Around the time you hit 15 years old, you really start to learn a lot about life and how the world works around you. For some people it’s earlier and for some it can be later in life, depending on your exposure level and the surroundings in which you grow up. But generally speaking, 15 is a big age for development and growth. At this stage of life, you are getting ready to start driving, you are likely hitting the dating scene pretty hard, working your first job and your parents probably trust you to do more things on your own. You are really becoming your own person to a large degree.
I turned 15 in 1992 and while we always harken back to the good ole days when times were different, believe it or not, we still had some of the same social issues we have today. I was just too young to really put a lot of thought into it. I still try to keep social issues out of my blog because you aren’t reading this to find out which political party I’m in or what I think about the war on terror. But interestingly enough, I found some similarities from a social standpoint in 1992 that make me think times may not be as silly as they seem in 2017. They are pretty crazy now, don’t get me wrong; but “how crazy” can be debatable. Look at some of the events from 1992 and see how they correlate to what is going on today. Disclaimer: I am not about to start debating these items and they are simply for time comparison purposes. Save the political banter for the CNN and FoxNews message board. I WILL say that we all need to try to be better at this human being thing.
• In the UK, there was a public outcry over royal spending and the Queen of England started paying income tax and the number of royals receiving tax payer money started to decrease. The rich getting richer is not a new problem, even if this was in another country.
• Rioting broke out in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four police officers accused of beating Rodney King. Racial discord has been around for ages and I don’t know why we can’t seem to get it right. This topic is much too deep for this light hearted blog but it feels like we haven’t advanced much since 1992. If anything, we might be regressing and that is very unfortunate.
• Abortion rights activists march and hold demonstrations in Washington, DC. I know what you are thinking; Is this 1992 or 2018?
• Mike Tyson was convicted in the rape of Miss Rhode Island, Desiree Washington. The #MeToo movement has been the headline of 2018 so far and has uncovered many men in power (sports, entertainment, politics) who have potentially engaged in the same type of activity.
• Violence erupted in Germany against Immigrants. Germany was blaming the Immigrants for economic problems. Again, different country but it sounds familiar.
• Finally, on a non-social note, the Georgia Superdome in Atlanta was completed. The Mercedes Benz Stadium just said, “Hold My Beer.”
It wasn’t all bad in 1992. In fact, it was a pretty good year in my memory. Except for that part where I failed my learners test the first time around, I was loving life. The age of 15 is really the last bastion of childhood. When you turn 16, you start to see the responsibilities that life will throw at you. You would typically start thinking about what you want to do as an adult, you are allowed to operate some type of motor vehicle and you are old enough to hold down a job. In my family, if you wanted the car, you better be working for it and the gas.
I made my money mowing lawns of a local insurance company and church in Camilla. I ALWAYS had my headphones on! The music in 1992 was about as good as I remember. That was the year that Pearl Jam’s “Ten” was at the height of popularity and I was blown away by “Black”, “Jeremy”, “Even Flow” and “Alive”. While Pearl Jam was #1 on the tuner, there were some others that were pretty hot back in the day. I enjoyed Toad the Wet Sprocket, Nirvana, Cypress Hill, Boyz II Men, The Cure and House of Pain. I wore out the House of Pain CD with “Jump Around” and it finally became useless due to scratches and damage.
Aside from music, I was also watching every movie that released in preparation of my future as a video store clerk. And there were some classic movies released that year. At 15, you learn a lot from movies and I was taken to school in 1992.
Reservoir Dogs – I learned that it is actually possible to form the perfect cast for a movie. I have been a Steve Buscemi fan since that movie. But I also have always enjoyed Michael Madsen, Tarantino and Harvey Keitel. This was such a great film!
Basic Instinct – I learned that rewinding and pausing a movie on the same scene over and over will eventually do enough damage that tracking can’t even fix the picture. Oh, Sharon Stone, you minx!
Unforgiven – This remains my favorite western of all time. I learned that you just don’t mess with Clint Eastwood, even if your name is Gene Hackman. Hackman may have been the boss in “Hoosier’s” but Eastwood was the shooter in this film! Is that play on words lousy or what?
