My Favorite Mail-In Cards Part 1

Another update for my on-going project with the 1980s Topps Glossy Mail sets.  I have set a goal of completing this project at some point during February, so still another month and a half left to track down a few more cards.  I explained the project and gave the original quantities needed for each set here, the update on the 1983 set is posted here, and the 1989 set is here. 

Today, I am going to post the 1986 set, which I finished off over the holidays.  I was out of town and had my mail held.  Had a blast opening up a few different packages from different collectors who helped me put together the final 18 cards that I needed for this set.  You are appreciated.  

There are 60 cards in this set, this is the first third. Have not quite decided if I am going to put the other two-thirds into a post, or do thirds straight across the board.  All of the cards in this set will be up at some point.   This was the first year that Topps used a larger checklist, so some of these cards are prospects from that year.  Let's get into the set, I will explain why I love these cards more than the other glossy mail-in sets.  

Scans are groups of three and remarkably straight.  

Not sure what happened to the Fernando end of the scan.  Did I open the scanner too soon?  It's possible.  There is little difference design wise between this set and the previous sets, or the ones that followed.  First, I love the photography with these cards.  So many little things in here.  Fernando doing that thing he did with his eyes before he threw the ball.  

This was not quite the end of Reggie's career, but this felt like a good possible farewell card, until Topps also put him in the 1987 Glossy Mail-In set.  It's the 1986 Jeter hat tip gif....

but about 25 years earlier. Reggie was around for a few years when I first started collecting, but I am not sure I gave him much thought.  Just an old guy on the Angels.  

Oddibe McDowell was a prospect in this set.  His 1985 Topps Olympic Team card is the first thing that comes to mind when I see him, but this is a nice card too.  Never panned out into anything spectacular, but he played in the Majors for seven years.  That's something.  

Balboni.  Meh.  

Rickey Henderson on the Yankees.  Meh.  Don't get me wrong, I really like Rickey Henderson, just never really got into his Yankees years.   

Jack Clark is something, especially to the 1986 version of me.  I started collecting cards in 1983 and my favorite team was the Cardinals, not the best year for the Cardinals.  Things weren't much better in 1984, but the 1985 Cardinals were the first time that I got to collect current Cardinals players who were on a good team.  

In the end, the first base umpire came up a little short, but still a great season for the Cardinals.  So many great memories of the different players.    

Jack Clark was a favorite and this was the best Jack Clark card in my collection at the time.  He was not a Cardinal for long, but this was one of the best home runs in the history of the team.  

Two minute video, but a minute and half of it is Jack Clark running around the bases really really slowly.  

McGee was another favorite Cardinals player.  Not sure McGee really had a specific great moment in 1985, but he won the National League batting title and won the N.L. MVP.  Solid outfielder for a long time.  

Parrish was a nice player, but I did not really get to see him much until later in his career.  He had that cool catcher's mitt with the orange padding.  

Hernandez was not well liked in St. Louis at this point.  Things have kind of cooled off in recent years with Hernandez becoming eligible of the Cardinals Hall of Fame, and he speaks nicely about the team and his time there.  

Probably not enough time, or space to rehash the reasons the Cardinals dumped him, but you can go look up the Pittsburgh Drug Trials.  You get the idea.  

Nice group of cards here with two Hall of Famers and Dave Parker.  Miss those Expos cards.  Ripken is Ripken, nice player, but I really do not have an opinion on him one way or another. 

I really like the Parker card.  Wrigley Field always makes a nice background, feel like I type that once a month, but this is also how I best remember Parker, with the Reds.  He's not a Hall of Famer, but he's close.  I was pretty young during his Pirate years, still had some great seasons in Cincinnati.  

Three Hall of Famers in this group.  Last year for Carew, not quite the end for Schmidt, but still one of his last few years.  Brett was in his prime at this point.  

Last group of cards, which includes my favorite card in the set.  

First off, Pasqua was a pretty promising prospect for the Yankees.  He played 60 games in 1985 and hit 9 home runs, also a local player from New Jersey. 

Hesketh was probably more than a prospect in this set.  He pitched most of 1985 in Montreal ending the year with a 10-5 record, 2.49 ERA, and a 3.3 WAR.  His season, and in many ways career ended when he was involved in a collision at home plate against the Dodgers.  

From the August 24th, 1985 Washington Post:  

In the second inning with Montreal leading, 1-0, U.L. Washington singled and Hesketh walked. Tim Raines hit a double to shallow center off the glove of Candy Maldonado. Washington scored and Hesketh tried to score all the way from first. But catcher Mike Scioscia blocked the plate and Hesketh tripped over Scioscia's foot, landing hard on his left leg. He was carried off the field on a stretcher and taken to a hospital where it was determined that he fractured his left shin bone. Hesketh, a rookie left-hander, is 10-5.

Hesketh ended up playing almost a decade in the Majors with the Expos, Braves, and Red Sox, but never came close to repeating the success he had in 1985.  All of which brings me to the last card for this post, which belongs to Vince Coleman.  

I have written several different times in my blog space about my 9 year old self loving the 1986 Vince Coleman cards.  His 1986 Topps cards is my all-time personal favorite Vince Coleman card.  A major highlight of my collecting during the 1980s.  

