2018 other purchases: Topps sets from ARPSmith #2 (1985)

Way back in January I made a deal with Adam of ARPSmith's Sports Card Obsession to purchase four complete Topps sets from the huge collection he'd acquired.  Now I'm showing those sets off one at a time by highlighting the key RCs, PCs, and Tigers from each.

I said the other day that we wouldn't have to go far to get to the next set, and in fact it's the 1985 version!  Once again it was 792 cards in all, featuring some different subsets like "Father/Son", #1 overall draft picks from various years, and perhaps most notable, 1984 USA Baseball Olympians (made famous by Mark McGwire's card).  Cards include 1984 stats so they capture the heroics of that season's World Champion Detroit Tigers, a big plus for me.

Lots of stars here with Ripken, Rice, Winfield, Carew, Carlton, Dawson, Garvey, Whitaker, Strawberry, Rose, Raines, Gwynn, and Trammell on top of team bags!

Here's a look at the highlights I scanned, starting with the rookies:

Saberhagen was one of those pitchers from when I was younger that I recall being quite good for a number of years, and looking at his stats confirms I remember correctly.  Most of his success came with the Royals, though he did help the Mets and Red Sox a bit, and it was in KC that he won a pair of Cy Youngs on the way to a 59.0 career bWAR, so he definitely deserves to be highlighted here.

Clemens, McGwire, and Puckett are the three obvious "key" cards in this set, though of course only one of them is enshrined in the Hall of Fame for now.  The Rocket, like Barry Bonds, was one of those guys who was outstanding even before he went all roid rage and saw his career tainted by PED accusations.  His seven Cy Youngs, MVP, two titles, and 139.6 bWAR will get him in eventually.  McGwire's card in this set is about as controversial as his career ultimately was, raising the usual arguments about what should be considered a true rookie card.  Kirby's short career did lead him to the hall, though off-the-field accusations have cast a pall over a guy who was otherwise a beloved Minnesota icon.  (Quick side note:  I already had these three key cards so Adam held onto them and gave me a fair price on the set.)

Hershiser is another guy like Saberhagen I couldn't leave out due to his prominence with a good team in the 80s.  His 1988 season with the Dodgers was outstanding, plus he had enough talent to stick around for 18 years, with just his rookie and sunset campaigns seeing him put up negative value.  Though not Hall of Fame caliber, his 56.3 bWAR places him as one of the more important players of my childhood.

Gooden went down as one of the most electric young players in the early 80s before some addiction issues derailed him multiple times from what could have been a truly special career.  Still, he managed to put up a 53.0 bWAR, mainly on the strength of his first decade, especially an insane 1985 season.

Finally, Eric Davis is another guy whose career never went to the heights it should have, but you can't really blame him for that considering the bevy of injuries he worked through, plus being diagnosed with colon cancer later in his MLB tenure.  He still went out as a fairly successfully player mostly known for his time with the Reds, including winning the 1990 World Series, and his 36.1 bWAR isn't bad when you keep in mind he played in as many as 127 games only eight times over 17 years.

Now we'll have a look at all of my player collection guys in the set, starting with the non-Tigers:

Believe it or not three of the cards in this group were new to me despite lots of copies being readily available.  Ripken is one of those beneficiaries as I needed the regular base card out of his pair you see above.  As a small side note that gives me a milestone-ish 700 of his cards scanned into his album!

Roberts, Leach, and Zahn are all Michigan guys and each returned after appearing in the '84 version.  Roberts was making his final major brand cardboard appearance in this set as 1984 was his sunset season.  Leach would play for a few more years but here he appears for the second time as a member of the Blue Jays ('84 Topps Traded).  Lastly, Zahn popped up in the '86 set before his career ended.

Meanwhile, for the second post in a row I have one or more new Tony Gwynns to add to his PC!  For whatever reason both of his cards here--regular base and All-Star--eluded me up until now.  How could I have gone so long without that image of Mr. Padre wearing those awesome shades in my collection?!  Crisis averted.

And now here's the terrific trio of Tigers to round out the PC group:

Sweet Lou was an All-Star starter in '84 but didn't get a card in that subset for some reason.  At least he gets a kick-ass photo on his only base appearance!

Gibby popped 29 HR for the first of five seasons in which he'd average in the upper 20s, the best streak of his career.  The two he bashed in game 5 of the World Series were huge, of course.

