2018 other purchases: Topps sets from ARPSmith #4 (1993)

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'm writing this post while otherwise nervously sitting down and getting up, waiting for a game (game?  What game?) to start even though I probably won't be watching most of it because it's a very late start and not a sport I particularly care for.  It's the final one in this series, and the last set I grabbed from Adam was 1993 Topps.  I'll give you a quick rundown of where these four put me in my collection of Topps flagship sets, but first let's get a look at the star of today's show.

Switching things up from the norm Topps bumped up the number of cards from 792 to 825 with Series II responsible for the 33 extras.  I believe the addition of content starring the expansion Marlins and Rockies is responsible as collectors would want to get their mitts on some MLB history.  The card stock is also seemingly higher quality than earlier versions (and may be similar to the '92 version, I'm not sure).  And then there's one of my favorite changes:  bringing back multiplayer rookies!  Two- and four-player versions exist; a couple of the former are visible in the photo of the set in team bag form below while you'll see an example of the latter later.

Poorly photographed team-bagged set activate!:

Card #1 is Robin Yount so this image starts out strong, though most of the best numbers (ending in 0, etc.) are hidden within.  The McGriff/Frank Thomas All-Stars subset is the best of the rest.  But don't worry, I have plenty of good stuff to show you, starting off as usual with the RCs:

That's right, I said "RCs" as in plural.  1991 suffered from a dearth of good in-hindsight first-years but we get three very good players this time.  Jeter is naturally the best of the best here, and once again Adam was able to keep a copy because I've long since had one.  The one-time future Wolverine that got passed over by five teams in 1992's first round (how'd Phil Nevin work out, Astros fans?) went on to post a 72.4 bWAR that'll land him in Cooperstown soon.

The other two guys aren't exactly slouches either.  Kendall was chosen in that same first round by the Pirates and his 41.7 career bWAR was good for third overall (after Johnny Damon's 56.4).  Most of that value came over his nine seasons in Pittsburgh, though he'd eventually suit up for four other teams.

As for Jimmy Baseball, you'd have to go all the way back to the 1988 7th round to find Edmonds' draft slot.  The talented OF played above that position, though, starting with seven years with the Angels before really breaking out in St. Louis, and finished with a 60.4 bWAR.  The guy had good pop, twice hitting 42 homers and totaling 393, and was fun to watch in the field as well, making highlight catches like this one:


Next we have my player collections, totaling 14 cards:

This first group of nine includes a pair of newbies, and no, the Gwynn isn't one of them, but he does get a cool shot of a nice finish to his swing. 

Larkin, Sabo, and Morris are again a trio of Reds that were Wolverines, and they're joined by pitchers  Kamieniecki and Abbott.  I've long since acquired all of those for their various collections but it doesn't hurt to have them in set form too!

A pensive Lou Whitaker looks off in the distance, maybe wondering where his double play partner in crime is.  Next scan, Lou, next scan.

And that leaves today's pare of n00bs, Griffey and Maddux.  While I'd already picked up their All-Star cards you'll see in the next scan I somehow hadn't gotten around to finding the base versions.  I even have a sample of the Griffey card so it's not like I have any kind of excuse!  Anyway, I like the photos used on both--Griffey post-swing and Maddux with full extension after another pitch.

Ripken and Tram are the remaining regular base cards here: just a pair of horizontal HOF shortstops, one ranging to his right to make a play while still in the midst of his famous streak, and the other in a nice posed shot taken, I have to assume, at old Tiger Stadium.  It's certainly a nice duo.

The remainders are from the All-Star subset and feature the previously-seen Larkin, Griffey, and Maddux.  Tigers SS Travis Fryman joins Larkin as he beat out Cal for the ALers.

And finally, let's look at more Tigers from yet another terrible 90s team:

The '92 Tigers went 75-87, which probably won't surprise you as you look over this motley crew.  Tanana went 13-11 with a barely above 0 bWAR.  Fielder popped 35 homers with 124 RBI to provide a reasonable amount of value.  Tettleton joined Cecil and and Rob Deer in the 32+ homer club that season and tied the inimitable Tony Phillips with 5.0 bWAR.  Of course the three power-hungry guys all went over 131 Ks, which is what I most remember about Deer's game back then.