The 1986 Topps Glossy Send-In cards represented my second best Vince Coleman card.  At least according to the nine year old version of me.  The Glossy Coleman card was part of the 42 cards that I started out with when I starting working on this project, but after looking over my copy of the card, I decided that it had received a little too much love.  So, I actually found 19 cards to close out this portion of my project with an upgraded Coleman card without rounded corners and finger prints on the glossy finish.  

In case you thought Vince Coleman was just some failed Mets free agent....

he was a pretty spectacular weapon for the Whitey Herzog era Cardinals who did a lot of running.  He put a lot of pressure on defenses.  If you have five minutes and enjoy great base running, there is a video of him creating his own run with nobody else on the National League putting the ball into play during the 1988 All-Star game.  

Mail In Glossy Sets Update

I have really enjoyed this set project with the different mail glossy sets from the 1980s, and the single 1990s set, that Topps put out annually.  The original post is here, and I did one update in November when I completed the 1983 set.  My goal to complete all of the mail-in sets in February, so I am in good shape considering that I generally need a small quantity of cards from each of the sets.  

I was only missing two cards out of the 1989 set when I started a few months back and they were both Reds cards.  Makes me kind of wonder if they were not traded away at some point back in the day, or I put them in a package as a few bonus cards.  

The 1989 set has a little bit different feel then the mail-in sets from earlier in the decade.  First off, it is a larger set with 60 cards instead of 40.  The number of cards in the mail-in sets jumped starting with the 1986 set.  While some of the expanded checklist was filled with more veteran players, Topps also started putting a few prospect type players in these sets.  

Here is 1989.  The scans are still sorta crooked, it is bothering me less this time....

Pretty solid start to the set with two Hall of Famers, Boggs and Puckett, along with some other very good players.  Carter, Davis, and Cone were already solidly entrenched as star players by the time this set rolled out, but this is amongst the first sets to give a nod to Andy Van Slyke as a star player.  He was good with the Cardinals, but his career really took off after he was traded to the Pirates.  

Buhner is the first of the "prospect" cards to appear in the set.  Easy to remember him as a member of the 1990s Mariners team where he was one of the home run mashers who batted behind Griffey Jr.  At this point in his career he had been traded around from the Pirates to the Yankees to the Mariners and had failed to hit much of anything in two cups of coffee with the Yankees and another one with the Mariners.  

There are no Hall of Famers in this group of cards, but the five cards outside of Buhner were all excellent, well-liked players during the late 1980s.  Canseco was coming off of his 40-40 season and the A's had been to the World Series in 1988.  Clark had finish in the top 5 MVP voting two seasons in a row and had been to a World Series in the first three years of his career.  Gant and Hrbek are not right next to each other in the set, but pretty close.  

Coincidence?  

Solid group here with three Hall of Famers.  Love the Eck card with him mid delivery.  He made some crazy faces while he was pitching.  

The Juan Samuel card feels a little bit off in this group.  He was a really good player with the Phillies through the mid 1980s, but towards the end of the decade his numbers really fell off.  At his peak in 1987, Samuel had 80 extra base hits which included 28 home runs, a league leading 15 triples, and 37 doubles.  Add in 35 stolen bases and 100 RBIs and you've got a pretty spectacular player.  His 1988 was a far cry from his 1987 numbers, and 1989 was even worse.  

Two Hall of Famers here with Winfield and Alomar, Clemens should be there too.  HoJo and Bonilla were both good players at this point.  Although, as a Cardinals fan I was highly suspicious of Howard Johnson's power.  If you've never seen his run in with Tony Pena....

Gibson was another "prospect" card.  He was actually in his late 20s by the time he reached the Majors in 1988, 10 years removed from being a 3rd round pick by the Reds, and had been in the Tigers system since 1981.  The Reds gave up on him and released him.  He had a 2.93 ERA for the 1988 Tigers and finished out 18 games for the team.  Gibson actually ended the year with zero saves and pitched almost 100 innings.  Guessing he was used as a long reliever.  Gibson ended up playing eight years with the Tigers, Mets, and Yankees.   Not bad for getting to the Majors close to 30.  

Alan Trammell is a nice Hall of Fame card.  George Bell was fairly underrated, great power hitter.  The rest of these guys are alright.  Grace was a nice player too with a .300 career average and over 500 doubles.  Not a great stretch of cards here with Belcher and Hurst.  

Nice group of cards here with Henderson and Sandberg on the bottom row along with Evans.  Evans is not a Hall of Famer, but sort of in that tier of players right below.  Heard some good arguments to put him in Cooperstown.  Not sure I have looked at it enough to give my opinion.  

Top group is better than it looks.  Gaetti was a really good power hitter for the Twins.  Not a star player by any means, but I spent a good chunk of his career batting around Kirby Puckett, always good for 25-30 home runs.  He was the first base coach for the Durham Bulls when I first moved to North Carolina.  Classy guy.  

Glenn Davis was a really good power hitter for the Astros.  Seemed to disappear after he went to the Orioles.  Greenwell had a stretch of three of four years where he was one of the better hitters in the game, but just could not stay healthy. 