A Few Good Men – This is where we learned that despite Tom Cruise’s ability to fly a plane inverted and take out Jester below the hard deck, he wasn’t quite prepared to handle the truth from Jack Nicholson.
League of Their Own – Perhaps the greatest lesson for a young sports fan; “There’s no crying in baseball!”
Wayne’s World – I learned that if a woman became President, someone would undoubtedly call her Baberham Lincoln. Also, Led Zeppelin didn’t write tunes that people liked; they left that to the BeeGees.
My Cousin Vinny – This one taught me quite a bit about “good ole boy” politics but I can’t seem to ever get past Marisa Tomei.
Mighty Ducks – I’m telling you, the Flying V would never work in real life! I learned about true fiction in this film.
Dead Alive – What is there to say about this one other than I learned that there was a movie out there that could even make ME sick to my stomach.
White Men Can’t Jump – Finally, I already knew this one so didn’t really learn anything new. I had been playing basketball for several years and you would have had trouble sliding a piece of notebook paper between my foot and floor when I jumped.
Do you know what else I learned that awesome year? I learned that even though Fleer had created quite possibly the worst baseball card design ever in 1991, they could actually redeem themselves! We have certainly discussed the mustard yellow Fleer of 1991 here and the plain border of 1990 is one you either love or hate. You have to go back to 1988 to find a really good Fleer design so I had really lost faith in the company giving me something I really wanted to collect. Of course, that is with the exception of Pro-Vision. That is the ONLY reason I ever bought 1991 Fleer and the ONLY reason a box today is even worth the $4.95 I spend on it at the LCS occasionally.
But in 1992, they did a complete 180! They released high quality card stock with glossy photos and a border design that was much easier on the eyes. They brought back Pro-Vision and also introduced a new All-Star insert set that was reminiscent of other premium brands of the early 90’s. Finally, the checklist was really, really good and is very reflective of a wonderful time in baseball. They moved away from the wax packs and went to more of a cello type wrapper but it was pretty thick and easy to tell if tampered with. I found this box at my LCS for $8.95. The box has 36 packs with 16 cards each.
This year had a pretty good mix of young and old catchers. One of these guys wouldn’t be a catcher for long and one of these guys was a catcher for 100 years.
One of the deepest power positions in the set, First Base featured some true sluggers. Three of these hitters topped 500 home runs and one fell just three short.
The middle infielders didn’t have as much pop but they certainly got on base a ton! And I don’t know that you’ll find a slicker fielding trio than Larkin, Vizquel and Ozzie.
The hot corner was pretty hot in ’92 as well. You had a little bit of everything here with Caminiti’s arm, Williams’ bat and Sheffield’s all around skill.
I could barely fit all the outfielders in one picture. These are 20 legitimate stars from the early 90’s! Sosa, Belle and Justice represented the young guys while Murphy, Strawberry, Henderson and Hawk provided veteran leadership.
There were quite a few Hall of Fame pitchers in 1992. The following year, Maddux would join Glavine and Smoltz to form one of the deadliest rotations in MLB history.
You can bet your bottom dollar that these guys are going to make an appearance in the “Dated Rookie” Project!
Historically, Fleer has been known to swing and miss on the prospects in their sets. They do hit on one or two each year and I suppose Kenny Lofton would be that ONE in 1992.
How about some “Super Stars”? Who are Boggs and Baines looking at?
Another insert set was the “Record Setters”. Joe Carter got a three-photo card for his 100 RBI seasons.
“League Leaders” was a staple in Fleer over the years. Most of the time the insert set featured both AL and NL players on the same card but this year was a bit different.
Here is the nice glossy All-Star insert along with the Roger Clemens Career Highlights Card. These were very nice looking Cards and had a ’92 Fleer Ultra feel.
Here is what I came for! I pulled the 5 best Pro-Vision Cards as far as I’m concerned. The one thing about ’91 that is superior to ’92 is the black border but damn I love these Pro-Vision cards!
