As a fan of the Fleer design for the first five years that I collected baseball cards, the 1988 Fleer design stands out in a negative way to me. It was a bland, boring, by-the-book choice which in retrospect seems even more odd as I revisited some of the colorful counterparts utilized in their own subsets from the same year! Perhaps this would be a forgivable offense in most years, but Fleer would find themselves in a fierce battle for relevance with upstarts like Score (1988) and Upper Deck (1989) entering the competition for collector dollars as the Eighties drew to a close. 

Corby Corner

Coming off the 1987 season of home runs and big name rookies, as well as what I thought to be really solid card layouts from all three companies, Fleer followed suit with the others and landed with a thud. The red, white and blue background felt simple and safe, not where they had gone the two years prior. Sadly, there weren’t really any rookies in this class to make these cards shine a little more. By this point the hobby of baseball card collecting had become more of a business, and I believe less time was spent on creating a card that was aesthetically pleasing and rather focus was on cranking out as many as possible. Looking back, I feel this was the year that began the fall of the industry

Favorite Card

Derek – Ken Dayley (#30) – two gloves are better than one!

Tom – I will go back to the player that I felt really was a Hall of Famer until injuries derailed him, Eric Davis (#231). I collected his cards en masse and I really liked this one as you see that whip-like swing had just completed.

Features

White borders accented with red and blue diagonal lines anchor the borders of the 1988 Fleer cards. The player’s name and primary position appear above the photograph, near the upper left corner while the team logo sits in the top right. The card backs denote the player’s biographical information across the top section. The mid-section outlines their yearly statistical output and the bottom third is devoted to “At Their Best – MLB Stat Breakdown” which replaces the Career Highlights news and notes from previous Fleer sets. 

The team checklist again runs in order from the previous season’s final standings, so the 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins lead off this year’s batch. Cards # 622 through # 640 are devoted to pairs and a few trios of ballplayers with headings such as “Slugging Sophomores” (#622, Wally Joyner and Cory Snyder) and “Crunch Time” (#637, Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis). Rookie prospects are depicted two at a time in cards # 641 through 653) and seven checklists round out the set. 

The Glossy set returns after debuting in ‘87 and parallels the base checklist, the only difference being the glossy feel on the front of the cards. The Update set includes the usual 132 extension of the base set with rookies and players traded since the start of the ‘88 season. Fleer produced a similar number of subsets compared to the previous campaign, some of which were intended for exclusive distribution by Toys R Us, Cumberland Farms and other stores. 

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Update $10, All-Stars $6, Headliners $5, World Series $2, Update Glossy $15, Award Winners $5, Baseball All-Stars $5, Baseball MVP’s $5, Exciting Stars $5, Hottest Stars $5, League Leaders $5, Mini $10, Record Setters $5, Sluggers/Pitchers $5, Sticker Cards $15, Superstars $5, Team Leaders $5.  

One-and-Dones

The players listed below made their lone appearance on a regular-issue baseball card in the 1988 Fleer set. Appearances on multi-player “rookie” or “top prospect” cards are not included – this is limited to individual cards for each particular player.

Steve Stanicek (# 174) – The older of two Stanicek brothers to reach the Major Leagues, Steve began his journey as the #1 selection of the San Francisco Giants in the June 1982 Amateur Draft. His sibling Pete recorded a slash line of .243/.319/.307 with 4 round-trippers for Baltimore during the 1987 and 1988 seasons. Primarily a corner infielder before adding outfield duties to his resume in the latter half of his career, Steve contributed a .243 BA with 19 jacks spanning the last month of the ‘82 campaign plus all of ‘83 at Fresno (A). He spent the next two years with the Shreveport Captains (AA), averaging .262 with 9 dingers per year. Dealt in March 1986 to the Brewers in return for outfielder Rob DeWolf, Stanicek reported to the El Paso Diablos (AA) and put on a season-long show on offense as he slashed .343/.448/.583 with 40 two-baggers, 25 circuit clouts and a career-high 116 runs scored. The fireworks continued in ‘87 with a promotion to the Denver Zephyrs (AAA). Stanicek matched his doubles and home run output from the prior campaign while knocking in a personal-best 106 baserunners and producing a slash line of .352/.396/.616. Milwaukee called him up to the big leagues and he debuted as a pinch-hitter for Ernie Riles against veteran southpaw Tommy John on September 16, 1987. The Brew Crew trailed the Bronx Bombers 4-2 in the visitor’s half of the seventh. Stanicek stepped up to the dish with one out and Mike Felder on first base. He hit a ground ball towards third base and Mike Pagliarulo was unable to handle it cleanly. “TJ” was lifted from the game in favor of the tall righthander, Tim Stoddard. Felder advanced to third on Paul Molitor’s fly ball to center, so there were runners at the corners with two outs. Felder scored and Stanicek advanced to second on a wild pitch. Robin Yount followed with a liner between shortstop and third, plating Stanicek with the tying run! After Yount swiped second base, Glenn Braggs tripled to deep right, scoring Yount with the deciding run in the Brewers 5-4 victory. Two days later the Brewers were trailing the Tigers 7-1 heading into the top of the ninth at Tiger Stadium. Sparky Anderson sat Walt Terrell down after he pitched 8 innings of 1-run ball in favor of Mike Henneman. Rob Deer lined out to third-sacker Tom Brookens for the first out, but B.J. Surhoff ripped a double to left-center field. Dale Sveum belted a two-run blast to cut Detroit’s advantage to 7-3. Ernie Riles slapped a base hit to center. Anderson waited until Rick Manning was announced as the pinch-hitter for Juan Castillo, then he summoned left-hander Willie Hernandez from the bullpen. Brewers’ skipper Tom Trebelhorn countered with Stanicek, who promptly singled to left for his first Major League hit. Paul Molitor swatted a three-run big fly, stunning the Motor City fan base as the Brew Crew mounted a fierce comeback! With the lead down to a single run at 7-6, Anderson removed Hernandez from the contest and called upon Eric King. Robin Yount grounded out to second base for the second out but Glenn Braggs beat out an infield single to shortstop to keep the rally alive. Finally, King retired Greg Brock on a fly ball to center. Stanicek received his lone starting assignment on the following day (September 19, 1987). Batting seventh in the lineup as the designated hitter and facing Tigers’ right-hander Doyle Alexander, he lined a single to shallow center field to advance B.J. Surhoff from second to third base with one away in the second inning. Alexander escaped the frame without allowing a run when Surhoff was gunned down at home on a fielder’s choice grounder to first and a 5-4 ground out by Paul Molitor. Stanicek flew out twice and whiffed to finish the contest with one hit in four trips to the dish as the Tigers outlasted the Brewers, 5-2. Stanicek struck out against Dave Righetti leading off the ninth inning in a thrilling 9-8, come-from-behind victory at County Stadium on September 23, 1987. Stanicek’s final tally for the ‘87 campaign included 2 hits in 7 at-bats with a couple of runs scored. In 1988, he didn’t make the Opening Day roster for the Brew Crew and headed back to Denver where he appeared in only 27 games due to injuries. He was released by Milwaukee in October 1988 and signed a minor league deal with the Phillies in January 1989. Stanicek batted .285 with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons (AAA) to earn another cup of coffee. Recalled when rosters expanded from 25 to 40 in September, Stanicek made a grand total of nine plate appearances, all as a pinch-hitter. His lone base hit with the Fightin’ Phillies came on September 9, 1989, facing Expos’ southpaw Zane Smith. Philadelphia trailed Montreal 5-1 in the seventh frame when Randy Ready clubbed a one-out pinch-double to deep center field. Stanicek, batting in the nine hole for reliever Todd Frohwirth, laced a single to short right-center to drive in Ready. The Phillies tied the game at 5-5 in the top of the ninth on a three-run jack by Dickie Thon (off Tim Burke), but the Expos prevailed 6-5 when Andres Galarraga doubled with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and scored on a base hit by Hubie Brooks against losing pitcher Jeff Parrett. The final at-bat of Stanicek’s Major League career occurred on October 1, 1989 versus Montreal. Leading off the seventh inning against reliever Rich Thompson, Stanicek hit the ball back to the pitcher, who threw to first base for the out. Career MLB totals included a .188 BA (3-for-16) with 2 runs and 1 RBI. Returning to the Phillies Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania for the 1990 campaign, Stanicek compiled a .282 BA with 23 doubles, 10 dingers and 76 ribbies before hanging up his spikes. 