Yount and Ozzie make up the Hall of Fame contingent in this group.  Gooden had started to slide at this point, still a very good pitcher.  Also have the "little" version of Mark McGwire.  Look at those forearms.  Berryhill and Sabo are in here as prospects.  Berryhill was a high draft pick, fourth overall in 1984, of the Cubs, and ended up being a serviceable catcher.  Sabo was sort of a quick flash.  He was a nice player for a few years with the Reds, then he seemed to disappear.  

Love the Galarraga Expos card.  Cal Ripken and Paul Molitor are nice too.  Hershiser was coming off his career year with the Dodgers in 1988.  Stewart had helped pitch the A's into the World Series the previous year, also helped them back in 1989.  Browning was a good player too, one of the cards I was missing out of the set.  I will always remember his perfect game and that time he left the Reds dugout and sat on one of the rooftops across the street from Wrigley.  

Let's keep this one short.  Running on fumes here.  I love the Rock Raines card.  Dave Gallagher?  Seriously?  I had to go look, he actually did hit over .300 with an on-base over .350 in 1988.  Zero power though.  

Last group of cards.  This post feels like a party foul, should have been a Part 1 and Part 2 type of pos.  Danny Jackson was the second card I needed for this set.  The airbrushing on the Jack Clark card is a hot mess.  Little has changed over the past 30 years.  

I'm out.  More glossy cards later this month.  

Set Project: 1983-1990 Topps Glossy Send Ins

If you opened packs of Topps cards during the 1980s, you probably remember the contest cards that used to pop up every couple of packs.  They usually involved winning a trip to the All-Star game or Spring Training.  I think in the later 1980s Topps also offered collectors the chance to buy sweatshirts, or a chance to subscribe to Topps Magazine.  Cannot believe I passed up those opportunities.

I actually did save up my contest cards though, and at some point towards the end of each summer, I could usually convince my parents to get a money order to send in for a sweet stack of 10 glossy cards.  I actually think based on the number of cards in my collection, plus the fact that I probably split the cards my brother, I likely got a $4 dollar money order.

In retrospect as an adult, the fact that the money order probably cost $1 to buy, I am surprised my parents just didn't take me and my brother to the card shop to just buy the set of glossy send in cards. 

Four to six weeks later in the mail, we would have a stack of the glossy send-in cards.  They were really the same card design every year with a different colored border.  Still pretty exciting for the time when there were not many choices of sets to collect in the baseball card world.   

I have a few from 1983, but there are too many that are in too good of condition for them to be something that I actually got that year.  Plus, that was the first year I collected.  The first year where I actually have a somewhat significant amount of the glossy mail-ins cards is from 1984.  

Again, same design every year.  

I know that some of these cards that are in my collection have been with me since 1984.  They have rounded corners, or for some reason, the fronts of the cards are different colors than the backs of the cards.  A little weird considering my house was definitely smoke free.....

and I kept my cards in boxes and pages.  You can see the edges of this Quisenberry cards are a little bit yellowed, as is the Carew card above, especially when compared to the back of the card.  I'm actually guessing that I probably put these cards in sheets at some point.  I recall having a notebook for my cards later elementary school years that were filled with the best cards in my collection.  

In other words, my glossy mail-ins and Vince Coleman rookie cards.  

Other copies of these cards in my collection have clean white borders and no rounded edges.  Likely because I bought them as an older collector.  

The Raines card above is not well centered, but is a much better card than the Quisenberry.  There used to be a card shop in south St. Louis County off of Telegraph Road where I actually think I ended up with a lot of these cards.  The guy who owned the store had a lot of sets like these and the cards usually ended up in dime and quarter boxes.

Surprisingly, I have large amounts of most of these sets, but none of them are complete.  Of the sets that I have, I am actually missing a lot of the Cardinals out of the them.  Maybe they were not in the dime and quarter boxes at that store, or some other reason that I cannot think of at the moment.  

I am not going to post the checklists of all the Glossy Mail-In sets, but I will break down each of them and give a percentage that I am starting out at.  Some are going to be easy to finish, perhaps a COMC order, others I am going to spend a little time digging around for the cards.  I have a few road trips coming up in the next few months, plus there are a few card shows around here.   

1983 - 31 out of 40 78%  

1984 - 28 out of 40 70% 

There are several 1984 cards that I will likely replace since my only copies were clearly from my actually collection in 1984.  The seven year old me was not good with corners.  Really lower than 70%

1985- 35 out of 40 88%

These are all pristine, not sure I actually ordered any as a kid in 1985.  Maybe my brother ended up with all of them.  

1986- 42 out of 60 70%

1987-  22 out of 60 37%

1988- 42 out of 60 70%

1989- 58 out of 60 97%

1990- 55 out of 60 92% 

The percentages are all pretty high starting points, outside of the 1987 set, but I still need almost 100 cards, roughly, when taking into account all the different years that I am trying to assemble here.  I am going to say that this is going to take until February.  I will be shocked if I finish it sooner.  

I am going to tack a few other set projects onto this before the end of the year.