Bernie Williams was one of the three big rookies I pulled from this box. Bernie is a fan favorite in the Bronx and a welcome addition to my collection.
The next big rookie I pulled was one of the newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Jim Thome. He was a very classy ball player and one of the best power hitters of the 90’s that didn’t get linked to steroids. Thome was a beast!
The last big rookie I pulled was Pudge Rodriguez, another recent inductee into the Hall. Pudge was one of the best catchers I’ve ever seen play and was a stud on the field and in the Hobby.
This particular set break is the exact reason I do what I do with junk wax sets. I really had forgotten just how good 1992 Fleer was. The cards are in better condition than most boxes I open from the era, the checklist is loaded, the inserts are very retro and you simply can’t beat Pro-Vision Cards. It’s easy for some to label ’92 Fleer as one of those sets that was smack dab in the middle of the Junk era but the set really stands out when you take the time to look at the design and players found in the packs. In a complete rebound from 1991, I’m giving ’92 Fleer a “5” on the Dub-O-Meter. I can’t find a real problem with this set. It truly holds up 25 years later and deserves to be remembered in a much better light than we currently hold it. Give ’92 Fleer a shot and I know you’ll feel the same!
J-Dub
Scoring Scale
1.Let me be the sacrificial lamb so you don’t have to buy these cards. Just read the post and thank me later.
2.There is worse but there is much better – not worth the effort though.
3.Middle of the road – I wouldn’t talk you into buying these but I certainly wouldn’t talk you out of them.
4.You should probably go out and buy a box and enjoy the rip – I did! It has some downside but worth the ride.
5.Stop reading and find a box to buy and get to Breaking! What are you waiting on?
Collecting to me as a kid was sitting in my floor and making an all-star team out of the good players in the packs I ripped. Sometimes, the team wasn’t made up completely of real life all-stars. As a kid, I was lucky to squeeze 2-3 packs out of a trip to Wal-Mart with my parents. While that may have been all I got, I sincerely mean that I was lucky because those trips were priceless. My 3 packs of Donruss may have resulted in me having Jerry Browne or Albert Hall on those all-star teams I formed. I would read the stats on the back to help me finalize the team and home runs or average usually won the tie breakers. I laid the cards out in the baseball field layout and that would be my team. I decided to rip a couple packs of ’89 Donruss just for this piece so I could put together an all-star team to picture. What do you think of this team? The bad part is my infield is weak but I had to pick between Glenn Davis and Mark Grace at 1st!
As touched on above, collecting was reading card backs. That is how I learned about players who didn’t play for the Braves or Cubs. I was able to watch those two teams every day because of the national television stations they were on. When they played the Pirates or the Astros, I could usually look out for Glenn Davis or Andy Van Slyke because I had read up on their stats on card backs. I studied the cards front and back and I liked players because of what I learned about them. A great follow on Twitter is @
All-Star and MVP Cards used to mean something. In a world where relics and autographs were unheard of, we spent our time trying to chase down insert cards. While all sets varied with the exact insert sets they had to offer, almost all of them had some form of a “best of the best” subset. Donruss had MVP’s, Score had the All-Star sketches, Topps had the Bold All-Star Cards and so on. Collecting big names was how you filled your binder pages and loaded up on trade bait. Those cards are in dime boxes at card shows now. Back then, they were the cards in the glass cases!
I learned how to collect because of RBI Baseball and the time I spent playing against my uncle’s on that game. RBI 3 even allowed you to play with teams that won pennants during the 80’s. I could play with the 1985 Royals and it made me want to collect George Brett. Sometimes, I would be the ’84 Tigers and I would go searching for “Sweet” Lou Whitaker or “Never Fret” Chet Lemon. I learned about baseball players from two key sources; cards and RBI Baseball. And I took every opportunity to intertwine those two hobbies of mine. My love for Jose Canseco was actually born on RBI 3 and the fact that he was a hobby superstar only made it stronger.
