Retro Review – Chasing Sleep and Elites

I spent most of my childhood (and teen years) spending nights on the weekend with friends or vice versa. When the summertime rolled around, I was basically a hobo and moved from one locale to the next; only stopping at the house long enough to host a guest of my own. Each friends house featured a different perk that made it fun and unique. Some of my favorite memories come from those nights of staying up until the break of dawn, living up every moment we had.

Anytime my cousin Coop stayed over at my house, or we stayed at the lake or his house, the night was typically about video games. Coop was one of the first of my friends/family that had a Nintendo. Up until that point, my only video game experiences had been Atari and a Tandy Computer. The Nintendo changed our lives and we played every game you can imagine. We started out with Mario and then moved to some action games like Contra and Ninja Gaiden. Then we had sports battles like RBI Baseball, Double Dribble, Hoops, Baseball Stars, NES Play Action Football and Black Bass. Then Tecmo came along and we dedicated all our time to Tecmo Super Bowl, Tecmo Basketball and Tecmo Baseball.

There are two vivid memories I have with Coop and those late night video game marathons. The first was RBI Baseball where Coop had a great shot at taking me down with a late inning base hit. He sent his baserunner around third and he would get hosed by one of my outfielders, ending the game. In a fit of exacerbation, Coop tossed the controller into the air and it took down a shelf above the couch, at 3 am, waking my mom. In a similar late game TSB collapse, Reggie White sacked Jim Kelly, stripping him of the football. White recovered the fumble and streaked to the end zone only to be hawked down by Thurman Thomas inside the 5, where he would fumble the ball right back to the Bills, ending the upset bid. That moment was caught on cassette tape, recording Coop’s screams of “Go Reggie!” that quickly morphed into “No Reggie!” More on the cassette recordings in a minute.

Then there was my buddy Munt. We would normally play basketball in his driveway, dubbed “The Parramore Pavilion”, as long as our legs could go. We would have 3 point contests, play trick shot HORSE and argue over whether Miles really made that memorable layup or not, which he didn’t. He also had a pool table that we would play made up games on all night. We had a game called “nick it” where we would fire the ball off the rail and try to make it bounce all over the table and eventually land in a pocket. We played regular pool too but that got boring. Munt’s house was also where the world famous gummy peaches and jalapeño cheese dip snack originated. We used to love vinegar and salt chips with Frito Lay cheese dip. One night I was dared to dip a gummy peach in the cheese and I didn’t back down from dares in those days. I think I ate a whole pack of gummy peaches and cheese dip that night.

I also stayed at my friend Josh’s a lot as an early teen. I would say from when I was about 12-14, I spent a ton of time at his house. We had a lot of good times but I specifically remember playing “Bloody Mary” there for the first time. I was scared out of my mind doing that gag but I was determined not to chicken out. It was raining and lightning was flashing in the bathroom. I just knew that when I said that name for the 3rd time, I would see this horrible face in the mirror looking back at me. I actually did but it was my own face.

I stayed at my friend David’s a lot when I was 15 or so. We did a lot of sports at his house. We would play an indoor mini golf game that he had and set up the holes all over his house, using pets and furniture as obstacles. We also played a lot of home run derby with just about anything we could find. One of our best creations was using a tennis racket to hit ping pong balls over a stone wall in his front yard. We could make those ping pong balls do a lot with our pitching and most of the time it was pretty unpredictable. We also went through several sleeves of ping pong balls because anytime the edge of the racket made contact with the ball, it would be dented beyond repair or bust altogether. That was a really fun game!

Speaking of ping pong, my cousins Corey, Dusty and Jared had a table and when I spent the night there, we would play tournaments against each other until the wee hours of the morning. There are a couple of memories that stick out with this one. The ping pong table was set up in the dining room and when it was in full action, you didn’t even have enough room to walk completely around the table. The walls on both sides of the table were not far from the edge and we used to scratch and mark up the wall multiple times in a game. Also, think about the sound of a ping pong game. You have the paddle and ball making noise, the ball hitting the table and our paddles occasionally smacking the wall. Oh yeah, we laughed and smack talked each other the whole time too. We played until 3 and 4 in the morning and we never woke their mom up; at least to my knowledge.

This brings me to my buddy Brewer and the stay overs we had. Our gatherings were always about horror movies. I was working at the video store by this time and we rented every movie in the horror section during those days. We watched Video Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Silver Bullet, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw, Night of the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead 1 and 2, Puppet Master, Ghoulies, and any other 80’s-90’s thriller you can think of. We actually stayed at several friends houses together over the years and we took the horror movies every where we went. I specifically remember watching Evil Dead and Dead Alive one night back to back at one friends house and being too freaked out to sleep.

We used to record ourselves all the time as well. We were actually way ahead of our time and we may have been the originators of the first ever podcast had we known what we were doing. It started out as cassette recordings of us playing video games or doing commentary on movies. This evolved into a makeshift talk show where we just made up guests and pretended to interview them. All of this would eventually culminate in a video series called “The Hover Hour”, which was a sit down talk show in which I would imitate one of our shop teachers and interview students from our high school, whom would all be played by Brewer. He would wear different outfits we would find around the house and really committed to these impressions. Sometimes we had a camera man and sometimes we would just set the recorder up on a piece of furniture. I’m telling you, we were pretty innovative for a couple of dumb teenagers. I wish I could put my hands on one of those old tapes.