The rest of the guys aren't that interesting besides Barnes' first name.  Greene was another in a series of wasted first-round picks.

This scan doesn't have a lot going for it but does include a couple highlights.  One of those is not Knudson, Groome, Cuyler, or Hare, who each put up negative or nearly zero value.  Livingstone and his questionable rookie cup, Gullickson and his comedown from 20 wins in 1991, and Munoz, who wasn't awful out of the 'pen, also don't qualify.

That leaves us with the other two cards.  One stars Travis Fryman, who I mentioned earned an All-Star nod thanks to a nice 4.9 bWAR.  The other is the aforementioned four-player Top Prospects card.  I couldn't get enough of these, and this one is actually pretty good, not because of the Tigers representative, Ivan Cruz, obviously, but thanks to Braves/Padres guy Ryan Klesko.  You never knew if one or more of these guys would turn into stars and that made those cards fun.

And mercifully we're looking at the final group.  The first three guys didn't contribute much but you can see that Carreon is one of five cards to feature a throwback uniform in today's post.  Gladden is a guy I always remembered more as a Twin, though he began his career with the Giants.  Kreuter managed to put up a 1.0 bWAR in what little playing time he could get after Tettleton behind the plate.  Doherty and Henneman offered minimal value though the latter contributed 24 saves.  Clark was (stop me if you've heard this one) a wasted first-round pick, this time from way back in '86, and 1992 was his only season in Motown.  Finally, Topps got a bit economical by pairing up the skippers so Sparky is joined by Art Howe, then of the Astros, whose team looks like it should have been worse than Detroit's but bettered their AL counterparts by six games.  The 1990s Tigers, ladies and gentlemen!

Many thanks again to Adam for being great to work with, cutting me a nice deal, and doing a fantastic job of packing and shipping four big-ass complete sets safely to me!

As promised here's a quick rundown on my collection of Topps flagship sets:

• 1984-88
• 1991
• 1993-2010

At some point I'd like to add '89, '90, and '92, and it would be great to have '83 to go with them to give me a nice run starting from my birth year, but there's no rush.

Stay tuned soon for pickups from multiple shows and eBay, and maybe more!

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!

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.

2018 other purchases: Topps sets from ARPSmith #1 (1984)

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.

It's not quite opening day here in Michigan thanks to rain postponing the season opener until tomorrow.  Still, the return of the sport makes for a good reason to start this series which covers my first 2018 purchase, one that includes a ton of Tigers.

Topps' 1984 set, all 792 cards of it, was produced the last time Detroit won it all.  Since I was just a year old at the time I don't have the fondness for it that many of you do, but I still value the fact that it comes from an era when Topps wasn't mailing it in.  That's one reason I'm interested in filling out my complete set collection with some of Topps' efforts from around when I was born.  I also like the fact that it hits a nice number of my PCs, even if I've already acquired most of those cards individually.  But as you'll see in this series, each new set added at least one new card to one of my player collections, so that was a nice added bonus.

Adam did a great job of packing all four of the sets into team bags, usually about 40 cards at a time, hence the 20 bags seen here.  I thought it might be fun to give you all a look at some of the various subjects of the set even though most of you are already pretty familiar with it.  You can see a good number of stars up there like Dawson, Ripken, and--wait--

::enhance::
::enhance::
::enhance::

Confirmed:  Captain America is in this set, repeat:  Captain America is in this set!

Ok, let's start with the RCs I thought were the most important:

Mattingly is pretty much the only "key" first-year in the set at this point, though at least a few others are interesting.  Side note:  I told Adam to keep the Mattingly (and a few key cards from the other sets) to lower my cost and give him more bang for his buck too as I already had them.

The other three guys went on to pretty nice careers themselves.  Strawberry was a force until his demos caught up to him, Van Slyke put up a career bWAR over 40.0, and the late, do-everything Phillips went for about 51, a testament to his versatility and longevity.

