This is another one of those sets that probably deserves to be higher, but isn’t because the competition is so fierce. My colleague was shocked that I had 1986 Topps out of the Top 10, simply because he knows I’m kind of obsessed with it, but like I said at the outset: my own personal nostalgia will not enhance the merits of a set. 1985 Donruss is by far one of the strongest Donruss showings of the decade (I would rank it third), with a relatively strong Diamond King class, obviously strong unannounced rookies and of course the Two for the Title card with Mattingly and Winfield. But it isn’t as memorable when it comes to Rated Rookies (I think Danny Tartabull is the big pull), and for a Donruss set to be truly a great set, there needs to be a balance between RR’s and DK’s. This set makes it to the Top 10 based on the fact that it has the most memorable Puckett rookie (I think Kirby’s pontificating on the finer art of ‘rolling a strike,’ or curling oneself into a bowling ball shape and, with the help of friend provide an initial push, rolling down a declined plane towards a makeshift bowling-pin set up. And really, Puckett would know the proper way of excelling at this, as he bared more resemblance to a bowling ball than any other Major Leaguer this side of a late-career Tony Gwynn). It has the most valuable Clemens rookie, which really is a beautiful card. It also benefits from being released at the height of Donruss’ uncharacteristic ‘Professional-Level Photography’ years, 1984-1987 (when I was actively collecting Donruss sets, I always thought 1989 wasn’t that bad and 1990 was especially
optimistic, then they went into a death-spiral until I think it was 1994, which I remember were actually really nice-looking cards. In fact, 1994 was a pretty good year for card design; Donruss, Fleer, Flair, Collector’s Choice, UD—they were all appealing). And the best part about the photography from this set is that it never tries to be more than it is. Nothing gimmicky, just nice head and action shots. Until Upper Deck came along, Topps was really the one company that really ‘got it’ when it came to producing fun cards. Donruss design always had too much of a ‘techie’ feel to include fun cards (not including a few one-offs like the San Diego Chicken; I’ve gone into this before), and Fleer was usually so boring (good call Lang) that the only time they would let their hair down would be at the end of a set (and then only if the poor, tortured Fleer photographer somehow cornered a few straggly stars after an all-night booze session or paid them a few dollars out of his pocket to pal around before All-Star batting practice). Donruss didn’t need to make things more chummy or really even ‘fun’, and in fact, it would’ve ruined the aesthetic if they had tried.
And really, that black border with the little red stripes kicked some serious ass. Ask yourself, if you were Donruss, would you have trivialized the seriousness of a black border with little stripes with ‘fun’ cards? I didn’t think so. Really, it had enough going on already, and perhaps the best way to appreciate just how much, let’s open a pack.
Lou Gehrig Puzzle Pieces #55, 56, 57 Not bad, I got the copyright date information. Could’ve been worse: I could’ve gotten a nothing-doin’ border.
1. Alvin Davis, Mariners This is what I’m talking about: I love pictures where it shows the subject screwing up. Here’s Davis in full Tron getup blatantly checking his swing on a pretty good pitch to hit.
2. Jim Slaton, Angels This is another classic PLP (Professional-Level Photo) from Donruss. The crowd behind Slaton is just out of focus enough to suggest a photo editor at the company actively cultivated a love of Impressionism in his photographers.
3. Frank Tanana, Rangers Diamond King Awesome, a Diamond King! This is really cool, especially because it’s Tanana. In fact, it may be the only card of him where he’s squinting but his mouth is closed. When you look at his cards from earlier in his career, he’s got his mouth open at the most bizarre angles possible, like he’s daring you to figure out how he could accomplish such a thing.
4. Larry Sheets, Orioles Rated Rookie Remember all that crap I just said about there not being any dynamite Rated Rookies besides Tartabull? Well, you can just forget it. May I present to you Rated Rookie Larry Sheets, quite possibly the oldest looking rookie since Fernando Valenzuela. It’s probably Larry’s mustache; it makes him so grown-up.
5. Dave Von Ohlen, Cardinals Here’s something funny: Von Ohlen has blond hair (including an almost unnoticeable blond mustache), but if you look closely he’s got a little chest hair peeking out and it’s definitely brown. It also looks like he may be going bald under that Cardinals cap. If only the Cards adopted the mesh trucker hat…forward-thinking kids could’ve adopted it as a fashionable trend before anyone knew what emo was, and Von Ohlen could’ve grown in some chia-hair.