Bill Lindsey (# 403) – This Broward College backstop was drafted twice in 1979 by the Cardinals and the Angels (when there were January and June phases of the draft) but he failed to sign with either organization. Instead, Lindsey inked a deal with the Yankees as an amateur free agent in April 1981. He toiled in the Bronx Bombers farm system for six seasons prior to being dealt to the White Sox in December 1986 as the “player to be named later” in a six-player swap near the trade deadline (July 30, 1986) – a deal which sent Ron Hassey and Carlos Martinez to the Pale Hose in exchange for Ron Kittle, Joel Skinner and Wayne Tolleson. He showed promise in Rookie Ball playing for the Paintsville Yankees, where he slashed .296/.343/.506 with 8 round-trippers in 176 plate appearances. Lindsey rapped 20 two-base knocks and posted an OBP of .372 for the Greensboro Hornets (A) in ‘82. He slumped a bit over the next couple of years before rebounding offensively with 21 doubles to complement a .365 OBP while spending the majority of the ‘85 campaign with the Albany-Colonie (AA) squad. The backstop repeated Double-A ball in his final year as a Yankees farmhand in ‘86, notching career-highs in homers (12) and RBI (66). Due to Ron Hassey’s injured knees and Ron Karkovice’s feeble offensive production (.071 BA – 6 hits in 85 AB), Chicago elected to promote Lindsey in July 1987 to back up veteran Carlton Fisk behind the dish. At the time of his call-up, he was hitting .282 with eight circuit clouts for the Birmingham Barons (AA). White Sox skipper Jim Fregosi penciled Lindsey’s name into the starting lineup on July 18, 1987 and the backstop made his big-league debut batting ninth. Facing the Indians ace, knuckleballer Tom Candiotti, Lindsey rapped into a 5-3 double play in his first at-bat. He popped up to shortstop in the fifth, then delivered a single to left in the subsequent frame. With a groundout to relief pitcher Reggie Ritter in the seventh, Lindsey finished the game 1-for-4. Eight days later, he received a starting assignment against Ron “Louisiana Lightning” Guidry at Comiskey Park. Lindsey grounded out twice and layed down a successful sacrifice bunt. Fregosi inserted the rookie backstop on August 2, 1987, ironically making his lone appearance at an opponent’s ballpark. Squaring off against the Brewers’ starter Chris Bosio, he fouled out to right fielder Glenn Braggs in the second and struck out looking with reliever Jay Aldrich on the bump in the fourth. Lindsey logged another successful sacrifice bunt in the sixth off Chuck Crim and collected an infield hit to third sacker Steve Kiefer leading off the eighth versus Mark Clear. He earned playing time in five contests over the next week, going 0-for-6 to drop his batting average to .133. The White Sox were getting demolished by the Blue Jays on August 3, 1987 by a score of 14-4. Pinch-hitting for Ozzie Guillen in the home half of the eighth, the rookie backstop notched his lone RBI as a big-leaguer when he lofted a fly ball to left field deep enough to drive in Ken Williams. Lindsey scored his first run in the Majors during the second game of a double-header on August 8, 1987. The Sox held a 5-4 advantage in the seventh when Ivan Calderon and Ron Hassey produced back-to-back base hits. Fregosi sent Lindsey in to pinch-run for Hassey. Greg Walker singled to right, scoring Calderon from third and moving Lindsey up to second base. He moved to third on a fielder’s choice grounder off the bat of Steve “Psycho” Lyons. Williams followed with a double to right field, knocking in Lindsey and Lyons, but the inning ended as Williams unsuccessfully tried to advance to third base. Bill Schroeder laced a two-run single in the top of the eighth inning but Bobby Thigpen secured the 8-6 victory with a six-out save. Lindsey sat for nine days before making his final MLB appearance. Trailing Boston 12-6 in the ninth inning, he entered the game as a defensive replacement for Hassey. In the bottom of the frame, Lindsey rapped a one-out single off southpaw Joe Sambito. Walker promptly blasted a two-run bomb to deep right field. Lindsey’s career totals include a .188 BA (3-for-16) with 2 runs scored and an RBI. He batted .280 with six big-flies for the Vancouver Canadians before calling it a career at the conclusion of the 1988 season.

Did You Know?

Fleer introduced the “At Their Best – MLB Stat Breakdown” to the lower third of the card backs, replacing the “Career Highlights” section. “At Their Best” incorporated day/night and home/road splits for each player from the previous campaign utilizing batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage for hitters and earned run average, wins and losses for pitchers.

Errors

The 1988 Fleer set does not contain any significant error variations. 

Rookie Cards

Tom Glavine, Mark Grace, Ken Caminiti and Gregg Jefferies are among the players making their cardboard debuts in the ’88 Fleer set while future HOF’ers Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio and John Smoltz notched their inaugural appearances in the ‘88 Fleer Update. 

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (1997 edition) cataloged the 1988 Fleer Baseball complete set at $20 while the 1988 Fleer Update set logged a $10 value. 

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1988 Fleer baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1988 Fleer Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1988+fleer&year_start=1988

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/121/1988-Fleer

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  

Hardball Architects examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Retroactive is a modest collection of selected articles that I have written for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog since 2010. Exclusive content includes the chapter on “Minors vs. Majors” which assesses every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

A half-decade of innovative design came to a screeching halt as the 1988 Donruss offering featured a rather bland format on the card fronts. The photography remained on par with previous efforts but the border and overall layout failed to impress me. The ‘88 sets in general suffer from a dearth of prospects when compared to prior seasons. Donruss could be forgiven for an off-year but several new manufacturers joined the ranks as the decade drew to a close and the fight for collector’s attention led to additional bloat in product lines. 

Corby Corner

1988 represented the turning point in 1980’s card collecting to me. It was at this moment that it became a business and printing cards meant printing cash for the companies. Sadly this left too many cards of average players in the mix. Coming off of what I felt was the strongest and most consistent four years of cards by any company in the business overall, the 1988 Donruss set disappointed. Now I understand that a set is only as good as the players within, especially the rookies, but this set struggled on players and design. The background felt “safe” and not what the last two years of Donruss cards embodied. The pictures were mostly standstill shots, the “Rated Rookies” didn’t really create excitement, and the one ballyhooed rookie, Gregg Jefferies, never really panned out. Every year can’t have an ‘83 rookie crop, but this one was flat and really hurt all sets during the year. I was willing to give Donruss a mulligan after their climb the past five years and looked forward to 1989. Little did I know…

Features

The 1988 Donruss cards consist of a predominantly blue border with several black and red accents. The player’s name and primary position are listed in white on a red background towards the bottom of the card. The Donruss ‘88 logo appears in the top left corner while the player’s team logo sits near the bottom right. 

Diamond Kings (one player per team) run from card 1 through 26 with a “DK” checklist included as card # 27 highlighted by Mark McGwire (#1) and Cal Ripken Jr. (#26). The Rated Rookies subset (card 28 through 47) features Roberto Alomar (#34) and Mark Grace (#40). The “Ripken Baseball Family (Billy Ripken / Cal Ripken Sr. / Cal Ripken Jr.)” is depicted on card # 625 and Stan Musial puzzle appears on card # 641. 

Donruss eliminated their Highlights and Opening Day offerings in favor of a 336-card “Baseball’s Best” set which borrowed the design from the standard ‘88 Donruss set but modified the border colors to orange and black. The Rookies set also shared a similar appearance while utilizing a green, red and black border. Brady Anderson and Chris Sabo top a mediocre lineup in the Rookies set. All-Stars, Pop-Ups and Super DK’s survived the cut for another go-round in ‘88. Donruss inserted bonus MVP’s into random wax and rack packs. The only way to distinguish the MVP’s from the standard cards is the “MVP” logo on the front and the “BC” (bonus card) prefix in the card numbering on the backs. 

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Rookies $15, Baseball’s Best $15, All-Stars $8, Bonus MVP’s $3, Pop-Ups $5, Super DK’s $12. 

One-and-Dones

The players listed below made their lone appearance on a regular-issue baseball card in the 1988 Donruss set. Appearances on multi-player “rookie” or “top prospect” cards are not included – this is limited to individual cards for each particular player.

Manny Hernandez (# 481) – The long road to the Majors began in November 1978 when Manny Hernandez signed a contract with the Houston Astros as a 17-year-old amateur free agent. He registered a pair of wins along with a 2.57 ERA in nine relief outings during his inaugural campaign in the Gulf Coast League in ‘79. Hernandez won 5 of 7 decisions in the following year for the GCL Astros before spending three successive seasons (1981-83) with the Daytona Beach (A) squad where he compiled a 22-14 record with an ERA of 3.82. The right-handed continued his slow march to the Majors over the next three years with the Tucson Toros (AAA). He finally reached the big leagues in June 1986 when Houston needed a healthy arm in the starting rotation to replace the injured Nolan Ryan. The “Ryan Express” was placed on the 21-day disabled list with an elbow injury (New York Times, June 2, 1986). Hernandez took the mound at Dodger Stadium on June 5, 1986 and held Los Angeles to 3 hits in 5 ⅔ innings. After notching his first MLB strikeout (Mike A. Marshall in the fourth inning), he was saddled with a hard-luck 1-0 defeat after serving up a triple to Steve Sax and a sacrifice fly to Ken Landreaux in the bottom of the sixth inning. One week later he claimed his first MLB victory, 4-1 over the Giants when he yielded one run in 5 ⅔ innings. His ERA climbed from 1.59 to 2.86 with a pair of sub-par starts at Cincinnati and San Francisco whereupon Ryan was activated and reclaimed his spot in the rotation. Hernandez recorded a victory with a scoreless inning in relief against the Dodgers on June 29, 1986 but the Padres roughed him up two days later (⅓ IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 4 ER) resulting in a demotion to triple-A. He continued to pitch well for Tucson and earned a September call-up. In three relief appearances, Hernandez hurled 4 ⅓ IP with 4 strikeouts and only one earned run to finish his rookie year with a record of 2-3 and an ERA of 3.90. He returned to Tucson and compiled a 3.00 ERA with a 1.056 WHIP in 9 starts to merit a September call-up. Hernandez held the Cubs to three runs (one earned) over 7 innings in a home start against the Cubs on September 1, 1987 but he was saddled with a 3-2 loss. His ERA swelled from 1.29 to 5.40 by the end of the season and Hernandez registered an 0-4 mark in 6 appearances (3 starts). Back with the Toros for a fifth consecutive season and pitching in his eleventh year of professional baseball, Hernandez logged a pedestrian 10-9 record in 30 starts along with an ERA of 4.24. He was granted free agency in October 1988 and latched on with Minnesota one month later. The veteran minor leaguer was released in August 1989 after posting a 9-8 mark with a 3.91 ERA for the Portland Beavers (AAA). The Mets quickly signed him and he pitched “lights-out” for the Tidewater Tides. Over 7 appearances (6 starts) he fashioned an ERA of 1.69 and a WHIP of 0.914 to earn one last promotion to the big leagues. New York trailed Montreal 10-1 in the sixth inning on September 16, 1989 when Hernandez was summoned from the bullpen. The right-hander retired the Expos in order, inducing a pair of groundouts sandwiched around a swinging strikeout of catcher Mike R. Fitzgerald. Overall his MLB career statistics include a 2-7 record with a 4.47 ERA in 50 ⅓ innings pitched. He notched 12 victories in 23 decisions for Tidewater in ‘90 but the Mets did not add him to the expanded roster in September. Hernandez pitched one more minor league season, splitting time between the Tides and the Brewers triple-A affiliate in Denver while logging only 29 innings on the mound. He spent two campaigns with the Brother Elephants in Taipei (1995-96) and yielded a 10-12 mark before calling it a career.  

