2018 other purchases: Topps sets from ARPSmith #3 (1991)

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.

Day three of this feature brings us into the 90s with Topps' 50th anniversary baseball set made in 1991.  (No, I still don't own the '89 and '90 sets but it just wasn't worth the shipping cost to get them right now.)  Once again it's a 792-card set, and the six-year jump forward in time changes up a number of my PC guys you'll see plus, unfortunately, lots of different Tigers--and not for the better.

Here's another 26 team bags, poorly photographed:

I'll save your eyeballs the trouble and point out the best players:  Nolan Ryan (#1) and a Rickey Henderson All-Star (#14).  The top card in the last bag is notable, though--Red Sox pitcher Larry Andersen, the guy who brought Jeff Bagwell to the Astros.

Ok, as always we'll begin with the key and/or most interesting rookies:

Yep, just Larry.  Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal wasn't significant enough in my opinion, and neither was Carl "I'm a violent, ignorant homophobe conspiracy-theorist asshole" Everett.  So it's all about 1990's #1 overall pick (over Todd Van Poppel?!  Are you sure?!) out of a Florida high school.  Incidentally that was a great first round as it produced the three guys already mentioned, former Tiger and MLBPA head Tony Clark, White Sox P Alex Fernandez, Mariners C Dan Wilson, multiple team OF Jeromy Burnitz, Orioles/Yankees P Mike Mussina, and Expos OF Rondell White, among others.

Anyway, it took until 1995 for Chipper to play his first full season, but to say it went pretty well is an understatement as his Braves won it all that year.  Over his 19 seasons (17 full) he put up 85.2 bWAR thanks to 2726 hits, 468 HR, the 1999 NL MVP, three pennants, a batting title, and eight All-Star selections, ultimately landing him in the Hall of Fame this year.  He did all that with the only team he ever played for while manning multiple positions--SS, 3B, and LF--and went out as an Atlanta fan favorite.  Not bad, Larry!

Now it's on to the player collection guys starring a few old favorites and seven new faces:

Cal opens up this scan as a member of the Record Breakers subset that starts the set.  He earned this appearance with a streak, just not the one you're probably thinking of:  the back notes that he went 95 straight games at his position without making an error.  Mike Bordick and Rey Ordonez would eventually surpass him.  Anyway, this card was actually new to my collection, though I already had a copy of his regular card seen right down the middle.

Four guys in this scan make their debut in this series:  Maddux, Sabo, Wayne, and Abbott; of course the first two sets I showed off were from 1984 and '85, so that makes sense.  None of their cards here are new to me, but at least three of them get nice action photos.

Whitaker and Trammell are the two PC guys appearing as Tigers in this set and they also get excellent pics.  Sweet Lou appears to be doubling up Oriole-at-the-time Steve Finley while Tram is stroking another hit towards his team-leading .304 batting average from 1990.  He also led the Tigers in bWAR (6.7) and made another All-Star team (which will come up again shortly).

Tony Gwynn is the other set stalwart here and for the third post in a row I'm adding a new card to his PC!  Yep, I didn't have this base card featuring Mr. Padre in the older San Diego duds.

Tram makes appearance #2 in the set thanks to his All-Star appearance plus he's joined by former teammate Kirk Gibson as the only returners in this scan.  This would be his last flagship appearance with the Dodgers--next came the Royals before it was back to the Tigers.

That just leaves us with the other new guys:  Griffey and Larkin (twice each, thanks to All-Star nominations) and Morris.  George Jr. was named to his first of 11 straight All-Star teams in 1990 and also added Gold Glove #1 out of 10 in a row.  Larkin was playing his fourth full season (fifth overall) in 1990 when an All-Star/Silver Slugger campaign of his own culminated in a World Series sweep of Oakland.  And Morris also enjoyed the fruits of the Reds' victory after coming over from the Yankees and appearing in his first full season.  His third place finish in the NL ROY voting probably helped earn him the coveted Topps rookie cup.

And now we'll have a look at the rest of the Tigers, which as I said earlier wouldn't really be a pleasant experience because as one of this here blog's tags says, the 90s Tigers sucked!:

Morris and Fielder are by far the best players in this group.  Big Daddy had just made his triumphant return from Japan by leading both leagues with 51 homers, and he'd go on to clobber 245 of them in Motown.  Morris' 1990 campaign wasn't quite as positive as he led the team with a 15-18 record and 4.51 ERA in what would be his final season with the Tigers.  Of course things improved for him as he won rings the next two seasons with the Twins and Jays.

Of the other guys, Heath was an average starting catcher while Sheets provided negative value.  Both were gone from Detroit after 1990 and neither played much more in the Majors.  Nunez led all pitchers with 2.2 bWAR, which isn't great since he pitched out of the bullpen.  Parker, who I don't recall at all, chipped in 1.1 bWAR himself over 24 games out of the 'pen.  Tanana and Terrell went 9-8 and 6-4, respectively in what obviously wasn't a great rotation.  And Searcy was the worst starter with a 2-7 record in 12 starts.

Bergman and Lemon were holdovers from the glory days of '84 but neither had much to contribute; the former would retire after a couple more seasons while the latter was done following the 1990 campaign.  Gibson and Don Gleaton continued the run of relievers outpacing the starters in bWAR with 2.1 each.  Bleah!  Salas was a meh backup catcher while Coles and Ward both brought negative value to the team.  Sparky, of course, managed the team through the 1995 season but only turned in a record above .500 in '91 and '93.  Phillips, at least, was a bit of a highlight at third overall in bWAR (4.8), playing at 2B, 3B, SS, and some OF.

Thankfully we're done with this team after this scan.  Moseby came over from Toronto and was one of five Tigers on this team to pop double-digit homers, but he offered little else and was done after the following season.  Henneman put up a pretty typical 8-6 record with 22 saves as the bullpen ace.  Aldred, Cuyler, Shelby, and Robinson contributed so little that I won't bother talking about them.  Finally, Travis Fryman, Detroit's first-rounder from 1987, made his debut.  While his 2.1 bWAR doesn't seem like much, he'd go on to a solid Tigers career that included a Silver Slugger award and four All-Star appearances before ending his career with Cleveland.  He and Fielder got a couple of cool horizontal shots in this set.

That does it for 1991 Topps, another solid, if basic, offering from the card giant.  That means I have one more set from Adam to show off starring a HOF rookie, some fun PC guys, and more terrible Tigers!