6. Dave Meier, Twins Wow. So tell me, who’s Dave Meier?
7. Roy Smalley, White Sox Check it out, Smalley’s rocking the ugliest uniform from the mid-1980s. That couple of days’ beard growth definitely helps.
8. Dan Ford, Orioles I loved that Dan Ford always had his shades on, and not cool shades like some guys had, but the Kent Tekulve/George Foster shades: big, unwieldy face-engulfing aviation-style glasses. Now I never once considered Kent Tekulve to be at the height of fashion, but then again, what do I know.
9. Cecilio Guante, Pirates I also loved that sometimes card companies referred to Guante as ‘Matt’. I never understood that. He also had horrible, corn-niblet teeth. I always thought he moonlighted as a bounty hunter. I can picture Guante with a large, semi-automatic machine gun slung over his shoulder and a Frankenstein stitch across one cheek, smoking the end of a Macanudo, nonchalantly holding a machete in one hand and resting the other on his hip. I mean really, can’t you? Take a look at his 1987 Topps card and you’ll see what I’m talking about.10. Jerry Willard, Indians About as opposite from Guante as you can get.
11. Jackie Gutierrez, Red Sox I’m just impressed that I actually got a Red Sox player, even if it is Gutierrez, though he bears a weird resemblance to Dwight Evans. Also, his dad competed for Colombia at the 1936 Olympics, which is totally awesome, and may be a rare example of Topps filching their back-of-card trivia from another, earlier set (this same factoid appears on the back of his 1987 Topps card).
12. Jeff Robinson, Giants This is a good example of this set’s strong headshot photography. The face is clear, it doesn’t look to be heavily airbrushed (unlike Topps), and the player looks, in a word, normal.
13. Keith Hernandez, Mets This is a good example of the old-style Donruss photo. It is not very good, with poor flesh tones, a slightly out of focus shot, and a posed action shot taken too close. Hernandez should’ve been farther away from the photographer, or better yet, the photographer should’ve splurged on parking and stayed for the game that day; he probably could’ve gotten a nice one of Hernandez in the field.
14. Donnie Scott, Rangers Nothing like a backup catcher trying to look tough. Scott looks so determined! Look at that furrowed brow! He’s even got a black bat! Too bad he’s the backup catcher for a lousy Rangers team–he could’ve taken over the world, one regular at-bat at a time.
15. Ken Oberkfell, Braves I used to confuse Oberkfell with Bob Horner all the time. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that Oberkfell probably got me with some kind of long-distance Jedi mind trick. It must have been the beard, the smiling Caddyshack gopher-esque head and body, because it certainly wasn’t the statistics. He probably had a good time in 1987 when Horner went off to Japan for the year: he had Atlanta all to himself to blow off the IRS, convincing them he was not the Oberkfell they were looking for.
Pack Analysis
Not great, but not bad, and pretty good as far as photography is considered. And really, you can’t argue against the design: that black border kicks ass no matter who the player is. Backup catcher Donnie Scott does look tough, thanks to the great lighting of his photo and the no-monkey-business black border, not to mention the little red stripes, which suggest there might be blood if you make him angry. And really, if a set can make the backup catchers of the league look intimidating, it’s doing something right.
When, in the course of baseball card set ranking related events, a person comes upon the 1980 Topps set, what does that person think? Does this set resonate or does the person even care? I, for one, never realized how much I cared until I spent a little quality time with it and now I realize that this set is one of the most underrated of the decade. It lacks the splash of later-decade Topps sets as it has very few subsets, the All-Star denotation is on regular cards and rookies (for the most part) are not announced. But it makes up for this lack of pageantry with a strong checklist, including the desirable 2nd year Ozzie Smith and third years of Molitor, Trammell and Murray, plus great cards of hobby powerhouses Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Yount, Winfield and a cache of others like Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose and Bench, Fisk and Yaz. And how could we forget: this set features the rookie of, according to Bill James, the fourth greatest left fielder to ever live, Mr. Rickey ‘Refers to Himself as Rickey’ Henderson.