Tom Newell (# 604) – Selected in the 24th round of the June 1983 Amateur Draft by the Fightin’ Phillies, Tom Newell was assigned to Helena (Rk) where he commenced his professional career as an outfielder. He compiled a .274 BA in 130 plate appearances but struggled mightily in the subsequent season as he slashed 185/.272/.237 for Bend (A-). Converted to a starting pitcher in ’85, Newell battled control issues but managed an ERA of 3.82 with Spartanburg (A). He showed significant improvement during the 1986 campaign as he fashioned a 2.90 ERA and reduced his WHIP from 1.520 to 1.297 across 27 outings (17 starts) for Clearwater (A) and Portland (AAA). Newell’s control problems resurfaced as he started 28 games for the Maine Guides (AAA) in ’87 with a composite 1.512 WHIP. Yet the Phillies promoted him to the big lesgues in September. Skipper Lee Elia summoned Newell in the eighth inning as his ballclub trailed the Mets 9-5 on September 9, 1987. He retired Tim Teufel on a grounder to shortstop. Dave Magadan drew a base on balls, and then Darryl Strawberry clubbed a long drive deep into the left field seats. Kevin McReynolds and Gary Carter delivered successive singles to right, chasing Newell in favor of Freddie Toliver. Nine days later, the Expos roughed up Bruce Ruffin and Elia called upon the rookie right-hander with one out in the fourth, Phillies behind 4-0. Newell got Vance Law on a fly ball and issued an intentional pass to Mike R. Fitzgerald to bring the opposing starter to the plate. Newell notched his lone MLB strikeout when Bryn Smith went down looking. Tim Raines led off the next frame with a walk and promptly pilfered second base. Mitch Webster laced a triple down the right field line. Elia again brought Toliver out of tte pen. A sacrifice fly to right off the bat of Hubie Brooks closed the book on Newell’s outing. He did not appear in any more contests for Philly in September and thus finished the season and his MLB career with a 36.00 ERA. Newell backslid to Double-A in the middle of the ’88 campaign after he dropped 5 of 6 decisions while posting an ERA of 6.14 with Maine. After missing the entire 1989 season, Newell agreed to a minor league deal with the Yankees. He concluded his professional baseball career with a pair of sub-par seasons as a spare part in the NY farm system, yielding a 5.50 ERA between high-A and triple-A ball.   

Randall Byers (# 605) – A four-time draft pick during the years when the MLB held their amateur draft in January and June of each year, Byers finally agreed to a contract after San Diego selected him in the first round (eight overall) of the 1984 MLB January Draft-Secondary Phase. He reported to the Spokane Indians (A-) where he played in 69 contests and batted .231 with 43 RBI and 13 stolen bases as a 19-year-old. He established personal-bests with 32 two-baggers and 94 RBI while slashing .319/.354/.461 for the Charleston Rainbows (A) in his sophomore campaign. Promoted to the Beaumont Golden Gators (AA) in ‘86, Byers increased his home run output to 11 at the expense of nearly every other offensive statistic from the prior campaign. Moving up the ladder to the Las Vegas Stars (AAA) in the subsequent season, he attained career-highs with 12 round-trippers and 14 stolen bases to merit a September recall. Byers made his big league debut with the Padres on September 7, 1987. Pinch-hitting in the eighth inning against Jim Acker of the Braves with his ballclub ahead 11-4, Byers flew out to left fielder Ken Griffey. Despite the Padres’ woeful record (the club finished the ‘87 season with a 65-97 mark), Byers rode the pine for a week before getting another opportunity to pinch-hit on September 15. Facing the Giants’ Jon Perlman with one out in the eighth and the Padres trailing 13-3, Byers laced a single to center field for his first MLB base knock. San Diego skipper Larry Bowa finally penciled Byers into the starting lineup with one week remaining in the Friars’ dismal season. Batting fifth on September 29 against Kelly Downs and the Giants, he notched a pair of hits including his lone two-base hit in “The Show”. Byers lifted his batting average to .500 with a 2-for-3 effort on October 1 against Cincinnati while registering his first run, RBI and stolen base. His BA dipped to .313 as he went hitless in six at-bats over the final three games. Byers was unable to crack the Opening Day roster but spent three weeks in May 1988 as a spare part off the Friars’ bench. He made no starts, appearing as a pinch-hitter in 11 contests. Byers drilled a double off Bob Walk in the eighth inning of a 1-1 pitchers duel on May 6, 1988 but Roberto Alomar grounded out to end the threat. The Bucs’ Sid Bream launched a three-run walk-off blast against southpaw Mark W. Davis in the twelfth frame. Byers, batting for Ed Whitson in the seventh inning of an eventual 3-2 loss to the Expos, rapped his last big-league base knock off Dennis Martinez on May 14, 1988. He went hitless in five pinch-hit appearances spanning the next week, culminating in a pop-up to Phillies’ shortstop Steve Jeltz against Steve Bedrosian on May 21, 1988. The Friars banished the backup outfielder to Las Vegas (AAA) for the remainder of the season where he drilled 27 doubles and batted an unremarkable .267. Byers kicked off the ‘89 campaign in fine fashion, slashing .328/.382/.656 across 16 contests for the Stars before San Diego flipped him to St. Louis in exchange for relief pitcher Jeremy Hernandez. Playing for the Louisville Redbirds he compiled a .260 BA in 94 games. Byers walked away from professional baseball after the 1989 season. 

Did You Know?

In addition to biographical and statistical records, Donruss card backs incorporated each player’s “Career Highlights” along with their contract status and how they were acquired by their current team. 

Jimmy Key (#72) – “In ‘85 became 1st LH starter to win a game for Blue Jays since ‘80, a total of 614 games”

Rob Murphy (#82) – “Set Major Lg. record for most appearances by L.H. pitcher last year.”

Manny Lee (#650) – “Was the only teenager on an opening day roster in Majors in ‘85.”

Errors

The 1988 Donruss set does not contain any significant error variations. 

Rookie Cards

Tom Glavine, Roberto Alomar, Mark Grace, Ken Caminiti, Jeff Blauser, Al Leiter, David Wells, Jay Buhner, Ellis Burks, Matt Williams, Ron Gant, Jack McDowell and Roberto Kelly are among the players making their cardboard debuts in the ’88 Donruss set.

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles” (1997 edition) cataloged the 1988 Donruss Baseball complete set at $8 while the Rookies set logged a $15 value.

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1988 Donruss baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1988+donruss&year_start=1988

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/119/1988-Donruss

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  

Hardball Architects examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Retroactive is a modest collection of selected articles that I have written for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog since 2010. Exclusive content includes the chapter on “Minors vs. Majors” which assesses every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

Topps incorporated a “retro” wood grain border design in ‘87 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1962 Topps set. While I was not a big fan of this set at the time, I appreciated the concept. As Camden Yards proved in the subsequent decade, the  old-time aesthetic combined with touches of modern flair sparked a series of copycat ballparks. In the realm of baseball cards, Topps’ old rival Bowman returned to the mix in 1989 after a nearly 30 year absence. Other manufacturers introduced “retro”-looking cards and Topps issued a number of reprinted cards and sets over the years. Topps’ designers ultimately decided to return to a more modern look-and-feel with the ‘88 series. 

Corby Corner

Topps went back to the basics following the release of the 1986 set. The wooden background was reminiscent of the 1962 card and I think a collective effort was made to recapture their standing atop an ever-evolving baseball card world. Personally I liked the Topps card in 1987, collected them, but didn’t love them like I did the Fleer and Donruss. If the ‘86 Topps set lacked star power, 1987 more than made up for it. I remember loving the “Future Stars” Bo Jackson card of him camped out on the warning track, as like many, I was wrapped up in the “Bo Knows” world. Jose Canseco, Will Clark and Barry Bonds rookies were in this set, yet, many did not view them as rookies since they all had traded cards in ‘86 as well. I feel this started to undercut the actual rookie card in complete sets. Just a few years back Mattingly, Ripken, Boggs, etc. all had their first cards in the actual set. Traded sets started to outplay the complete sets and that took some of the fun away from the hobby and putting sets together. Well, at least  this Topps set got me and many others back on board. Sadly, I feel 1987 was the final legitimate year of collecting before greed took over and created a monster that stole the hobby aspect from young kids like myself.