Collecting was reading up on cards in the Beckett magazine. I had a unique way of opening packs in 1989 and 1990 that was totally dependent on me having a Beckett magazine handy. I bought the mag each month so that never was a big problem. I would open my packs with the backs of the cards facing up and would slide each card just enough to reveal only the card number for the next one. I would go to my Beckett and find the number in the price guide and my excitement would be dependent on whether it was listed or not. If it was listed, I knew it was going to be worth .15 or more and if it wasn’t, I knew it was a common. Excitement was really high when those cards turned out to be Jr. or Gary Sheffield or Ricky Jordan. Those were $1.00 plus cards and worth more than what the actual pack cost. If Beckett had published a History or Spanish book that I enjoyed as much as their price guide, I probably would have been valedictorian of my class!
Collecting was sitting in the lunch room of my high school before homeroom and comparing hits with my buddies. I hit a 1990 Donruss Diamond King Ken Griffey Jr and was the talk of the class one morning. You were somehow better than everyone else on the days you had the big hit. I remember the ’89 Bo Jackson baseball/football card, ’90 Score Frank Thomas, ’90 Upper Deck John Olerud and ’91 Stadium Club Phil Plantier as some of the bigger cards I showed off in that lunchroom. I never beat David and his Andre Dawson Elite but I had some pretty good pulls back in the day.
I enjoy going through a box of old cards, even if it’s loaded with Tommy Herr or Franklin Stubbs, because it takes me back to my youth. Even though it’s called “Junk Wax”, I have never considered those cards junk. I have a few boxes that I’ll go through every year and I already know what cards are there but I will sort them in a different way just to have an excuse to go through them again. I’ll do it with ’91 Fleer, ’85 Topps or ’89 Upper Deck; I don’t have any bias against cardboard. I may not like some of the designs, like ’90 Donruss, but that doesn’t mean I’m trashing those cards. I don’t trash cards at all to be honest. I pass them down or send them to other collectors if they aren’t going to stay in my collection. One reason is that you just never know when a particular card value may rebound. But more importantly, the cards just mean too much to me.
I enjoy autographs, patches, printing plates, serial numbers, graded cards, and just about any other modern day frill you can think of. But I’ll never forget my roots and I’ll never get too far from home. I’ll never choose a pack of 2017 Contenders over a pack of 1987 Fleer. I’m being 100% honest when I type that. For my enjoyment, I would rather have a Bo Jackson rookie than a DeShaun Watson rookie. I know that values are different and I could make more money on eBay and there is more demand for Watson; I get all of that. But that’s not why I’m in this game. Would I sell a Watson to make money? There’s no question about that. But do you know what I would do with at least a portion of that money? I’d go buy a box of 1987 Fleer! The cards I sell don’t make me rich and they won’t pay my bills, but they will help me buy more cards to support my Hobby. That’s my stance on buying and selling. I’m probably in the minority but I’d usually rather give the card to someone who would like it in their collection.
Now, if we’re talking about money cards, I have no problem flipping those to buy more cards. Again, everybody collects different and I don’t think any less of anyone who does it different from what I do. I’ve periodically sold on eBay and Twitter and have no problem with others that do so more often. That’s definitely an important sector of the community because I do buy from time to time. I just don’t see dollar signs when I open product anymore. I did when I was a kid but they were literally $1.00 signs. The tireless hunt for the 1:1’s or the star autographs can both drive you mad and break the bank. That’s part of why I still delve so much in the junk wax era. I pay a reasonable price for what I consider to be good cards and I’m not driven by money at any point during the transaction. It’s not a business to me. It can be, and is, to some; and there is zero wrong with that, but it isn’t me.
There are a lot of things we see and think could be amazing but simply turn out to be entries into our “crash and burn” memoirs. Anybody remember the NES Power Glove? Yeah, Kelly Kapowski couldn’t even save this abysmal product. This was supposed to change gaming forever but all it did was make me long for the days of the Power Pad. It was virtually impossible to play a video game with the controller on one of your arms. But it had so much promise! I wanted it to work out so badly that I gave it more chances to fail than I normally would have any other toy or game at the time. It was just brutal.