I think that these last two points are huge. I started collecting right in the thick of things: there were already three card companies going strong, an upstart was encroaching on valuable space (Sportflics) and it would be less than three years before there would be 5 major players vying for my baseball card dollar. If I pined for a Bo Jackson card, I was pining for as many as six Bo Jackson cards, all of them with a legitimate claim to being his rookie. But with Rickey, there was only one set, so there’s only one rookie. And for there to be only one rookie of Rickey Henderson seems fitting, as he broke every mold the game had to offer. (And by the way, when Rickey finally gives up the ghost and officially retires from showing up newbies at Spring Training, he should call up former SuperSonic Michael Cage and they should join the WWE circuit as the tag team Steal Cage, and the WWE scriptwriters could pit them against other tag teams and then at Wrestlemania Cage could turn on Rickey and Rickey would enlist Dave Henderson (who would be a plant in the audience, much like Hasselhoff was at the American Idol finale) and Hendu would come in the ring and rip off his tear-away warm up pants to reveal yellow and green wrestling tights and stomper boots, and thus Steal Cage would be dead and the Flying Hendersons born. I don’t know what would happen to Michael Cage…maybe he could get Old Man Larry Nance off the couch to tag team as Achilles Knees…You know, you could put together a formidable pro-wrestling circuit made up entirely of former legitimate sports figures. Tree Rollins and Jon Koncak would be Ebony & Ivory, Dan Majerle and Darryl Dawkins would be ‘Thunder Brothers’ and Kurt Rambis could wrestle on his own as Oculoptopussy, cause Rambis wore glasses and because I personally hate the Lakers. In fact, I might pay around $10 to watch a battle royale featuring Hot Plate Williams, The Refrigerator Perry, Stanley Roberts, Don Baylor, Gabe Kapler, the Phillie Phanatic, Kevin Duckworth, Leon Lett and Rickey Henderson. I would bet Rickey would win that one, even if he was scripted to lose. He’s just that good.)
It was a fun design element that added a personal touch to the cards, blurring the line between player and collector, like the player had held his card only moments before you got it in your pack. The fact that Topps didn’t use this feature on any design after 1982 (I can only think of the silver and gold signature cards in Upper Deck’s Collector’s Choice series and one or two of Leaf’s Studio sets in the mid-1990s that did) leads me to believe that autographed baseball cards sets are so ludicrously popular today because my generation didn’t know cards could feature facsimile autographs. Can you imagine a clunker like 1990 Topps with facsimile autographs? I would argue they’d be more desirable than the quick-fix mudroom insulation they’ve become.
looking for a weird photo or a weird name or a player that’s especially hairy or ugly? Of course you have (maybe it was the reason you started collecting in the first place, to feel better about yourself). Usually any given set will be split 50/50 between weird and normal players, but if you take a look at the Atlanta Braves team, it’s like there was something in the water down there. Pull out their cards the next time you’re going through your box of 1980 Topps and you’ll see what I mean—it’s like a lineup for a less-intimidating version of The Dirty Dozen. No wonder they finished in the basement (even though Phil Niekro won 21 games, he lost 20. Now that’s some Hall of Fame pitching!).
To me, there is no denying that this is one of the cornerstone sets of the 1980s. It defined the rookie class for fans my age, it was quite possibly the set worth pining over, and one that I could realistically afford if I saved up my allowance for 6 months. It combined the classic design of 1986 Topps with the trademark brightness of Topps Traded. This set made you form bonds with commons like Dane Iorg, because even though he was a common, Goddammit, he was a common in ’86 Topps Traded. You know what I mean? Like I said in relation to Nettles, Oliver and Sutcliffe in the 1984 Topps Traded set, getting dumped by his former team in 1985 or 1986 did guys like Dane Iorg a great service. 