Features

The first thing that one notices about the ‘87 Topps cards is the light-brown wood grain border surrounding the player photos. The Topps logo is situated in the bottom left corner while the player’s name is listed in a box with background colors coordinated by team (such as orange for the Orioles, red for the Red Sox, etc..) The team logo hovers in the upper left corner and player positions are omitted from the card fronts. The card backs include the usual biographical and relevant statistics for each player with a color scheme of blue lettering, yellow background and gray borders. The first row lists the card number, player name and position (spelled out in most cases such as “first base”, “center field” instead of the abbreviation. When there is ample space beneath the player’s statistics, the card will denote career highlights, additional personal info, or a reference to a historical baseball fact (“On this date..”) 

The ‘87 Topps set commenced with Roger Clemens’ 20-strikeout game, the first in a series of seven “Record Breakers”. “Team Leaders” were interspersed throughout the checklist. The “Turn Back The Clock” subset (cards # 311-315) depict Topps’ cards from previous seasons at five-year intervals: Rickey Henderson (1982), Reggie Jackson (1977), Roberto Clemente (1972), Carl Yastrzemski (1967) and Maury Wills (1962). All-Stars from the previous campaign are highlighted in cards #595 – 616. 

Greg Maddux, Matt Williams and Fred McGriff make their Topps debuts in the 1987 Traded set. The upscale Tiffany regular and traded sets appeared in the Topps product line for the fourth successive season. The 22-card Glossy All-Stars appeared as inserts in rack packs while collectors had to redeem “special offer” cards from wax packs in order to acquire the “Send-Ins” series. A new offering in the “Glossy” line, Topps Rookies, were inserted into Jumbo packs. The subset included the best rookies from the 1986 season including Jose Canseco, Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro. The Topps/O-Pee-Chee Stickers set tallied 300+ stickers and a collector’s album. The miniature Gallery of Champions were only available in complete sets and featured 12 cards in bronze, silver or aluminum versions. The 3-D, Super and Tattoo series were discontinued. 

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Traded $8, Glossy All-Stars $5, Glossy Send-Ins $12.50, Gallery of Champions $100, Coins $8, Mini Leaders $5, Stickers $15, Rookies $10, Tiffany $25, Traded Tiffany $15.

One-and-Dones

The players listed below made their lone appearance on a regular-issue baseball card in the 1987 Topps set. 

T.R. Bryden (# 387) – Thomas Ray “T.R.” Bryden began his professional career in June 1981 as a member of the Idaho Falls Angels rookie league squad. Dividing his 14 appearances equally among starting and relief chores, he scuffled to a 4.91 ERA and a 1.652 WHIP. Control issues plagued Bryden throughout his eight seasons in pro ball as his overall 1.549 WHIP attests. In his sophomore season with the Danville Suns (A) he achieved personal-bests in victories (10), innings pitched (135 ⅔), strikeouts (101), starts (22) and complete games (6). Recast in a relief role for the Redwood Pioneers (A) in ‘83, Bryden notched 9 saves with an ERA of 3.36 despite walking more batters than he struck out (55/42). Splitting time between Redwood and Waterbury (AA) the subsequent season, he attained career-bests with a 2.95 ERA and 10 saves while whiffing nearly one batter per inning. Bryden continued to slowly ascend the ladder towards the big leagues as he registered 7 saves with a 5.04 ERA and a 1.500 WHIP with California’s affiliates Midland (AA) and Edmonton (AAA) in ‘85. The Halos headed to the Pacific Northwest to square off with the Mariners for the opening series in 1986 with Bryden in tow. He relieved Don Sutton in his first Major League appearance on April 10, 1986 and hurled four frames of one-hit ball in a 5-2 loss to Matt Young. Bryden punched out Alvin Davis for his first strikeout but the slugging first baseman returned the favor with a run-scoring triple in the eighth inning. His second outing went south when he yielded five straight baserunners to open the sixth inning of an eventual 11-7 loss to Oakland. After the M’s shelled Sutton for 8 runs in ⅔ of an inning on April 15, Bryden picked up the pieces with 3 strikeouts over 3 scoreless innings. A highlight of Bryden’s career came on April 26-27 when he registered back-to-back victories over the Twins. On the 26th, Minnesota extended the lead to 6-1 on a sacrifice fly by Mickey Hatcher off Bryden in the eighth inning. California mounted an epic comeback against Frank “Sweet Music” Viola and Ron G. Davis. Brian Downing led off the top of the ninth with a double to left-center field and scored on a “Silent”  George Hendrick blast to deep left field, knocking Viola from the contest. Rob Wilfong greeted Davis with a long single to right and he came around on Ruppert Jones’ bomb into the right-field seats. Reggie Jackson, batting for Gary Pettis, coaxed a one-out walk. Bobby Grich fanned but Wally “World” Joyner capped the six-run uprising with a long-distance dedication to silence the Metrodome crowd. Donnie Moore set the Twins down in order to lock down the save and secure Bryden’s first big-league “W”. The following afternoon, Bryden was called upon in the third inning after Ron Romanick was unable to maintain the 5-0 lead that the Halos spotted him. The long reliever twirled five frames of four-hit ball, allowing two runs while striking out four. California tallied three runs in the fourth on an RBI-single by “Mr. October” and a two-run base hit off the bat of Rick “Rooster” Burleson. Bryden yielded a pair of runs in the fifth on ground ball outs but the Angels held on for an 8-7 triumph. Cecil Cooper swatted two big-flies (one off Bryden was the first he allowed as an Angel) as the “Brew Crew” bashed the Halos 16-5 on May 9, 1986. In his next appearance, he took the loss when Boston batsmen garnered a base on balls followed by four consecutive knocks in the ninth inning, turning a 5-5 contest into an 8-5 defeat. Bryden closed out the month of May with three straight scoreless outings. The Yankees tagged him for three runs and a blown save when Mike Pagliarulo’s solo shot in the top of the ninth knotted the score at 6-6 on June 2, 1986. The Bronx Bombers took a 7-6 lead when Rickey Henderson rapped a two-bagger off Doug Corbett later in the frame. California battled back in the bottom of the ninth, loading the bases with no outs against Dave Righetti. Dick Schofield drew a base on balls, then Bob Boone reached on an error by Willie Randolph. Hendrick received a free pass and Burleson delivered a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 7-7. Joyner walked to reload the bases and Downing drilled a walk-off single to seize the victory! Bryden fared poorly over his last three outings (7 IP, 10 ER, 2.429 WHIP) and the Angels optioned him out to Edmonton (AAA) after his final appearance at Cleveland on June 8, 1986. He managed to strike out the last batter that he faced in the Majors – Brook Jacoby. Bryden crafted an ERA of 3.49 over 22 relief appearances with the Trappers in ‘86 and he somehow achieved a record of 9-1 during the following campaign in spite of his 6.35 ERA. The Halos released him in October 1987 and he inked a minor league pact with Minnesota. He started 13 of his 30 games with the Portland Beavers (AAA) and logged a record of 8-8 with a 4.99 ERA to conclude his time as a professional ballplayer. 

Did You Know?

In addition to biographical and statistical records, Topps card backs incorporated fun facts about the players along with historical trivia (“On This Date”) if there was ample space near the bottom of the card. 

Cecil Cooper (#10) – “Cecil once had a column in Brewer club magazine.”

Greg Brock (#26) – “Greg once earned himself the free use of a car for a year by recording a hole-in-one in golf match.”

Danny Gladden (#46) – “Danny enjoys competition water skiing and motorcycle racing.”

Thad Bosley (#58) – “Thad has recorded a gospel contemporary album, ‘Pick Up the Pieces’.”

Ron Romanick (#136) – “Ron once appeared on a television soap opera.”

Mickey Brantley (#347) – “Mickey was childhood chum of boxer Mike Tyson.”

Jeff Lahti (#367) – “Jeff is the owner of an apple orchard in Oregon. He is known by the nickname of ‘Jam Man’.”

Moose Haas (#413) – “Moose has a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. He is an amateur magician and a certified locksmith.”

Floyd Rayford (#426) – “Floyd lists electric trains among his hobbies.”

Jim Slaton (#432) – “Jim spends most of his time living on his boat.”

Jim Traber (#484) – “Jim is an accomplished professional singer. He sang National Anthem at Memorial Stadium the night he made his major league debut, 9-21-84.”

Don Mattingly (#500) – “Don’s birth certificate states he was born in 1962, not 1961 as shown in most baseball records.”

Terry Mulholland (#536) – “Terry works as a gas station attendant during the off-season. He’s an avid baseball card collector.”

Sid Fernandez (#570) – “Sid wears uniform #50 for two reasons: His native Hawaii was the 50th of the U.S. states and his favorite television show is ‘Hawaii Five-0.’”

Ken Schrom (#635) – “Ken is employed as Assistant General Manager of Double-A El Paso Diablos during the off-season.”

Errors

The 1987 Topps set does not contain any significant error variations. 

Rookie Cards

Barry Bonds, Bo Jackson, Barry Larkin, Wally Joyner, Rafael Palmeiro, Will Clark, Dave Magadan, Devon White, B.J. Surhoff, Bobby Bonilla, Ruben Sierra, John Kruk, Mike Greenwell, Chuck Finley, Bobby Thigpen and Kevin Mitchell highlight the list of players making their cardboard debuts in the ’87 Topps set.

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (December 1987 edition) cataloged the 1987 Topps Baseball complete set at $25. Currently the Barry Bonds (#320) graded PSA 9 can be acquired through auction sites in the $20-$40 range. 