Next up are the non-Tiger PC guys:

The Tony Gwynn that leads off this group is the only card of any player collection subject that was brand new to me here, but it's nice to have all of them in set form as well as some single versions.  Sorensen, Howe, Zahn, Boros, and Roberts are all Michigan Baseball guys, and you'll see two of them again in the next scan.  You also get two of Ripken's three issues in this set:  his All-Star subset and regular base.

These team leaders cards also serve as team checklists.  Zahn, Ripken, and Sorensen make repeat appearances from above.  Sorensen's poor team-best ERA led me to look up the '83 Indians and they were...not good.

And now we continue with the player collection theme, this time with those that were also Tigers in this set:

Gibby, Whitaker, and Tram are here, naturally.  I don't know my All-Star history well so I looked up why Gibson and Trammell didn't make it in '83.  Kirk had a bit of a down year that season before a nice bounce-back in '84, and I realized that he never made it to the Midsummer Classic!  Trammell, though, put up a typical 6.0 bWAR Trammell season, but lost out to Ripken, who to my surprise wasn't the starter, and top vote getter at the position Robin Yount.  Whitaker was a reserve behind Cleveland's Manny Trillo.

So Sweet Lou appears on three cards as he joins Cal in the All-Star subset, gets a regular base card, and also appears on Detroit's team leaders card with 2018 HOFer Jack Morris.  And the other guy I haven't mentioned yet is Tiger/Wolverine Rick Leach on his last cardboard appearance with Detroit before heading off to Toronto.

These final three scans capture the rest of the Tigers team set:

I know at least a bit about all of these players except Martin and Krenchicki.  Detroit drafted Martin in '78, traded him to the Cards a couple years later, purchased him back in '83, then saw him play his final Major League games that same season.  Krenchicki was a former first-rounder chosen by the Orioles who bounced around and lasted a bit longer but never amounted to much.  Meanwhile Brookens, Petry, and Morris were key members of the '84 champs.

Bailey and Gumpert are the unknowns for me here, with the former out of the pros after '83 and the latter bowing out after '87.  Of course everyone remembers HOF manager Sparky Anderson, who made history by winning titles in both leagues after the success of the '84 squad.  Castillo was a solid utility guy while Herndon manned LF.  Of the pitchers, Abbott and Bair were swingmen that mostly pitched out the 'pen, and Rozema was pretty much the fifth starter.

From this group Wilson and Jones weren't with the team in '84; Wilson was flipped to Philly in the deal that brought key guys Dave Bergman and Guillermo Hernandez to Motown before the season, and Jones fizzled out after signing with KC before that season.  Wilcox was excellent that year, going 17-8 over his 33 starts.  Lemon put up another strong season in center and his career 55.6 bWAR makes me think he lived up to being selected in the first round way back in '72.  Parrish was one of Detroit's best behind the plate and socked 33 homers in his third of five straight All-Star appearances.  And Morris was in good company in '83 in joining fellow HOFer Steve Carlton by leading his league in strikeouts with 232 (the only time he did so in his career) as the only ALer to go over 200.

I hope you all enjoy my look at this fun set from very early in my life.  Soon(ish) I'll get to the next one, and it won't require us to jump ahead in time very much at all!

2018 trade package #2: Arpsmith's Sportscard Obsession

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago I took a special interest when Arpsmith's Sportscard Obsession posted about his huge collection purchase, and after a bit of back and forth we came to a nice deal where I got four complete sets for a bit of Paypal.  Adam did an outstanding job of getting those packed up and shipped safely to me, and while he was at it he took advantage of the large flat rate box to send some Tigers and stuff my way as well.  Fortunately I was able to respond to his generosity with a large return package going back to the Giants collector.

Like I said, this box was huge and there was a lot for me to enjoy even without the sets (which I'll show off in one or more future posts), so you won't see everything here, but I'll at least show off my favorite stuff:

We'll kick things off with HOF manager Sparky Anderson, who doesn't show up in as many trade packages as you might think even though he was around during the 70s and 80s when skippers got a nice number of cardboard appearances.  He's followed by pitcher Jeremy Bonderman, a guy I wish got to play for better Tigers teams when he was healthy.  Then a couple Topps cards highlight a few of Detroit's recent bigger bats:  free agent J.D. Martinez plus Miguel Cabrera on one, and soon-to-be RF Nick Castellanos on the other.  Last up is MLBPA head Tony Clark, who has a lot of work to do to help his constituents this off-season.