Tram was also an '84 All-Star but had to watch from the bench with Ripken as the starter, meaning Tigers fans had to suffer with just Whitaker, Lance Parrish, and Chet Lemon opening the Midsummer Classic.  Trammell's World Series MVP that year was probably enough to console him, though.

And now we get to the rest of the Tigers:

Lemon, Rozema, Wilcox, and Parrish are all repeats from the previous year's set, and as I mentioned earlier but Lemon and Parrish were All-Star starters.  Kuntz, on everyone's all-name team, chipped in a bit in '84 then ended his MLB career with five games the following year.  Jones was an April '84 signing and contributed 12 homers in just 79 games, then finished his career with the Angels.  And Ho-Jo put up decent numbers mainly as a starting 3B, then was flipped for Walt "Terrible" Terrell after the season, a trade Detroit probably regretted since Johnson flashed some nice power for the Mets in the late 80s/early 90s.

The other two cards here are from the Father/Son subset.  First up is the Ray/Bob Boone combo.  Ray is pictured with Detroit and spent time with Cleveland, among other teams, as well.  His son Bob played primarily for the Phillies and Angels, managed the Royals and Reds, and also passed the game on to his sons Aaron and Bret.

The other pairing is Ossie and Ozzie Virgil.  The elder Virgil, who was actually "Ozzie" as well (short for "Osvaldo") had a nondescript career mainly with the Giants and Tigers.  Meanwhile the younger Ozzie got to start for a few seasons with the Phillies and Braves before ending his career with Toronto.

In this next scan manager Sparky Anderson, pitcher Dan Petry, utility guy Marty Castillo, and 3B Tom Brookens are the only holdovers from the '84 set.  Also notable is that for this set the manager cards also serve as team checklists, which makes a lot of sense to me.

As for the newbies, we'll start with Garbey, a utility guy whose career started on a high note with the World Series win, after which he played one more season with Detroit, was flipped to Oakland, signed with Texas, and ended his career with 30 games with the '88 Rangers.  Middle-infielder Baker played less often during his Tigers tenure (1983-87), was traded to the Twins in '88, then finished his career with Minnesota after the 1990 season.  And Monge, a seldom-used bullpen guy, came over from the Padres in June but didn't get to face his old team in the Fall Classic.

That leaves the notable duo of Guillermo "Willie" Hernandez and the late Dave Bergman.  Both guys arrived in a preseason 1984 deal with the Phillies for OF Glenn Wilson and utility guy John Wockenfuss.  The trade would prove to be a steal for Detroit as Bergman was the primary 1B and Hernandez took the league by storm, winning the Cy Young and MVP awards.

Our last group includes three more newbies.  The late Lopez came to the Tigers in a 1978 trade with St. Louis and had himself a nice 1984 season when he was second only to Hernandez in appearances and compiled a 10-1 record with 14 saves.  He went a pretty nice 53-30 in Detroit almost exclusively out of the 'pen.

Scherrer was a first-round choice by the Reds in 1978 and came to Detroit late in August of '84.  He pitched a bit in the Series, stuck around through the '86 season, then bounced around a bit before calling it quits in '88.

And lastly, possibly the most significant new player here after Hernandez is DH Darrell Evans, a veteran power presence who socked 141 homers over five seasons in Motown (1984-88).  Only 15 of those were hit in '84, but he went on to total 12.4 bWAR over the next three years, including hitting 40 HR in '85.

As for the rest, Herndon held down LF after enjoying career years over the previous two seasons. Morris, of course, was the ace who tossed a no-hitter, won two World Series games in '84, scored rings with Minnesota ('91, MVP) and Toronto ('92), then found himself elected to the Hall this year.  Grubb was on the tail end of his career but contributed around the outfield and got himself a ring.  Berenguer, who I think I kind of left out last time, was in his third of four seasons with the Tigers and scored a career-high 11 wins as the #4 starter.  Parrish was an All-Star for the third of five straight seasons and won his second consecutive Gold Glove and third straight Silver Slugger.  Finally, Bair was the #3 reliever in the 'pen and put up a 5-3 record with four saves.

And that's it for the '85 set.  Next time we'll be going forward in time a bit more, which makes sense since I already own the 1986-88 sets.