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1987 Topps baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

Beckett.com (requires subscription to view prices):

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1987+topps&year_start=1987

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Miller, Sam. “Happy 59th! Or is it 58th? Cracking the mystery of Don Mattingly’s birthday”, ESPN.com. April 29, 2020. Accessed June 26, 2022. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29043681/cracking-birthday-mystery-don-mattingly-1987-topps-baseball-card

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/Gallery.cfm/sid/117/1987-Topps

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  

Hardball Architects examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Retroactive is a modest collection of selected articles that I have written for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog since 2010. Exclusive content includes the chapter on “Minors vs. Majors” which assesses every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

While the changes from the previous year’s effort were subtle, I immediately appreciated the design of the 1987 Fleer baseball cards. I made multiple attempts to acquire the cards but they were very difficult to track down. My recollection is that the product was highly sought after and the prices quickly exceeded a threshold that I was not willing to cross. As I wasn’t a big fan of the 1987 Topps offering at the time, I focused instead on my ‘87 Donruss collection. Many years later I was able to locate a dealer with a 5000-count box of 1987 Fleer commons, so I finally got my hands on the majority of this set.   

Corby Corner

Ok, I’ll say it, I personally liked the Fleer set the best in 1987. It was not the most glamorous, didn’t have the Rated Rookies like Donruss, but there was something about that set that made me want to buy those wax boxes and create set after set. I believe I made three if I am not mistaken. Again, if you are looking for a reason, I don’t have one, and sometimes it’s cool that certain players or sets just strike your fancy. Well the set did have some solid cards in it. Will Clark, Ruben Sierra, Bobby Bonilla were hot items in ‘87, though their stars would fade as the 90’s approached. “Wally World” Joyner lit up the league and his “rookie” card was in the set, and the same can be said for Barry Bonds. Like I stated prior, this set didn’t light the world on fire, but it also didn’t disappoint. Sadly, to me, this was the peak of baseball card collecting. I think the 1988 sets just lacked any real star power, and in 1989 the saturated market officially moved the hobby from collecting to greed. 

Features

Fleer softened the color scheme from the dark blue in ‘86 to a two-tone border, using a lighter blue on the top half with white towards the bottom. Player names and primary fielding positions are incorporated into the upper left corner while the team logos are affixed to the lower right. The readability of the card backs is improved from the prior year due to the color scheme, which utilizes the light blue-white combo along with a pair of pink columns. The formatting of each player’s biographical and statistical information mirrors previous Fleer releases. Similar to past releases, the set is ordered based on the final standings from last season and alphabetically by the player’s last names. The back end of the set includes nineteen “Superstar Specials” (usually two or more players with a specific theme), ten “Major League Prospects” (two players per card) and seven checklists for a total of 660 cards.

Fleer opened the floodgates with regards to their production of subsets in 1987, ramping up the offerings from seven in ‘86 to seventeen one year later! The six-card “Headliners” substituted for the previous season’s “Future Hall of Famers” in Fleer rack packs. A twelve-card “World Series” subset were issued in collated sets only to hobby dealers. Subsets that were composed of 44 cards and sold exclusively in chain stores include “Award Winners” (7-11), “All-Stars” (Franklin), “Exciting Stars” (Cumberland Farms), “Hottest Stars” (Revco), “League Leaders” (Walgreens), “Limited Edition (McCrory’s), “Record Setters” (Eckert’s Drug Stores). Multiple chain stores distributed “Game Winners” – Bi-Mart, Pay’n’Save, M.E. Moses, Mott’s, and Winn’s. All of the subsets featured standard size cards with the exception of the “Mini” series which were printed on 1 13/16” by 2 9/16” stock. 

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Update $15, Glossy $30, Update Glossy $10, Mini $6, All-Stars $22, Headliners $8, Award Winners $4, Baseball All-Stars $5, Exciting Stars $4, Game Winners $5, Hottest Stars $5, League Leaders $5, Limited Edition $4, Record Setters $4, Sluggers/Pitchers $5, Star Stickers $15, World Series $2. 

One-and-Dones

None of the players in the 1987 Fleer set qualify for the ‘one-and-done’ designation (i.e. all appeared on other regular-issue cards during their careers). This does not include multi-player cards such as “Major League Prospects”. 

Did You Know?

Fleer card backs replaced the career highlight information from previous offerings with a “Pro Scouts Report”. Pitchers received rankings for six different pitch types ranging from “average” to “awesome” while hitters depicted three strike zones outlining the locations where they produce the best results. 

Errors

The 1987 Fleer set does not contain any significant error variations. 

Rookie Cards

Barry Bonds, Bo Jackson, Barry Larkin, Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell, Wally Joyner, Ruben Sierra, Bobby Bonilla, Devon White, Chuck Finley, Jamie Moyer, John Kruk, Terry Steinbach, Mitch Williams and Mike Stanley highlight the list of players making their cardboard debuts in the ’87 Fleer set.

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (December 1987 edition) cataloged the 1987 Fleer Baseball complete set at $40. The Major League Prospects card (#652) featuring Orioles’ backstop John Stefero along with Royals’ rookie sensation Kevin Seitzer fetched $7 during the winter of ‘87 but was eclipsed in later years by Fleer’s first regular issue cards of Barry Bonds, Will Clark and Bo Jackson, among others. At the present time, a Bo Jackson (#369) with a grade of PSA 9 can be found in the $20-$40 range. 

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1987 Fleer baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

Beckett.com (requires subscription to view prices):

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1987+fleer&year_start=1987

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/115/1987-Fleer

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

Hardball Architects examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Retroactive is a modest collection of selected articles that I have written for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog since 2010. Exclusive content includes the chapter on “Minors vs. Majors” which assesses every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

Hands down, the ‘87 Donruss cards are one of my favorites from the Eighties. I’m a fan of the company’s regular season issues from 1984 to 1987 but this particular set delivered rookies by the dozens and the card design is clean, crisp and appealing to the eye. Fleer upped their game in ‘87 but I recall the product was in short supply at all of my local card shops. Topps went back to basics with the woodgrain borders and it was a step in the right direction but in my opinion it was Donruss that dominated the mid-Eighties. The Rated Rookies, Diamond Kings, puzzles, along with the continued enhancements in design and photography made them my go-to product, at least until Upper Deck blew the doors off of the entire industry in 1989.   

Corby Corner

Fresh off what I believed was the best card in 1986, Donruss held strong with their 1987 set. It was definitely the first one that I began to collect for my annual card-by-card collected set. By this point within the hobby, I saw Fleer, Toops, and Donruss on equal footing, and though I don’t feel this year’s Donruss had that same “wow” factor, I do believe that it more than held its own to maintain its top level status. Again, every Donruss set was carried by their rated rookies, good or bad. Bo’s card was late to the party but still pretty awesome. The two Cubbies, Mr. Maddux and Palmerio were solid choices. Barry Bonds rookie, as well as McGwire’s made this set a must have. Now, as with other sets this year, this is when the steroid dominos started falling and wiped out gains that had been made on many of these players to that point in their careers. Overall, I found this set to be a fun one to collect, just wish some of the individual cards within it had taken off like an ‘84T Mattingly, ‘85T Gooden, or ‘86D Canseco

Features

Returning to the black border from the ‘85 series, the card fronts include a pair of yellow lines near the center surrounding a gray section filled with baseballs. The Donruss logo and year appear in the top left of the photo with the player’s team logo in the opposing corner. A row containing the player’s name and primary position is anchored above the bottom border with the background color reflecting that of the represented team. The layout on the flip side replicates the Donruss format from season’s past. The upper section lists the player’s biographical information, center encompasses up to five year’s worth of statistics, and the bottom reveals contract status, transactional information and career highlights. The font size and type remain the easiest to read among the big three manufacturers. Following in the Donruss tradition, the Diamond Kings 26-card subset bats leadoff in the checklist followed by 20 “Rated Rookies”. The Roberto Clemente puzzle card (#612) is the lone card depicting a former ballplayer  

The standard and All-Star wax boxes included 3 cards on the bottom of the boxes along with a Roberto Clemente puzzle card. The Rookies 56-card set mimicked the regular issue ‘87 series except for the border (green instead of black) and featured Greg Maddux, Matt D. Williams, Fred McGriff and Mark McGwire.. Donruss offered a new product dubbed “Opening Day” for the first time in ‘87. This set contains 272 cards with a maroon border and a valuable error card (the original run incorrectly substituted Johnny Ray’s photo on Barry Bonds’ card). The large form All-Stars set (60 cards, 3 ½” x 5”), Pop-Ups (2 ½” x 5”), Super DK’s (nearly 5” x 7”) and the standard-size Highlights (56 cards) round out the Donruss subset catalog.

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Rookies $20, All-Stars $6, Highlights $4, Opening Day $10, Pop-Ups $5, Super DK’s $12. 

One-and-Dones

The players listed below made their lone appearance on a regular-issue baseball card in the 1987 Donruss set.