It breaks my heart that this set isn’t in the Top 10. I’ve been thinking about the Top 10 for a couple days now, pitting sets against each other just to make sure these rankings are fair and based on agreeable rules. But for all this rational thinking about rookie class, a full, quality checklist and other questions of value and worth, the emotional pull of a set like 1986 Topps is great.
a few moments after magic hour and captured a fantastic blue/green sky. For great examples of this, look at Nate Snell’s card and Roger Clemens’ card. Oh, and I almost forgot, a lot of the photos are of players doing a good job of looking pissed. Nolan Ryan is a good example, Razor Shines is another. I’m sure there are about a hundred others. Also—and I promise this is the last sidebar about the photos and design—what about those Pete Rose Hero Worship special cards at the beginning of the set? I liked them because, to me, looking at Rose through the years was like watching a Punch and 
Judy doll (or John Fogerty) age, year by year, and often not so gracefully: lots of hair, red cheeks and nose, and those sparklingly menacing eyes that could turn on you in a moment. His player card (card #1) made him look like a gigantic car from the 1930s: his legs running boards, his shins the whitewalls on the tires, his torso the cab and his face…well, I don’t know what his face is, but probably a bug-splattered windshield. And then you look at his Manager card later in the set and it’s like he’s a different person, somehow less iconic and more bus-stop, lunch-pail-
So besides me loving this set, why does it deserve to rank as high as it does? What makes it different from 1989 Donruss, which features more desirable rookies, or 1986 Fleer, which is basically the same checklist as ’86 Topps, only worth twice as much? It’s very simple: 1986 Topps is a classically simple set, blessed with second years of three hot shit players (Clemens, Puckett, Gooden), 2 rookie waves through the years (the initial Vince Coleman wave and the much longer Cecil Fielder rookie wave), a great design, special cards that rocked, great
All-Stars and, last but not least, the cards were cheap. They were cheap to buy, it was cheap to put together a set, hell even the cardboard was cheap (but cheap in a good way, unlike 1981 Donruss). Plus, coupled with the heartbreaking 1986 World Series, it was the set that captured a generation of little kids and turned them into baseball fans and baseball card collectors. 1986 Fleer is a boring-ass set. 1989 Donruss is fun, but ultimately just another set. And while 1986 Topps may not have a Canseco rookie or any big name, long-term rookies to speak of, it does have enough fun cards to sink a ship, the bizarre Pete Rose man/myth dichotomy and a pissed-off Nolan Ryan.
All right, I said from the outset that I wasn’t going to consider Sportflics sets in this countdown, then I reneged and said I would include the 1986 set, with the warning that it might be put perilously, improbably close to the top to the list. Then Lang gave me a hard time for not including the other Sportflics sets because I said that they all sort of ran together after the initial 1986 release. Well, I was going through an old box in my closet and came across an Eddie Murray from 1988 Sportflics (with the red and purple outlines) and you know what? I’m glad I’m not including that or any other Sportflics set made after 1986, nor the 1986 rookies set. You want to know why? Because after 1986 Sportflics wasn’t a novelty anymore. It was just another set (albeit just another set of super-cool, totally-unbelievable, scratchy-record-noise-making baseball cards that cost more than other cards and didn’t come very many to the pack). So I say to hell with all that.
You know, this set should really be higher than I have it here. This set is like the San Antonio Spurs: it might not be flashy, and in fact a little boring, but it gets the job done. In fact, despite my growing love of the 1981 set, ’84 gets it done more than any other Eighties Fleer set preceding it. Here’s a few non-flashy ways this set got it done and essentially helped shift the reins from Topps to Fleer and Donruss:
This was the last Topps set I routinely bought packs of. Oh sure, I collected full-time until 1995, but this set was Topps’ last great, pack-buying set. After this things got real complicated: inserts, better quality stock, a couple years of disappointing designs, plus after 1989 I had come to the realization that I probably shouldn’t buy packs just to buy them if I didn’t like the set. I was really into the 1990-94 Score sets, plus some of those Collectors Choice and Upper Deck sets from the mid-Nineties. I really liked the 1992 Topps design (their best of the decade) and bought the factory set on a special trip to Walgreens, and also wanted to like the 1993 and 1994 designs, but just couldn’t. 
You could make an argument that all 25 of these guys, simply by having a denoted rookie card, were a part of rookie-related hype. But 15 out of the 25 were—however briefly—worthy of the hype. How often does that happen? We see it in the 1984 Traded sets, we see it in the 1986-87 rookie crop and now here in the 1988 update/rookie/traded and 1989 sets, and I’m not getting into 1980-83 because I honestly didn’t collect cards nor was conscious of too much baseball (I was 1 to 4 years old). 