Let’s talk about Caddyshack II for a minute. Was there a better opportunity for a great sequel in the comedy genre in the 80’s? I can do a whole separate post about terrible sequels but the original Caddyshack remains one of the funniest movies in the history of cinema and deserved a better follow up. I just KNEW it was going to be awesome and marked it down as a sure thing. But when you replace Rodney Dangerfield with Jackie Mason and remove Bill Murray from a movie cast, you just can’t expect it to be as good as the first. My heart hurts a little when I happen to catch CS II on the tube nowadays. How could something that was destined to be so right turn out so wrong?
Then you have some things that start out blazing and even have a reasonable enough run that you get sucked in more than usual. Notwithstanding the 2017 UGA Bulldogs (which I still love) in that particular scenario, think about Guns N Roses. They put out pure gold when they released Appetite for Destruction in 1987. They gave us such gems as “Paradise City”, “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child Of Mine” but by 1990, they were kicking guys out of the band, showing up late for gigs or just not showing up altogether. What could have been a magical run as one of the best rock bands ever was derailed by narcissism, greed and hard drugs; or more simply put, the 80’s!
So where am I going with this? You know it always ties into my sports card addiction and this is no exception. I’ve started a new personal project that is related to this premise of Optimism Bias. I started collecting in the late 80’s and there were players that we all had to have and pulling them from folded up wax wrappers was the first step of retirement planning at 10. During that time, the illustrious Junk Wax Era as it’s so lovingly referred to, we firmly believed that these 3×5 pieces of cardboard were going to make us rich. We coveted certain cards like some would bitcoins today. All we needed were toploaders and time and we would be set for life.
Well, like many of the above examples, that didn’t really work out as planned either. A big reason is because the card market was more saturated than any early teen could understand or even be aware of. We didn’t know that there were 10 billion Ken Griffey Jr ’89 Donruss Rated Rookies floating around. What we did know was that Beckett Monthly was our version of Jim Cramer’s “Mad Money” and if it was on the hot list, we were investing! Another reason the financial planning hit a Cecil Fielder sized bump in the road was that most of the players didn’t pan out. That’s the reason I’m more focused on with this project.
With the help of my Twitter buddy Nick (@
Jim Abbott was a pitcher for 10 years in the majors despite the fact that was missing his right hand. He actually pitched a no hitter in 1993 and had a reasonable career but his rookie Cards never took off like I thought they would. He finished his career with an 87-108 career record, a 4.25 ERA and less than 1,000 K’s so he wasn’t a statistical monster by any stretch. But I always admired Abbott and stocked up on all of his rookies.
Sandy Alomar Jr was not exactly a bust but he wasn’t even the best Alomar in baseball at the time. He played a robust 20 year career and hit for a .273 average but with only 112 home runs. He won both AL ROY and a Gold Glove in 1990 so his cards were hot but his card values always fell a little short. I still have Alomar as a top 3 catcher from my collecting youth but he’s not making many lists in 2018 with collectors.
Eric Anthony is one of the players that I went after hard! I had a ton of these Score rookies as well as the 90 Donruss Rated Rookies. Even though Anthony played 9 seasons, he did not have a career that will ever equate to Hobby Love. He hit for a career .231 average, never hit 20 home runs, never had double digit steals and never topped 80 RBI in a season. All of my wishful thinking was for naught. He was a home run crusher in the minors with 31 in 1989 and his first MLB Hit was a 414 foot bomb in the Astrodome. But he never put it all together.
Every collector worth his salt knows the name Gregg Jefferies. As this project grows, I will make it a point to find a 1989 Topps Future Star Autograph. That was the first card that was going to make me rich. Ken Griffey Jr wasn’t quite there yet and Jefferies was as sure a bet as ever. After being drafted in 1985, he won Minor League POY in both ’86 and ’87 before being called up in late August 1988. He hit .328 for the remainder of 1988, which led to the Mets trading their starting 2B, Wally Backman, to the Twins to make room for the young star. He responded by hitting .258 in 1989 and the rest is history. He had a career that was probably better than most on this list with a career .289 avg, 196 steals and 2 All-Star appearances. But his career was supposed to be better than all the guys on this list. It was just supposed to be a lot better than it actually was.