Ray Chadwick (#505) – California selected Chadwick in the 16th round of the June 1983 Amateur Draft. The North Carolina native was assigned to the Salem Angels of the Northwest League where he started in 10 of 16 appearances, going 3-5 with a 4.97 ERA and striking out nearly one batter per inning (82 K’s in 83 ⅔ IP). Pitching for the Peoria Chiefs (A) in ‘84 he made 25 starts and posted a record of 11-9 with a 3.99 ERA and 7.8 SO9. Chadwick achieved multiple promotions in ‘85 but struggled with his control as his walks (64) outnumbered his whiffs (63). Assigned to the Edmonton Trappers (AAA) coming out of Spring Training in ‘86, Chadwick rebounded with 9 victories and a 4.79 ERA. In July 1986 the Angels stormed into the division lead ahead of the Rangers and Ron Romanick, a 14-game winner in ‘85, was scuffling with a 5-8 mark and a 5.50 ERA. The ballclub farmed Romanick out to Edmonton and called upon Chadwick to assume his spot in the starting rotation. Manager Gene Mauch slated Chadwick’s debut for July 29, 1986 against Oakland. He fell behind in the second inning after issuing a leadoff walk to Bruce Bochte and serving up a one-out double to Dave Kingman but the Angels tied the game in the next frame on a single by Gary Pettis. The Halos assumed the lead when Dick Schofield clubbed a long ball to deep left off Dave Stewart to commence the top of the fifth. Chadwick entered the seventh inning having allowed only a pair of hits while working around five bases on balls. Dwayne Murphy singled and Donnie Hill doubled to begin the home half of the seventh, so Mauch signaled to the bullpen for left-hander Gary Lucas. The bases were loaded after Alfredo Griffin reached on an error. Tony Phillips grounded into a 6-4 force out but Murphy scored the tying run. Lucas induced Mike Davis to loft an infield fly to Rob Wilfong for the second out. Doug Corbett replaced Lucas and promptly gave up a base hit up the middle off the bat of Jose Canseco which plated Hill with the go-ahead run. The inning unraveled further as Bochte singled against Chuck Finley. Carney Lansford coaxed a bases-loaded walk to force Phillips home with the fourth tally. Kingman ended the rally with a groundout against the Angels’ fourth reliever of the inning, Vern Ruhle. Oakland triumphed 4-2 and Chadwick took the loss but held a 3.00 ERA after his first MLB outing. His second outing was a disaster as he failed to retire any of the five Mariners that batted in the first inning (four singles and a bases on balls to Ken Phelps) before Mauch gave him the quick hook. Seattle assumed a 4-0 lead and held on for a 6-3 victory despite seven scoreless innings of long relief by Ruhle. The Halos pivoted to Ruhle for the next three turns in the rotation where he delivered a 1-2 record with a 7.98 ERA. Chadwick returned to the mound for a starting assignment against the Orioles in Baltimore on August 23, 1986. He surrendered gopher balls to Cal Ripken, Jr. and Jim Traber in the bottom of the first to fall behind, 3-2. However Mauch stuck with him and Chadwick held the O’s to one hit over the next three frames. Fred Lynn launched a long ball leading off the fifth and Mauch called upon rookie left-hander Chuck Finley to close out the final three innings with the Angels trailing 4-2. Finley flummoxed the Birds but the California crew was unable to mount a comeback against Mike Flanagan, Rich Bordi and Don Aase. One week later Chadwick pitched six strong innings and took a no-decision against the Tigers. Holding a 3-2 advantage with two outs in the visitor’s sixth, Darrell Evans crushed a solo shot deep into the right field corner. Detroit went ahead in the eighth when Gary Lucas served up Evans’ second long ball of the game. California claimed the walk-off win after Brian Downing drew a free pass leading off the bottom of the ninth and Doug DeCinces launched one into orbit down the right-field line off Bill Campbell. Squaring off against the Bronx Bombers at Anaheim Stadium on September 5, 1986, Chadwick retired the first 8 Yankees he faced before issuing a two-out walk in the third to Wayne Tolleson. New York tied the score at 1-1 on consecutive base hits by Claudell Washington and Willie Randolph. In the fourth inning, a single by Don Mattingly and a Dan Pasqua base on balls set the table for an RBI knock by Mike Easler and a two-run single off the bat of Joel Skinner. Mauch called upon Chuck Finley to stop the bleeding. He whiffed Tolleson but the Yankees prevailed 7-4. California held a 6 ½ game lead in the American League Western division standings and the manager opted to skip Chadwick’s next turn in the rotation. He sat for 17 days before receiving another start, opposing Cleveland in the second game of a doubleheader. Chadwick issued a one-out walk to Brett Butler and gave up back-to-back two-baggers to Joe Carter and Mel Hall as the Tribe registered two runs in the first frame. Julio Franco led off the third with a double and scored on a one-out base knock by Hall to put the Indians up by 3. Tony Bernazard’s fourth inning two-base hit plated Brook Jacoby and knocked Chadwick out of the contest. Rich Yett quieted the Halos’ bats as he twirled a 4-hit shutout and Cleveland emerged with a 7-0 victory. In his final Major League appearance the Angels rallied for 5 runs in the sixth inning against the Royals but Chadwick did not figure in the decision. California snatched a quick 1-0 lead when Gary Pettis roped a double to left, swiped third and scored easily on a sacrifice fly to center by Wally Joyner. The Royals responded with three unearned runs in the bottom of the first after Mark Ryal dropped a fly ball off the bat of leadoff man Rudy Law although Chadwick contributed by allowing three singles and a walk. Jack Howell ripped a double to center off Bret Saberhagen and scored on Joyner’s single to right field but the Halos trailed 3-2 after three innings. In the home half of the fourth, Bo Jackson walked, stole second and moved to third on a Bill Pecota groundout. Mauch hooked Chadwick in favor of Chuck Finley but Buddy Biancalana greeted the lefty with a line drive base hit to right to plate Jackson. The Angels’ offense erupted when the Royals replaced Saberhagen on the mound with fellow right-hander Scott Bankhead. Ryal hit a line drive single to right and Rob Wilfong followed with a bunt hit towards third base. The bases were loaded when Jerry Narron coaxed a walk. The runners were unable to advance on a fly out to center by Dick Schofield. Pettis drew a base on balls to force Ryal home. Kansas City manager Mike Ferraro summoned Steve Shields but he issued a walk to the free-swinging rookie left fielder Devon White to knot the score at 4-4. Howell’s sacrifice fly put the Halos ahead and following an intentional walk to Joyner, Reggie Jackson ripped a two-run single to increase the advantage to 7-4. Kansas City was unable to solve Finley as the southpaw struck out five and allowed only two hits and no runs over 5 ⅔ innings to pick up the victory. Chadwick was assigned to Edmonton (AAA) to begin the ‘87 season and his command issues prevented him from returning to the big leagues. He started 25 games and made a pair of relief appearances for the Trappers, posting a 7-10 record with a 5.86 ERA and an unsightly WHIP of 1.799 while issuing a career-worst 114 free passes. California released him and he signed a minor league deal with the White Sox in May 1988. Pacific Coast League opponents continually feasted on Chadwick as he yielded an ERA of 6.51 in 14 outings (13 starts) for the Vancouver Canadians. Demoted to the Birmingham Barons (AA) he finally turned in some decent outings, furnishing a 3-2 mark with a 3.92 ERA and a 1.231 WHIP in six starts. He swapped Sox in August 1989, traded from Chicago to Boston in return for outfielder Dana Williams. Starting in seven contests for Pawtucket, the right-hander was pummeled as he allowed 52 hits and 24 walks in just 38 innings for a 6.39 ERA and a ghastly 2.000 WHIP. Chadwick’s final minor league stop came with the Royals’ double-A affiliate in 1990. Working primarily in long relief while making 16 starts for Omaha, Chadwick logged 7 wins against 11 losses with a 5.00 ERA and a 1.431 WHIP. 

Randy Asadoor (#574) – Texas selected Randy Asadoor in the third round of the June 1983 Amateur Draft and immediately assigned him to the Tulsa Drillers (AA). He slugged .503 across 46 contests and returned to the club the following year. His output declined somewhat from his stellar debut but he still contributed 22 two-base knocks, 16 bombs and 17 stolen bases. Upon the conclusion of Spring Training in ‘85, the Rangers sent Asadoor packing to the Padres in exchange for Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams. The Friars assigned him to Las Vegas (AAA) where he spent most of the next three campaigns, compiling a .262 BA with 19 doubles and 11 jacks. In 1986 he produced his highest BA (.280) and OBP (.388) along with 10 triples to merit a recall in September as San Diego limped towards a fourth-place finish. Taking over at the hot corner for veteran Graig Nettles, Asadoor played nearly every day down the stretch. He drew a tough assignment for his first MLB game on September 14, 1986. Facing Mike Scott, the eventual 1986 NL Cy Young Award winner, he struck out in all three plate appearances before being lifted for a pinch-hitter. The man who replaced him, Carmelo Martinez, belted a two-run walk-off blast off Scott with one out in the ninth as the Padres prevailed, 3-2. Asadoor collected his first MLB hit the following night against Mike Krukow in a 4-1 loss to the Giants. One week into his big league career, he delivered a pair of base hits and notched his first RBI while Jimmy Jones one-hit the ‘Stros on September 21, 1986. Asadoor enjoyed a banner evening against Atlanta at Fulton County Stadium twenty four hours later, collecting four safeties in five trips to the dish and raising his batting average to .421 in a 9-8 loss to the Braves. Over his next three games the rookie registered four hits (three doubles) and four ribbies to maintain a .400 BA. He had an adventurous day on the basepaths versus the Reds on September 26, 1986. After San Diego knocked Chris Welsh out of the contest in the bottom of the first, Asadoor stepped to the dish and rapped a two-run double to put the Friars ahead 5-3. Making a mental note as the rookie extended his lead off third (he advanced on the throw home), Bo Diaz caught a ball from reliever Carl Willis and fired down to third. Asadoor was stuck in no-man’s land, and the Reds tagged him out in a rundown (C-3B-P). However he redeemed himself by stroking a single to start the sixth, swiped second on Gary Green’s strikeout and advanced to third on Diaz’s throwing error. Facing the Dodgers on September 30, 1986, Asadoor hammered a two-run double to knot the scoring at 6-6 in an eventual 11-8 victory by the Padres. In his final big league contest Asadoor struck out against Ron Robinson in his last at-bat but he collected two base knocks in the game to end the season with a .364 BA (20-for-55) with 9 runs and 7 ribbies. The Padres acquired Kevin “World” Mitchell in the off-season to be their everyday third baseman which left Asadoor to battle with Randy Ready and Tim Flannery among others for playing time. He was optioned to Las Vegas when the club broke camp in ‘87 and his batting line (.248/3/28) did nothing to convince the Padres’ brass to recall him at any point during the season. The infielder spent the majority of the 1988 campaign with the Albuquerque Dukes (AAA), an affiliate of the Dodgers, before latching on with the Rangers’ Port Charlotte (A) ballclub for 19 games. Asadoor compiled a woeful slash line of .216/.291/.335, did some soul-searching in the off-season and decided to look for another line of work. 