This next scan hits multiple eras, starting with original HOFer Ty Cobb on a very cool UD insert, then a pair representing former 90s/00s Tiger/Red Juan Encarnacion.  1B/DH and '84 champ Darrell Evans takes us back to the 80s with cards from Topps/Quaker Oats and Score, then we go back a few years and fan favorite pitcher Mark Fidrych on an Archives reprint.  Then it's back to the future with the start of a nice little Cecil Fielder run, including Leaf Black Gold, a.k.a. "the way the base set should have looked".

Fielder and former teammate Travis Fryman are back-to-back in my Tigers box and in this scan as well.  Together they formed a very good half of an infield for a few years in the 90s, claiming a bunch of All-Star appearances between them.  I love that Adam found cool UD holograms of both!

The top row here finishes up the run of Fryman stuff from the end of this Tigers career.  That gives way to a beautiful Hank Greenberg base from one of Fleer's best Greats of the Game designs (read:  any of them).  Then we have five cards of Mike Henneman, one of the top closers in team history whose franchise saves record was eventually broken by Todd Jones.  I went back to look at his stats and was surprised by the number of wins (and decisions in general, I suppose) he earned:  49 in his first five seasons alone against 80 saves in the same span.  Bullpens sure are different now!

One more Henneman starts this scan and gives way to another great Tigers bullpen ace, Guillermo Hernandez (another Topps Archives example).  Fellow '84 champs and outfielders Larry Herndon and Chet Lemon can also be seen here, with the latter's Stadium Club being a nice highlight.  In between are former do-everything player Brandon Inge and Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline.  I love seeing Kaline in any trade package, especially when he appears on an awesome card like the Greats of the Game insert you see right down the middle.  Indifferent DH Victor Martinez closes out this scan.

Brand new 2018 Hall-of-Famer Jack Morris was the second largest beneficiary of this package with 13 cards/stickers, nine of which you can see here.  Since I'm fairly likely to have a large percentage of his 80s and junk wax-era base I really appreciated the variety you see here.  There's boxed sets, oddball, stickers from Fleer and Topps, and more!  Without looking there's a high probability that everything here is new to me except the '89 Bowman base since I own the complete set.  Wow!

Another quartet of Jack Morris starts this scan, and I believe the first two are new while the others are doubles from Topps Archives and Fan Favorites sets I really enjoyed.  Catcher Matt Nokes, Morris' teammate and a favorite of mine as a kid, follows with three cards himself.  Originally drafted by the Giants, Nokes was a Rookie of the Year contender in 1987 with a .289 AVG and 32 HR (a career high).  For some reason he lost the voting that year to some kid named McGwire.  Nokes took over for the next guy, Lance Parrish, who was behind the plate for the previous decade in Motown.  A perennial All-Star in Detroit, he was worth almost 40 bWAR and was a big contributor to the '84 champs.  I'll also note that that '82 Topps base was in such nice shape I first thought it must be a reprint or something!

Parrish starts off this scan then gives way to another of my fan favorite Tigers in Tony Phillips, who we'll see again in a bit.  Once again, RIP to the multi-talented Phillips who died two years ago on the 17th of this month.  Next to him is Rick Porcello, the streaky former Tiger now on the hill for the Red Sox, making a cameo.  After a couple cool issues of HOF C Pudge Rodriguez comes a trio of Pat Sheridan, a Michigan native I rooted for during his four years in Detroit.  Kudos to Adam for his keen eye on the Panini sticker which is actually listed under the White Sox in the checklist.  Sheridan is followed by reliable innings-eater Frank Tanana.

A bunch of cards of Mickey Tettleton is nice.  A bunch of Mickey Tettletons including a mid-90s Sportflix card?  A+!  I love that four of these six include the catchers gear even though Mickey was more known for his bat (and awesome stance in the batter's box!).  Pitcher Justin Thompson, who regrettably went to Texas in the regrettable trade for Juan Gonzalez, appears on a late 90s pair (which I appear to have reversed chronologically while scanning for some reason).  Last up is Justin Upton, one of the many Justins to have found himself leaving Motown during or after last season.