This is the guy that makes me unable to trust Aaron Judge. While Judge put up mammoth numbers that make Maas look like Rafael Belliard, Kevin had his own amazing rookie season in 1990. He set a record for reaching 10 home runs in the fewest at bats (72) and ultimately hit 21 home runs in only 79 games as a rookie. For you mathematicians out there, that is a home run every 3+ games which, when extrapolated over a full season, would be about 45. He played 148 games the next year and hit 23 home runs but his 5 year career would close with a .230 average and only 65 home runs. It sure was fun collecting him in 1990 though!
Big Ben McDonald was one of the hot young arms in Baltimore with Curt Schilling and Gregg Olson. He won a Gold Medal as a member of the 1988 Olympic Team in Seoul, Korea and is an inductee in the College Baseball Hall of Fame. But his major league career did not meet the expectations of a young Dub who was hoarding his 1990 Fleer rookie cards. I expected more than his 78-70 record but he just didn’t get it done.
Another Yankee makes the early list with Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens. You may be too young to even remember Bam Bam from the Flintstones but he carried a wooden club around and smashed things with it. Thus, Meulens was nicknamed Bam Bam because of his propensity to smash things. In 1990, Kevin Maas was at 1B and Bam Bam was at 3rd and I had yet to fully develop my hatred for the Evil Empire. In 1987, he hit .300 with 28 home runs and 103 RBI at Single A so he was a hot commodity when his cards started getting produced a couple years later. Not only did he never hit .300 or 28 home runs or 103 RBI in a major league season, his career totals never reached those numbers either. He mustered a .220 avg, 15 home runs and 53 RBI over 4 years with the Yankees.
I’m going to add Planier in a Red Sox jersey at some point but this one is a start. I do like Plantier’s autograph as it puts many players today to shame. Plantier finished 8th in ROY voting in 1991 despite only playing 53 games. But in 148 at bats, he hit 11 bombs while maintaining a .331 average. After a disappointing follow up in 1992, he was sent to the Padres. He had a very nice season in 1993 hitting 34 bombs and collecting 100 RBI but that was as good as it ever got by a long shot. He would only have one other double digit home run season and wouldn’t hit more than 41 RBI again either. After a promising start, he finished his career with an average of .243 and 91 home runs.
Here is the pitcher that helped provide Braves fans the wonderful career of Chipper Jones. He was drafted 14th overall in 1990 and the Braves were so bad, Van Poppel said he would not sign with them if they chose him. They didn’t choose him and instead drafted Chipper Jones. They would then go on and win 14 straight division titles. What did Van Poppel do? He put together a career shorter than the Braves run (11 seasons) and finished with a career 40-52 record along with a 5.58 ERA. I was in on him as a rookie and his 90 Upper Deck is a classic but I’m grateful he didn’t like my Braves that year.
Greg Vaughn was a home run blaster for the Brewers and a mainstay in my binder in the early 90’s. He really had a serviceable career but he was the #4 overall pick in 1986 and had high expectations placed in him. He was a 4x All-Star, hit 355 home runs and even won a Silver Slugger award in 1998. He also hit 50 home runs in 1998 but was overshadowed by a couple guys named McGwire and Sosa. He never hit for an average, finishing with a career number of .242 but he also clubbed over 1,000 RBI. He was a very solid home run hitter in the 90’s but is mostly a forgotten man in the Hobby today.
Ole Jerome Walton was quite the tease. The Cubs were on my TV every day thanks to WGN and Walton was somebody I got to see often. He won the ROY in 1989 by hitting .293 and stealing 24 bases in only 116 games. He even had a 30 game hitting streak that season. Together with Dwight Smith, a future addition to Dated Rookies, the youth movement in Chicago, along with veterans André Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, Shawon Dunston and Mark Grace was supposed to translate into big things and they did win the NL East in 1989. But like Walton’s career, they dropped off in 1990. Walton would settle into a career backup role and only muster 25 home runs and 58 stolen bases while hitting .269.