Did You Know?

Donruss card backs included “Career Highlights” which revealed interesting facts about the players.

Errors

The 1987 Donruss set does not contain any significant error variations.However, the 1987 Donruss Opening Day set botched the Barry Bonds card (#163). The original version displays a photograph of Bucs’ second baseman Johnny Ray and sells for three times above the corrected edition. 

Rookie Cards

Greg Maddux, Barry Bonds, Bo Jackson, Barry Larkin, John Kruk, Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro, Kevin J. Brown, B.J. Surhoff and Doug Drabek highlight the list of players making their cardboard debuts in the ’87 Donruss set.

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (December 1987 edition) cataloged the 1987 Donruss Baseball complete set at $33. Mark McGwire’s “Rated Rookie” / first regular issue Donruss card ranked as the highest individual value at $7.50 followed closely by Eric Davis’ Diamond King ($3), Don Mattingly ($2.50) and Wally Joyner’s rookie card ($2.50). At the present time, a Greg Maddux (#52) with a PSA 8 grade can be found in the $10-$25 range while the Barry Bonds (#361) is selling between $5 and $15. 

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1987 Donruss baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

Beckett.com (requires subscription to view prices):

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1987+donruss&year_start=1987

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/112/1987-Donruss

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

Hardball Architects examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Retroactive is a modest collection of selected articles that I have written for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog since 2010. Exclusive content includes the chapter on “Minors vs. Majors” which assesses every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

It’s possible that the Topps’ brass were in denial but their competition made significant strides in the first half of the Eighties while the “leader of the pack” seemed to stagnate in terms of design and innovation. Looking back at my allocation of funds towards the various offerings in 1986, Topps would end up a distant third in my collection due to an uninspiring layout and a lack of prospects. Although the company still held a major advantage with the standard 792-card set versus 660 for Donruss and Fleer, talented players on the cusp of big league greatness would have to wait until the Traded Sets were released after the regular season before debuting on a Topps card. Collectors seeking Jose Canseco, Fred McGriff and Andres Galarraga rookie cards were sorely disappointed. 

Corby Corner

Coming off of what I believed to be their best set of the 80’s up to that point, Topps hit 1986 with a loud thud. The design of the card itself was extremely lacking, especially when juxtaposed with that year’s Donruss. The lettering was, I would guess, supposed to be new-age but it completely missed the mark. I have no idea why they made the team name so large as it drowned out the player’s name which was hidden well below. In addition, the card itself featured a weak structure as I felt it was very difficult to keep cards in their best possible condition. 

As for the players themselves, the second year player cards are what carried this set, if any actually did. Topps didn’t include a rookie card for Jose Canseco within the ‘86 set and thus kids didn’t buy packs in search of the one pearl in the rookie ocean.

Overall I grade this year as Topps’ worst, and I believe Topps felt the same as their 1987 set veered towards their past successes rather than gamble again. 

Features

A black border with large team nicknames consumes the header of each card. The remaining border is white and the player names are displayed along the bottom of the card. The player’s primary position is enclosed in a colored circle towards the lower left corner while the Topps logo is posted in the upper right. The photography features a good balance of close-up portraits and action shots. Card backs are standard Topps layout with the ‘86 set utilizing black ink on a dark red background. Subsets include the “Pete Rose Years” (cards #2-7) which depict every regular-issue Pete Rose card from 1963 to 1985 along with Rose-related trivia for each season. There are 26 entries in the “Team Leader” series (one per team) with expanded white borders surrounding one of the team’s best ballplayers. Seven “‘85 Record Breaker” (cards #201-207) and five “Turn Back the Clock” (cards #401-405) were among the newly introduced subsets while the All-Star starting lineups from the previous campaign took their usual position in the lineup (cards #701-722). Topps debuted a sixteen-card subset of star players on the bottom of wax boxes depicting four cards per box. The 1986 traded set consisted of rookie sensations such as Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Will Clark, Andres Galarraga, Pete Incaviglia, Bo Jackson, Wally Joyner and Kevin Mitchell. Tiffany regular and traded sets were produced for the third consecutive year, boasting a glossy finish and easy-to-read card backs at a premium price tag. The 22-card Glossy All-Stars were available as rack pack inserts while the Glossy Send-Ins required the collector to redeem “special offer” cards from wax packs. The Topps/O-Pee-Chee Stickers returned with a reduction from 376 to 315 stickers along with the collector’s album. Bronze, silver and aluminum editions of the 12-card Gallery of Champions entered their third year of production while the plastic, oversized 3-D cards were distributed one per pack for the second successive season. A set of 120 Pete Rose cards was also produced by Topps as the company also saturated the market with products including a set of 24 “Tattoos” printed on transfer sheets. Rounding out the portfolio for ‘86, the 60-card Super set featured replicas of cards from the standard series measuring nearly 5” x 7”. 

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Traded $12, Glossy All-Stars $5, Glossy Send-Ins $12.50, 3-D $12, Gallery of Champions $75, Mini Leaders $4, Stickers $15, Rose $12.50, Super $14, Tattoos $15, Tiffany $150, Traded Tiffany $50.

One-and-Dones

The players listed below made their lone appearance on a regular-issue baseball card in the 1986 Topps set.

Brian Snyder (#174) – A seventh-round selection by Seattle in the June 1979 Amateur Draft, the left-hander crafted a 2.03 ERA through six starting assignments for the Alexandria Mariners (A). Snyder struggled mightily with his control as a starter for the San Jose Missions (A) in ‘80 as he furnished an ERA of 5.67 along with an unsightly WHIP of 1.819. Shifted into a relief role the following year, Snyder rebounded to post career-bests in ERA (1.48) and WHIP (1.060) albeit in only 27 outings. The portsider toiled for the Salt Lake City Gulls (AAA) for the next three years where he generated a composite 5.48 ERA and a hideous 1.811 WHIP! Seattle ended their affiliation with Salt Lake City at the end of ‘84 and Snyder was assigned to the Calgary Cannons at the end of Spring Training in the subsequent season. The minor league veteran acquitted himself well in both a starting and relief capacity, earning a call to the big leagues in May 1985. He squared off against the World Champs in his MLB debut on May 25, 1985, drawing a start against Detroit right-hander Walt Terrell. Snyder scattered seven hits, struck out seven and surprisingly did not yield a walk in 4 ⅔ innings while allowing only one earned run. He departed with the score knotted at 1-1, but the Tigers prevailed 3-2 on the strength of a two-run blast by Chet Lemon in the seventh frame off reliever Karl Best. He started five more contests over the next month but failed to escape the fifth inning in any of them as his ERA ballooned to 6.46. Snyder notched his lone MLB save when he retired the only batter he faced, Cecil Cooper, in a 5-3 victory over the Brew Crew on July 6, 1985. One week later, he collected his only win as a Major Leaguer in a wild 6-5 affair against the Red Sox. Down by three runs entering the top of the ninth, Boston rallied to tie the game as Roy Thomas, Ed Vande Berg and Edwin Nunez were unable to shut the door. Snyder finally got the Mariners out of the jam when he retired the lone batter that he faced, Steve Lyons, on a pop fly to shortstop. Ivan Calderon doubled to lead off the bottom of the ninth versus Bob Stanley. “Steamer” issued an intentional pass to Jim Presley, bringing Bob Kearney to the dish. The backstop dropped a bunt down the first base line towards Bill Buckner, whose errant throw allowed Calderon to trot home with the winning run. Snyder’s final outing with the M’s came on July 30, 1985, when he yielded one run in two innings of relief against Minnesota. Seattle released him in November 1985 and he inked a deal with San Diego one month later. Control issues continued to plague the lefty over the next two years with the Las Vegas Stars (AAA) as he carried a 1.589 WHIP while laboring in long relief. Snyder hooked up with Oakland as a minor league free agent in October 1987 and appeared in 54 contests for the Tacoma Tigers (AAA) in ‘88, posting a 2.63 ERA and lowering his WHIP to 1.350. Arguably his finest season in terms of statistics followed in 1989 when Snyder fashioned a 6-0 record along with a 2.13 ERA, 1.208 WHIP and 12 saves for Tacoma. This earned him another cup of coffee in mid-June. However he pitched poorly in a couple of relief outings with the Athletics. Snyder was summoned to the mound by Oakland skipper Tony La Russa to pitch in his first big league game in nearly four years in the thirteenth inning against Toronto on June 22, 1989. The southpaw served up a two-run bomb to Fred “Crime Dog” McGriff. He retired the next two hitters (Ernie Whitt and Manuel Lee) but the Blue Jays prevailed, 4-2. His final MLB appearance came five days later versus the Twins. Snyder poured gasoline on the fire. Minnesota already tallied four in the frame to take a 7-4 lead. Gene Larkin greeted the left-hander with the two-base hit to deep center field to plate a pair of baserunners. Kent Hrbek coaxed a walk to load the bases and then Wally Backman, batting for Jim Dwyer, drew a base on balls to force in another run. Snyder departed as La Russa signaled for the right-hander Jim Corsi. In his final professional season, Snyder latched on with the Richmond Braves where he provided veteran leadership and anchored the bullpen with 12 saves and a 2.48 ERA in 46 games. 

