. I love sports, love to watch TV and appreciate his ability to completely tune out those around him when they are grinding his last nerve. I also don’t mind the occasional swimsuit calendar on the wall. I never wanted to be a shoe salesman but I did want to one day have a secret club in my garage that consisted of me and my friends sitting around drinking beer and talking about our wives. I still haven’t formed that club but I do have some friends that enjoy sitting around drinking a beer. We only talk about how great our wives are though. We would never disparage our significant others, right?
Even though Jason Seaver could be a cornball sometimes, he couldn’t hold a candle to Danny Tanner on “Full House”. Even as a kid, I thought he was a total square. I enjoyed Jessie and Joey much more than I did Danny but I guess that was how it was meant to be written. I definitely didn’t want to be in a house with a bunch of girls when I was 10 either. Yuck! I didn’t have any sisters and actually didn’t have a female cousin until I was about 14 or so. I just never latched on to “Full House” like I did these other sitcoms because I just couldn’t really relate to it like the others. They did all have something in common though; they all debuted in 1987. As I went back and looked through some of the coolness of 1987, I realized that it was a major year for television and the big screen. Maybe that’s because I was 10 and really started getting into TV but there was a lot of excellent options that year.
As for TV, that was the year that we were introduced to Spuds McKenzie. You tell me one kid from 1987 that didn’t want a Spuds of his own. I didn’t even pay attention to the beer part of the ad. I wanted that dog! We also met the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that year and my cousin is still a pizza fanatic because of Michelangelo. It helps that his name is Michael as well. Then there were those awesome Micro Machines commercials. That guy had a pretty amazing talent with the fast talking! My brother played with those a lot more than I did but I always marveled at the commercials. That probably wouldn’t be a very safe toy for kids by today’s standards.
The news on TV that year was also very riveting. That was the year that Baby Jessica fell into a well in her aunt’s backyard in Texas. And when I say well, what I really mean is this tiny pipe that only an 18 month old child could fit in. It took 58 hours to free her from that well and it was a televised event. It was quite scary for parents but it made me leery of small spaces for a while as well. She was eventually rescued from the pipe some 22 feet below ground and is doing well today as per media reports. Someone who didn’t do quite so well with their media circus fame in 1987 was Jim Bakker. Bakker was a TV Evangelist who was accused of rape by a secretary that actually led to the uncovering of financial fraud that led to a 45 year prison conviction. He only served 5 years before being paroled but went through a pretty public divorce from Tammy Faye as well. He has somehow found himself back in the ministry and on TV. I’m just going to leave that alone.
The movies were awesome in 1987 were totally tubular! My personal favorites from that year were “Predator” and “Running Man”. I was a big Arnold fan and loved all of his movies. “Predator” was one of the first sci-fi horror movies I watched, along with “Aliens”. That movie kind of freaked me out but I thought it was really cool too. Carl Weathers was the man! As for “Running Man”, this was another sci-fi thriller about a TV game show where the only winners were the contestants who actually finished the game alive. As crazy as that movie premise seemed in 1987, to be brutally honest, we don’t seem too far from some kind of reality show that is very similar to “Running Man” in 2017. It’s a little scary how close that movie portrayed the way our society is heading.
There were a lot of other classic movies released that year as well. Some of the more well known include “Lethal Weapon”, “The Untouchables”, “Dirty Dancing” and “Robocop”. Obviously, these are big name movies so I don’t have to explain how good they were. In the horror genre, there were a few that are still on my favorites list. I still love “The Lost Boys” and watched it at a friend’s house when I was totally not supposed to. I had to hide the fact that I was scared to death at my house at night because that would have eventually led to the fact that I watched it. My favorite Freddy movie was “Dream Warriors” and it was released that year as well. Throw in “Creepshow 2” and you’ve got quite a starter list of movies you should go back and re-watch.
What about some family movies from ’87? Well, there was “Harry and the Hendersons”, which gave Bigfoot a soft and warm side that made you want to have him as a pet. Then there was “Ernest Goes to Camp”, which does not hold up well in 2017. Trust me, it is not good today. “Summer School” was a fun movie that had a couple of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” super fans in it. “Raising Arizona” was the first great Nicholas Cage film that also starred Holly Hunter. And “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” was a hilarious comedy with Steve Martin and John Candy. One of the best lines in a comedy film in the 80’s came from that movie. After waking up in a hotel room together, they had this unforgettable exchange:
“Full Metal Jacket” is a cult classic from 1987 and I have watched the first half of that movie over and over and over. That drill sergeant is one of the greatest movie characters ever! I remember Private Pile, Private Joker and all of the characters and one liner’s from that film. It’s one that I still have on VHS in my collection. Finally, I developed a pretty strong crush that year on Elisabeth Shue thanks to “Adventures in Babysitting”. She was already a cutie in “The Karate Kid” but this one put me over the top. I still stop the channel surfing when I see her on my TV screen!