The last player on the list for this first installment is Todd Zeile. Zeile’s career finished better than most on this list but didn’t match the hype that came with his rookie cards. He played 16 seasons and hit for a .265 average to go along with 253 home runs and 1,110 RBI. He topped 30 home runs and 100 RBI just once in that 16 year career and never touched .300. He had a good but not great career but I had a ton of his rookie cards and was hoping that they would one day give me a shot at early retirement. It was not to be and his career highlight for me will always be his appearance on Seinfeld.
That hasn’t always been the case. When I was a kid, I had to be the life of the party! I was a jokester, always laughing and poking fun or singing some stupid song. I wore Jams, spiked my hair, made my own tie-dye shirts and had pretty close to the rainbow of colors in my Converse All-Stars. I am a child of the 80’s and I lived it back in those days. Life was all about being noticed. You couldn’t get a girlfriend if they didn’t notice you, right? And who wanted to hang out with the guy who sat quietly at his desk all day? No, I was loud, decked out in neon and making sure everyone knew who I was. For better or worse, it worked out when I was a kid.
I specifically remember my two favorite cartoons, He-Man and Transformers, being awesome visual experiences. On He-Man, The Castle of Greyskull was a lively green, Skeletor was Blue and Beast Man was orange. With Transformers, Optimus Prime was red, white and blue, Bumblebee was yellow, Megatron was silver and the rest of the characters made up all the other colors in the Crayola box. The Care Bears were identified by color, Garbage Pail Kids were bright and Smurfs were known for bring blue! These characters got your attention when you were flipping through the channels.
The advertisements that came on during those were pretty flamboyant too. How many of you remember 
How about some attention grabbing toys?Of course, we had He-Man and Transformers in toy form like the cartoons above. But we also had things like Lite Bright, which was a light box with colored plastic pegs that would glow when you plugged them in. You could make all sorts of designs and it was much more fun than the etch-a-sketch. Rainbow Bright was a big toy for the girls back then and she was just as her name would indicate; bright and colorful! Even our koosh balls were bright and neon!
All of my friends (and me) were big wrestling fans in the 80’s and they were rocking the spectacular brightness as well! Just look at Macho Man and Ultimate Warrior above. These guys went above and beyond but they weren’t the only ones. Hulk-a-Mania was bright red and yellow and his personality was just as vivid. You also had Ric Flair and his sequin robes, Rowdy Roddy Piper and his kilt, Road Warriors and their face paint and Bam Bam Bigelow with his flame infused tights. Pro Wrestling in the 80’s was as big of a “look at me” sector of pop culture as any!
The lively outfits like Ric Flair wore weren’t just for wrestling either. I remember wearing some pretty loud and eye popping clothes as well. I remember the sweet windsuits where you tried to see just how bold and colorful you could get. We wore silk shirts, rayon, tie-dye, Zubaz, and acid wash jeans that usually matched the color of our footwear. MC Hammer pants were all the rage in the late 80’s. I’m telling you, about every aspect of our lives was filled with visual stimulation. We were tired of the drab days of the early 80’s and we were spreading our wings!
Even our teen crushes were ready for the occasion. I remember the two Kelly’s (Kapowski and Bundy) being the most colorful (and revealing) in their clothing options. Everything about Saved by the Bell was colorful. Bundy was always rocking some pretty wild hair, which was synonymous with the rock and roll chicks of the 80’s. I’ve always had a thing for rocker chicks. Alyssa Milano and Elisabeth Shue were fairly conservative (at least in the 80’s) but even they rocked some off the wall clothing.
There was a sneak peek at Topps Finest with a set produced in 1992 but you couldn’t just rip packs so I didn’t see much of it. But in 1994, they were on LCS shelves and were too sharp for me to pass up, even if they were a bit pricey. They were the first real “chromium” type card available for football and they brought things to a whole new level. They hit baseball in 1993 and were a late addition to football but they earned the 1994 title. Although labeled ’94, they didn’t include rookies from that year. The rookies were from ’93, making the set at least a little odd at the time.