’85 Fleer is one of those sets you read about in Beckett when you’re a little kid and you just know you’ll never be able to afford, then you read about it when you’re older and you still can’t afford it, and then, like an epiphany, you realize that you’re on salary and maybe you can afford to buy one or two packs of them, just to see what it was all about. Similarly, I only watched The Terminator for the first time a few years ago. And let me tell you, that was a fucking awesome movie. That guy in the trench coat, the one who Linda Hamilton has sex with and gets pregnant with, man he’s a fucking star in that film! Plus, didn’t Cameron score that movie himself? Anyway, like my searching out The Terminator and utterly enjoying the hell out of it, I searched out a pack of 1985 Fleer and will open it, right now (forget unopened pack value), just to see what it was all about (this is something I will be doing a lot of with the rest of the countdown).
stadium backdrop, and it’s obvious that some of these photos were taken during games. Like Haas’ photo: there are people in the stands, but only 3 or 4. It’s like someone upstairs really had it in for the Fleer photographer (probably because of the 1982 set) and divined fans to stay home the day he or she had to take that year’s photos.
Over the past few days, I’ve been taking a nice break from baseball card writing. I took in a show at the Holy Cross [Abandoned Catholic] School on West 43rd Street yesterday, which was great. I stocked up on cheap star cards from 1977 – 1984, including a nice 1983 Fleer Sandberg rookie and that Aurelio Rodriguez from the 1969 set (you know, the one that’s really the bat boy). I also ordered some old packs from Burbank Sportscards, which arrived yesterday. But mostly I spent my time thinking about what the real difference is between the three update/rookie/traded sets from 1986.
I would like to go on record and say that 1988 is one of the most underrated Topps sets of the 1980s, and you can base that decision on a great checklist, or those fantastic Team Leaders cards, or because it had one of the best All-Star card designs of the decade. Or you can base this decision purely on the photography. Crisp, dynamic; card after card featuring a great action shot or a clean headshot. Topps photography (hell, baseball card photography, regardless of manufacturer) sucked for many years, with maybe under 100 cards total that you could agree featured great photos (amassed from
the random years along the timeline featuring good photography (that was straight-up photography, not colored over like in 1952, 53 or 55): 1954, 1957, 1960, 1961, 1965, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1985, 1986). But in the 1988 set there are literally hundreds of great photos. I can picture a few of them in my head without prompt: the iconic Mattingly (him looking skyward, following the arc of a sure hit (or at least a long fly)), the powerful Clemens at the end of a windup, Brett’s massive frame in smooth follow-through, the cocksure McGwire, 
the pure hitting motion of Boggs, the hopeful Al Leiter (and pseudo-Leiter) in a shroud of deep blue dusk, the glory of Dave LaPoint, the King of the Airbrushed Card; even the chainlink fence behind him was airbrushed in (the background was probably originally the Oval Office, the photo taken on the day that outgoing President Reagan made it a priority to award Senior Superlatives and LaPoint somehow beat Meadowlark Lemon for Best Smile. And by the way, aren't the Globetrotters always turning up at the White House? It's odd, really...they should be made Ambassadors, and not just 'of the game', because that's lame, but real ambassadors to a country in Europe, like Belgium or somewhere). Anyway, the photography lends itself well to a lyrical wax. 
Okay, so photography aside you probably think this set is ranked way too high: you think it’s too bland a design (a mix of the 1967 team name dropped out over the background and the 1966 mini banner in a corner), that there are really no major rookies and practically no subsets. I would argue that, despite everything I’ve said in the past about the make-up of a strong set, 1988 Topps is the exception that proves the rule: it does have a weak rookie class. Tom Glavine, Ken Caminiti, Doug Jones—this is the definition of weak (did you notice that the third guy mentioned is Doug Jones? He of the Sam Elliott Cowboy Mustache?
As to value, this set is worthless, and deservedly so. As stated before, there is no real rookie class to speak of and everybody knows that second-year cards do not hold a candle to rookies in terms of value. But all these things do not hinder the set’s worthiness as a fun, collectible set. 1981 nor 1984 have any real value. Hell, no Topps set after 1985 has enjoyed any real, lasting monetary value, but valueless cards do not a bad set make.