There were other cool things from 1987 like “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out”, Guns N Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction” and Bon Jovi’s “Livin on a Prayer.” 1987 was really a great year for pop culture. That year produced some pretty cool trading cards as well. I remember Garbage Pail Kids that year and trying to gross out the girls in my class with those hideous cards. One of the most iconic sets ever was the 1987 Wood Grain Topps design with the beautiful Bo Jackson Future Star. I also did a review of 1987 Fleer here a few weeks ago. This was almost the perfect year for collecting because most weren’t aware it was overproduced yet but they also only had a few sets to choose from.
The remaining set from that year was 1987 Donruss. I never had a ton of ’87 Donruss because I didn’t really start collecting until 1989. But even as a non-collecting kid that played with the classic toys of those days, I had some ’87 Topps lying around. I think most kids had some ’87 Topps, even if half of us didn’t know what we had. But Donruss was a relative unknown to me for many years. I have since added some pieces to my collection but I’ve never busted a full box, or even multiple packs to be honest. My recent trip to the LCS has provided that opportunity now. I picked up a full box for a mere $25, which I think is a pretty good deal.
First, the wrappers were not my favorite from Donruss. I didn’t like the copper color but they are still wax packs so they aren’t all bad either.
I was able to pull the full Clemente Puzzle together so that was a success!
The Diamond Kings were just as I remembered them. The artwork of Dick Perez is unmistakable. Surprisingly, my least favorite is the Jose Canseco because his head looks so odd on the card. I love the Murphy, Straw, Smith, Puckett and Davis!
The Rated Rookies pictured here were names that you may remember but not Hall of Fame type talent. I particularly liked Benito Santiago in the late 80’s. Rafael Palmeiro could have landed in the Hall had he not had his issues during the steroid era.
These three players epitomized the term “Speed”. Vince Coleman may have been the fastest but Rickey Henderson was the most prolific base stealer. Rock Raines was the closest to a 5 tool player of the group.
The infielders here are absolute studs. This was Will Clark’s rookie Donruss card and Fred McGriff’s second year card. There is a lot of talent here!
The outfielders are just as awesome and star studded as the infielders above. Jose’s rookie was the famous 1986 Donruss but this was Bobby Bonilla’s base rookie as he was included in 1986’s “The Rookies” set. Just look at that smile on Puckett! These guys make me want to pull out RBI Baseball and start swinging!
The pitchers here are Ace material. Lee Smith was a closer but he was as dominant as the starters. The Dodgers rotation was pretty scary with Fernando and Orel. It looks like Doc was startled by someone that got his attention as the photo was about to be taken.
The Veterans are all here too in 1987. I dare you to tell me you wouldn’t have wanted these guys on your team in the 80’s! Pete Rose had the elusive 1B/Mgr card. I really liked Joe Carter too and I think he is vastly underrated in the hobby today. The same could be said about Jim Rice.
The two hits in the box were these great Rated Rookies. While I missed out on the Barry Bonds RC, I am pleased that I pulled Bo and McGwire. I have now pulled all three major Bo Jackson rookies this year ripping old wax. I really wish the careers for these two had ended up better than they did. I wish Bo had stayed healthy and I wish McGwire could have just been this good without the whole steroid thing.
Finally, ’87 Donruss had a nice box bottom like many other mid 80’s wax boxes. The bottom here had Murphy and a sweet Canseco photo taken with him perfectly centered in a star on the outfield wall. There is a Reardon and Clemente puzzle card as well but the Canseco is the real gem here.
As with other 1987 rips, this one was loads of fun. A rookie class of Bo, McGwire and Bonds make the ripping exciting but the inclusion of every major star from the 80’s makes the box well worth the $25 price tag. The design was not as good as 1986 but was better than 1988 in my opinion. This was probably one of the top Donruss designs for me but came right one year after my favorite so I tend to judge it too harshly. I have to give this a “4” on the Dub-O-Meter for a few reasons. The checklist is great, the design is good, the price is reasonable and the Clemente Puzzle is a classic. On the negative, the cards weren’t cut very well and collation was as odd as I’ve seen with consecutively numbered cards. The positives far outweigh the negatives here so the 4 is closer to a 4.5 than a 3.5. I would say that ultimately, the set lands somewhere between Carol Seaver and Kelly Bundy, if you know what I mean. I’d recommend this set as a fun build and the box as a nostalgic rip worth your time. What say you about 1987 Donruss?