The box offered 24 packs with 6 cards each. Each pack averaged 1 RC and the box had an average of 2 refractors, also a first in card sets. The refractors aren’t labeled and to be honest, I don’t know which ones they were in my box. I’ll have to go back and take a closer look. Each box also contained one jumbo RC and the one in my box was this Dana Stubblefield. Unlike box toppers today, this was not in a wrapper of any kind and just loose among the packs. Though I would say it was in fair condition overall.
As you can see from the photo, these cards were quite sharp. They were bright, shiny, sturdy, and felt like something more important than football cards. They did have a tendency to stick together some 23 years later but they didn’t destroy each other when I pulled them apart either. Here are a few of the big guns in 93-94. Remember Boomer with the Jets? Oof
I didn’t hit a bunch of RB studs but I did land a Barry Sanders. Another Barry that ran tough in the mid 90’s was Foster of the Steelers. Roger Craig was on his last leg and Ricky Watters was just getting started.
The solid receivers I pulled were reminiscent of my recent ’91 Upper Deck rip. These guys had staying power. I know Shannon was a TE but he fit in with these pass catchers as much as his brother Sterling did. I was able to check Another Tim Brown off my list too.
Three of the best four defensive linemen I pulled were from the AFC West. Only Reggie White was from the NFC and he was now with the Packers as opposed to the Eagles like in my last few rips.
Karl Mecklenburg is somewhat underrated with collectors today but he was quite a player in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I honestly don’t remember Pat Swilling with the Lions but Chris Spielman was certainly memorable in Detroit. Seau, Mills and Norton make this a great group of backers.
The overall DB haul from this box was less than stellar but all of these guys were steady professionals. Mark Carrier was a league leader in interceptions a couple of seasons in the early 90’s and Mark Collins was a Super Bowl winner.
The best rookies will have their own segment in a moment but there were still some highly recognizable names in this stack. Willie Roaf had a Hall of Fame career while Rick Mirer was supposed to. Lincoln Kennedy started his career in Atlanta but had his best years with the Raiders. The others that had better than average careers were Dana Stubblefield, Robert Smith, Curtis Conway and Natrone Means.
The best QB in the rookie class was Drew Bledsoe. Many collectors today remember Bledsoe as the QB who got hurt and led to the career of Tom Brady. But those of us who watched football in the ’90’s know Bledsoe as a dang good QB. He was a 4x Pro Bowl selection, led the league in passing yards in ’94 and is a member of the Patriots Hall of Fame. This is a very nice RC of Bledsoe.
The best RC in the set, and the one I was chasing, was this of Jerome Bettis. The Bus is a Hall of Fame RB who was ROY in ’93, a 6x Pro Bowl selection, Comeback POY in ’96, Man of the Year in ’01 and a Super Bowl Champ in ’05. If that’s not enough, he was also a 2x First Team All Pro and a member of the All Time Steeler Team. The Bus was one of my favorites in the mid to late 90’s and this pull made the whole box worth it. It’s in pretty good shape too!
This set was not the easiest to score for me. In 1994, it would have received a 5 without a second thought. But in 2017, there were just a couple of small issues that brought it down to a 4. The price is a little steep for a mid 90’s product, although a very nice one. This box was $50 and other than Bettis and Bledsoe, the rookie class doesn’t have much to offer. The cards are stuck together after being sealed for a quarter century and although they came apart rather clean, the cards were somewhat warped before ever ripping the packs due to the UV Coating or Chromium Design or something. Still, I couldn’t go less than 4 because they are really nice cards and I remember just how beautiful they were the first time I saw them. At a time when everybody was trying to be bigger and brighter, Topps Finest certainly accomplished that. And even though the rookie class isn’t super deep, The Bus and Bledsoe are two really good players to chase. I also have a box of Baseball that will get a post soon and I can’t wait to rip that one!
In 1986, Topps missed out on top rookies like Canseco, Galarraga, and McGriff
My 1986 retirement plan…as financially sound as Enron stock. Remember the haul this was back then?
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