Here's a group of guys I separated because I don't have enough to give them their own place in the Tigers box, at least not yet in some cases.  I'll always remember Davis as a Red, and I'm sure most would agree with me.  Kapler's tenure as a manager should be interesting and I'm rooting for him to succeed.  Maybin joined Justin Verlander in winning a ring with last year's surprising Astros.  Norris is still young enough that his talent could pay dividends for the Tigers.  And Pena was sometimes a bright spot on some bad, bad Tigers teams.

And some vintage-y guys.  Pitcher John Hiller ('79 Topps) and OF Jerry Morales ('80) are the more recent ones.  Norm Cash's card hails from a 1985 Topps/Circle-K boxed set celebrating sluggers.  The Heilmann is from one of those comfortingly familiar 80s TCMA sets, and that reminds me that I should see how many I have.  Lastly, Horton and Northrup appear in a set that's familiar to me at least, a Dominos issue recalling the '68 champs.

Then there's some oddly-shaped stuff.  Pettis is a '90 Topps Mini League Leaders (#4 in steals in the AL) and Phillips makes another appearance on a '94 Fleer Extra bases extra long card.  Topps Chipz makes its first appearance in this post courtesy of former Tigers 2B Ian Kinsler, whose tenure in Detroit I much appreciated.  And finally, some stickers, including a Fleer Cloth version from the late 60s/early 70s!

One of the larger items was this '98 Zenith 5x7 of OF Bobby Higginson.  For those of you who weren't collecting around this time, these could be torn (or carefully cut) open to reveal a standard sized card inside.  We'll get to that in a second, but first, here's the back:

The pocket-type area for the card was right in the center, and you could carefully slice the back open to pop it out.  I didn't do the greatest job but I wasn't that worried since Higginson was kind of a jackass anyway:

Another example of fun cardboard innovation in the 90s!  The cut I made went through the front a bit but it still looks fine, and my reward is a Dante Bichette card, which I'll be happy to send to whomever would like my Rockies stuff.

Another big item (and big deal) that came out of the box was this '86 Donruss box bottom that includes both PC guy Kirk Gibson plus the previously seen Guillermo Hernandez (plus a card version of the Hank Aaron puzzle and Angel Doug DeCinces).  I already had the Gibby by itself but it's not in the greatest shape whereas the one in this panel looks pretty good.  Plus I love having the whole thing to go with the single piece.  Awesome!

And here's a few more Gibsons from the 80s.

The Higginson wasn't the only '98 Zenith 5x7 Adam gifted to me--I was excited to land this Barry Larkin as well!  I'm going to leave this one intact, at least for now, though I may pop one open at some point if I can find a second one.

I mentioned earlier that new HOFer Jack Morris appeared on the second most cards in this package, and #1 was this guy, fellow 2018 inductee Alan Trammell, with 14.  I just showed off my huge Tram haul from Sportlots so a number of these are dupes now, but Adam killed it with the selection with cards from 1982-2004 (including Sportflics!).

One of the items that was definitely new to me is the sticker you see in the upper-right.  While it may look just like the 1983 Topps version I already had, it's actually the O-Pee-Chee version.  Score!  (I mean, OPC!)

You just can't have one without the other, so even though I have one more player to get to, Tram's partner up-the-middle Lou Whitaker comes next.  There were 10 cards of him in this package so one was going to be singled out in its own scan.  Naturally I went with the excellent "turning two" photo on the Stadium Club card.

Last up is blog namesake guy Justin Verlander on more examples of Topps Chipz--three many of them, to be exact.  The first two are the base and Silver versions from 2013 while the other was produced in 2015.  And yes, I'm happy to say that I do have an example from the year in-between, so I won't have to chase one of those down to overcome any OCDness.

Adam, thanks for the enormous amount of stuff you sent me in what was a fantastic first trade.  It's always a great experience flipping through that much stuff and then getting to show it off.

Speaking of that, I've teased the fact that I purchased four sets from Adam's collection, which I'll show off soon, but for now here's a sneak peek:

(cat with picture for scale, did not come with package)