There was something else that I did at every one of the houses above; open, trade and sort baseball cards. Everybody in this story collected cards and we all would compare our binders at these overnight gatherings. I remember Braves collections with Coop, Hubie Brooks with Munt, ’89 Bowman with Josh, Twins and 90’s Donruss with David, 80’s cards with Corey and Jared and football cards with Brewer. I have so many weird memories that are still vivid but are so random. I remember Coop having a Terry Pendleton Plaque with a card in it, listening to “Nothing Compares 2 U” while sorting my Jose Canseco pages with Corey and getting Brewer’s dad to sign one of my Desert Storm cards that pictured the tank that he worked on.

But the memory I will probably have until the day I die is the time David pulled the André Dawson Elite Series Card. I’ve told the story here more than once so I won’t bore you with the details again. But I’ve yet to pull an Elite of my own and I’m still trying, some 26 years later. I tried ’91 Donruss here and came up empty. Whenever I find ’91 or ’92, I buy it up and just rip packs looking for Elite. I no longer even sort the cards in the box because I have enough of them at this point, I could probably build a house out of them. But I continue to rip and search for that elusive Elite Card. It’s really the one major chase I have that I can’t really control. If I want to try and build a set, I can usually buy enough wax boxes to make it happen. I finally pulled the Griffey Jr. Upper Deck. I pulled a Pro Line Autograph last year. It’s the one remaining card that I just can’t seem to find in a box.

There’s really no actual clear odds on the Elite either as you can rip through entire cases and come up empty. It has to be the rarest card numbered to 10,000 ever created! Of course, you can find singles on eBay at very reasonable prices these days but I’m chasing that high of pulling one. Charlie at the LCS sent me a Facebook message last week saying somebody dropped in with a bunch of unopened wax that he bought. He had a box of ’92 Donruss Series 1 and 2 and he was holding it for me. Not only was the Elite a major chase that year but there are 5,000 signed Cal Ripken Jr’s to be found in that set as well!

So here I am, a 41 year old father of two, chasing a dream I had as a 15 year old kid that stayed up all night recording his cousin on a boom box playing Bayou Billy on Nintendo. For the record, I’m listening to my “Classics” playlist while I rip these two boxes and the music enhances the trip down memory lane. I have such gems as “Mama I’m Coming Home”, “November Rain”, “Who Made Who” and “Livin On A Prayer” blasting in my headphones and I’m focused.

The first thing I notice about ’92 is the new foil packaging. This was the first year they switched from wax to foil, in an effort to be a little more “premium”. Donruss also went to a white border for the first time in many years, ’84 I believe. These looked more like classic baseball cards than the previous two issues, which I liked in certain ways but always felt they were a little psychedelic. This was also a year in which Diamond Kings got a full makeover from the older looking fun sketches to a new, more distinguished look with gold foil and a little thicker stock. Each box had 36 packs so let’s see what ripping 72 foil wrappers can uncover!

The pitchers featured some big names from the 90’s. Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz would all go on to have Hall of Fame careers with my Bravos and Schilling and Clemens would make big names for themselves in Boston. Two of the biggest K Machines are found in Nolan Ryan and Doc Gooden.

As usual, the list of catchers is thin but these guys were damn good. This was at the very beginning of Pudge Rodriguez’s career and the very end of Pudge Fisk’s.

This is where the studs can be found! The infielders in 1992 may have been the best collection of active players in my lifetime. Look at these names; Ozzie Smith, Ryne Sandberg, Frank Thomas, Donnie Baseball, Cal Ripken,Wade Boggs, Will The Thrill, Big Mac, Crime Dog and The Big Cat! The infield was absolutely loaded!

The outfield wasn’t that far behind the infield. There were veterans like Kirby Puckett, Tony Gwynn, Eric Davis and Jose Canseco and then there were young stars like Ken Griffey Jr., Ron Gant, Dave Justice and Juan Gonzalez. These guys hit a lot of home runs in the 90’s!

These legends were classified as Designated Hitters so they get their own section.

How about some rookies? These were the guys who made some noise during their careers. Thome was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame! While Pat Mahomes may not have had a star studded career, his son has a good shot.

Here are the “Award Winners” from 1991. Bagwell and Knoblauch won their respective Rookie of the Year awards.

The All-Stars are some pretty recognizable names but I was a little surprised to see Ivan Calderon in the mix. I do remember him having an MVP card in one Donruss set but don’t remember his All Star appearance in the early 90’s.

The highlights of ’91 included Otis Nixon and Rickey Henderson’s stolen base records, Nolan Ryan’s 308 wins and the 3 man no-hitter for Atlanta.

Although these aren’t rookie cards, these are all players on my “Dated Rookies” checklist for autographs. These guys had so much promise in ’91-’92 but they just didn’t pan out. A couple of these players have sons that are youngsters in the league now.

Here are the new and improved Diamond Kings for ’92 with Will Clark being the star of the group. The others I pulled weren’t necessarily at the top of the checklist for ’92. But I still love ’92 DK!

Remember the introduction of the Marlins logo in this set? There was a Rockies card too but I didn’t pull that one.

Once again, there was no Elite Card to be found. The Chase continues and I’ll keep searching because I refuse to give up at this point. 1992 was a big improvement for Donruss in my opinion. The switch to foil wrappers, white borders and foil stamped Diamond Kings made it feel more grown up to me, which was perfect for a 15 year old. The number of legendary players that were active in 1992 is really unbelievable and it’s a shame this checklist had to be right in the thick of the junk wax era. I can’t find much wrong with this set other than a little bit of a weak rookie class. Besides Thome, nobody else is a Hall of Famer and really only a few had good, if only serviceable, careers. But that’s the only knock I have with ’92 Donruss. What say you??

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?