{"id":1135,"date":"2017-03-21T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dubmentality.com\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2017-03-21T20:37:40","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T00:37:40","slug":"drakes-bakes-up-a-sweet-1985-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/?p=1135","title":{"rendered":"Drakes Bakes Up A Sweet 1985 Set"},"content":{"rendered":"

Up until a couple of weeks ago, the only thing I knew about Drakes was that Newman loved their coffee cakes on Seinfeld<\/a>. I assumed they were a baking company and never had any other reason to check them out. Then the discussion on oddball sets happened. Ryan (@basecardhero), Scott (@SBergerBOSTON), Shane (@ShaneKatz73) Donnie (@TheDingoDad) and others started a big discussion that in, Ryan\u2019s terms, \u201cEscalated Quickly.\u201d What we all thought were just random oddball sets turned into a massive list of retail sets that were available from the 80\u2019s that we didn\u2019t even know about. Some of them were regional and we would have had no real reason to know about them. Drakes must have been one of those sets, because I had no idea, but you can believe I ran out and bought me a set for my collection.\"\"<\/a>\ufeff<\/span>The set I bought was 1985 but the box shows that it\u2019s the 5th annual edition. A little more research revealed that they produced sets from 1981-1988. The sets were labeled \u201cBig Hitters plus Super Pitchers\u201d; reminiscent to the set I reviewed that started this cluster of a conversation, Fleer\u2019s 1987 \u201cSluggers vs Pitchers.\u201d The set had a total of 44 cards (no stickers though) and was broken into 33 hitters and 11 pitchers. The checklist is phenomenal in my opinion. There isn\u2019t one player that I think is out of place in the set. One of the reasons I think that may be because Jack Clark was excluded. Another plus is that the cards are from 1985. You can\u2019t buy cards from 1985 as cheaply as you can buy cards from 1989 but this vintage set only cost me $6.49 with free shipping!\"\"<\/a>The cards themselves were set to mirror the \u201985 flagship Topps product but have the added Drakes logo and a different bottom banner. The backs of the cards are almost identical with the exception of the color. The \u201985 Topps cards were green with red writing and Drakes is red with dark blue writing. They are very similar in style and the card stock is the same as well. The cards were in remarkable condition to be 32 years old, though they had a distinct odor to them. The fronts of the cards had the \u201c5th Annual Collector\u2019s Edition\u201d logo at the top, either in green (National League) or red (American League) and included the card number in the series. At the bottom, there was a Drakes \u201cBig Hitter\u201d or \u201cSuper Pitcher\u201d logo next to the banner with the players name, team and position. All of the hitter\u2019s photographs were taken during a swing at the plate. The pitchers were all taken on the mound, most mid delivery. Again, the backs were typical Topps with background info, stats and the occasional trivia question.\"\"<\/a>The Hitters<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

This checklist is loaded with sluggers from 1985. Listen to some of these stats; Tony Armas (43 bombs), Harold Baines (29\/.304), Dwight Evans (32\/.295), Tony Gwynn (.351), Don Mattingly (.343), Dale Murphy (36\/.290), Eddie Murray (29\/.306), Cal Ripken (27\/.304), Mike Schmidt (6 consecutive 30+ HR seasons). Again, I have no beef with the selections in this set. I obviously have a personal beef with the inclusion of Kent Hrbek but I\u2019m not going down that road again. His stats were worthy of inclusion so we\u2019ll just leave it at that.\"\"<\/a>The Pitchers<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

There were only 11 pitchers included but they were all generally stat stuffers and several were future Hall of Famers. Steve Carlton had 313 wins by the time 1985 rolled around, along with a career 3.04 ERA. Doc Gooden was just getting started but his rookie year was 17-9 with a 2.60 ERA and 276 K\u2019s in 218 IP. Tom Seaver was knocking on the door of 300 wins with 288 by 1985. He also had a career sub 3.00 ERA (2.80) with 3,403 K\u2019s. Finally, future Brave, Bruce Sutter was included, wearing his St. Louis Cardinals uniform but his card had the tag at the bottom that said \u201cNow with Braves\u201d. There were a couple of oddball pitchers but nothing too far out there.<\/p>\n

The Uniforms<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

The absolute best part of the set was the uniforms that the players were shown in. Take a look at these gems.\"\"<\/a>Gary Carter \u2013 Montreal Expos\"\"<\/a>Alvin Davis \u2013 Seattle Mariners\"\"<\/a>Steve Garvey \u2013 San Diego Padres\"\"<\/a>Tony Gwynn \u2013 San Diego Padres\"\"<\/a>Kent Turdbek \u2013 Minnesota Twins\"\"<\/a>Mike Schmidt \u2013 Philadelphia Phillies\"\"<\/a>Tom Seaver \u2013 Chicago White Sox<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll tell you that this may be the best oddball set I own now. It\u2019s the oldest and the cards are in really good condition. You will not even find many packs from 1985 for this cost and I would put the quality of these cards up against the flagship set. It makes me want to check out the other Drakes sets but I am also worried that I may be disappointed in the next set. I don\u2019t want to be let down after this pleasant surprise! I have to give these a Dub Score of 5 for several reasons. First, the reasonable cost is unbeatable. It\u2019s always a plus to add a set that\u2019s 30+ years old to your collection so vintage value is a winner. The checklist is strong, as mentioned above. Finally, the quality is really good for a set of 1985 baseball cards. I\u2019m actually going to order another so I can random this one to someone else who can enjoy them as well! Collect and keep this hobby strong my friends!<\/p>\n

Dub Score – 5<\/p>\n

Scoring Scale<\/b><\/p>\n

1. Let me be the sacrificial lamb so you don’t have to buy these cards.  Just read the post and thank me later.
\n2. There is worse but there is much better – not worth the effort though.<\/p>\n

3. Middle of the road – I wouldn’t talk you into buying these but I certainly wouldn’t talk you out of them.<\/p>\n

4. You should probably go out and buy a box and enjoy the rip – I did!  It has some downside but worth the ride.<\/p>\n

5. Stop reading and find a box to buy and get to Breaking!  What are you waiting on?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Up until a couple of weeks ago, the only thing I knew about Drakes was that Newman loved their coffee cakes on Seinfeld. I assumed they were a baking company and never had any other reason to check them out. Then the discussion on oddball sets happened. Ryan (@basecardhero), Scott (@SBergerBOSTON), Shane (@ShaneKatz73) Donnie (@TheDingoDad) … Continue reading “Drakes Bakes Up A Sweet 1985 Set”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hobbies","category-memories","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubmentality.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/img_6702.jpg?fit=3024%2C4032&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7912A-ij","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151,"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions\/1151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubmentality.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}