Tim Tolman (#272) – A twelfth round draft pick by the Astros in June 1978, Tim Tolman played in parts of seven MLB seasons (five with Houston, two with Detroit) but never amassed more than 63 plate appearances in any given year. The first baseman and corner outfielder reported to the Astros’ rookie league affiliate in the Gulf Coast League where he batted .344 in 39 games and earned a prompt promotion to Daytona Beach (A). During his first full season (1979) Tolman supplied a .289 BA and drew 74 walks. Assigned to Houston’s double-A ball club in Columbus, Georgia and primarily playing first base, Tolman drilled a career-high 37 two-base hits. He set personal-bests with a slash line of .322/.426/.501 for the Tucson Toros (AAA) in 1981 to merit his first cup of coffee. Pinch-hitting for Houston reliever Bobby Sprowl with the ‘Stros behind 9-0, Tolman strolled to the plate to face veteran knuckleballer Phil Niekro on September 9, 1981. Successive hits by Harry Spilman and Mike Ivie threatened “Knucksie’s” potential for a shutout but he induced a force play at second on an Alan Ashby grounder. Craig Reynolds’ shallow fly out to right field failed to advance Spilman so Tolman entered the batter’s box with runners on first and third with two out in the ninth. He managed to make contact with the flutterball but Rafael Ramirez scooped it up and flipped to Glenn Hubbard covering second to force Ashby for the final out. Eight days later, Niekro’s brother Joe was pitching a gem for Houston when skipper Bill Virdon summoned Tolman from the bench. Entering the contest as a defensive substitute for left fielder Jose Cruz in the seventh with his club ahead 9-0, he led off the eighth against Padres’ reliever Mike Armstrong and lined out to Gene Richards in left field. Tolman rode the pine for two weeks before appearing in his next game on October 3, 1981. Two games remained in the regular season and a victory would clinch the second-half division title for Houston in the strike-shortened campaign. Bob Welch outdueled Joe Niekro in the early frames and the Dodgers tacked on four runs against Astros’ reliever Gordie Pladson. With Los Angeles ahead 7-1 after six innings, Virdon began to empty his bench and Tolman was called upon to square off against Steve Howe. He lofted a fly ball to right where Derrel Thomas camped under it and made the catch. The ‘Stros mounted a mini-rally later in the inning and scratched a run across on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Kiko Garcia. Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda left Howe in the game and Tolman’s turn in the batting order came up in the eighth after Scott Loucks delivered a two-out infield hit. Tolman delivered a sharp single to right field and Loucks had to play it safe, stopping at second base. Alas, the pair were stranded when Harry Spilman popped up to second baseman Steve Sax to retire the side. Los Angeles won the game 7-2 but Houston clinched the National League West when Atlanta defeated Cincinnati. This allowed Virdon to bench his regulars for the final regular season matchup against the Dodgers and Tolman was one of the beneficiaries. Playing left field and batting sixth in his first MLB starting assignment, the rookie went hitless in four at-bats against Burt Hooton and a pair of relievers. Tolman earned a late August recall after posting a .302 BA with career-highs in home runs (15) and runs scored (93) for Tucson. He appeared in eight games off the bench before his name was penciled into the lineup against the Reds on September 25, 1982. Hitting third in the order and playing first base, Tolman capitalized on the opportunity with a pair of doubles, two runs scored and an RBI as the Astros prevailed 3-1. Nearly one week later with his club opposing the Reds at home, Tolman blasted a deep fly ball into the left field seats for his first big league home run off southpaw Bob Shirley. Utilized chiefly as a pinch-hitter in 1983, Tolman spent practically the entire campaign as a spare part for the ‘Stros as he registered 63 plate appearances spread across 43 contests. Rusty from limited work, a 1-for-15 slump dropped his batting average from .286 at the end of May to .143 on September 21. Once Houston was eliminated from the playoff race, Tolman finally garnered some steady work and batted .286 (6-21) over the final week to raise his BA to .196. He hit a pair of pinch-hit home runs during the year. On May 1, 1983 he went deep for a two-run blast off Sid Monge in an 11-3 loss to the Phillies. Against the Cubs on May 31, 1983, Tolman connected on a solo shot off Craig Lefferts to tie the score at 9-9. Phil Garner plated three baserunners with a two-base knock several batters later as Houston topped Chicago 12-10. Back with the Toros for the majority of the ‘84 season, Tolman laced 27 doubles and hit .292. Despite spending two months with the Astros he tallied only three hits in 17 trips to the plate for a .176 BA. Relegated to the tail-end of the roster during his big league stints and unable to gain any momentum due to erratic playing time allotted by manager Bob Lillis, Tolman stumbled out of the gate again in ‘85 as he went hitless in his first 19 at-bats. However he briefly found his mojo in September, swatting a three-run pinch-hit blast off Cubs’ reliever Ron Meredith on September 4, 1985 to give the ‘Stros an 8-6 lead. Entering a contest two weeks later as part of a double switch in the eighth inning, Tolman crushed a John Franco offering for a three-run shot to break a 5-5 tie. The round-tripper was his last as a Major Leaguer. Released by Houston in the off-season, he signed on with Detroit in February 1986. He tallied typical Tolman totals for the Nashville Sounds (AAA), hitting .298 with 23 two-base knocks, 11 circuit clouts and 71 RBI to merit a September recall to Motown. He appeared in 16 games and batted .176 (6-for-34) as the Tigers dropped out of the pennant race and recorded his only successful MLB stolen base attempt against Jimmy Key and the Blue Jays on September 16, 1986. Detroit ended their Triple-A affiliation with Nashville in favor of the Toledo Mud Hens and Tolman set a career-high with a .522 SLG which earned him one last call to the big leagues in July 1987. He got into nine contests and displayed a keen batting eye, posting an OBP of .429 in spite of an .083 BA (1-12). His lone safety and final MLB base hit was a double against Ray Searage of the White Sox on August 12, 1987. Tolman entered his last MLB game four days later as the Tigers battled the Royals. The game was tied at 4-4 in the seventh inning when Alan Trammell laced a double to right, scoring Lou Whitaker with the go-ahead run and advancing Bill Madlock to third. Lefty  Jerry Don Gleaton remained on the mound for Kansas City, so Tigers’ skipper Sparky Anderson elected to send Tolman up to the plate, batting for Matt Nokes. Royals’ manager Billy Gardner signaled to his catcher to issue an intentional walk to the .083 hitter, loading the bases to set up a potential double play. The move immediately backfired as Darrell Evans drew a walk to force in a run. Gardner called upon John Davis to limit the damage but he yielded three unearned runs (Madlock had reached base on an error by Gleaton). Two innings later in his final MLB plate appearance, Tolman coaxed a one-out walk against Steve Farr and increased Detroit’s advantage to 10-5 on a single to center field off the bat of Jim Morrison. He played two more years with the Mets and Blue Jays’ Triple-A affiliates (Tidewater and Syracuse, respectively) before hanging up his spikes at age 33.  

Mark Brown (#451) – A right-hander chosen by Baltimore in the sixth round of the June 1980 Amateur Draft, Brown received cups of coffee with the Orioles and the Twins in the mid-Eighties. He split the summer of 1980 between Bluefield (Rookie) and Miami (A) where he compiled an ERA of 3.81 in 16 games (11 starts). Brown pitched almost exclusively in a long relief role for both of the Orioles’ A-ball affiliates in ‘81, fashioning a 3.04 ERA in 27 outings. He earned a pair of promotions during the 1982 campaign, working his way up from Hagerstown (A) through Charlotte (AA) along with a brief stint with Rochester (AAA). Brown established personal-bests in wins (9), ERA (2.25) and innings pitched (100). Despite appearing in only 19 contests during the ‘83 season for the Rochester Red Wings, the righty prevailed in 6 of 7 decisions and tallied 5 saves with a 3.54 ERA and a WHIP of 1.144. Brown struggled to control the strike zone while pitching for the Orioles’ triple-A squad again in ‘84 but nevertheless earned a promotion to Baltimore in early August. He made his big league debut in relief of Mike Flanagan in the fifth inning on August 9, 1984. Cleveland scored three in the previous frame to knot the score at 4-4. Julio Franco greeted Brown with a single and scampered home on a two-base knock off the bat of Andre Thornton for the go-ahead run. Brown settled in and got Pat Tabler on a fly ball to center field and Chris Bando on a fly to right, but Thornton tagged up and safely reached third. Cal Ripken Jr. booted Carmelo Castillo’s grounder, giving an insurance run to the Indians. Brown was tagged with the loss as the Tribe triumphed, 7-5. Four scoreless frames spanning back-to-back outings on August 15 and 16 lowered his ERA from 9.00 to 1.80. Brown notched his first MLB strikeout when he whiffed Bill Almon in the ninth inning of the August 16 matchup. He sat idle for twelve days before O’s skipper Joe Altobelli summoned him in the second inning on August 28, 1984 to replace Scott McGregor. The veteran left-hander suffered a broken ring finger when Angels’ left fielder Brian Downing drilled a comebacker to the mound in the opening frame. The Halos scratched three runs off Brown in the next three innings. Mike C. Brown led off the second with a two-bagger and later scored on a fielder’s choice. Juan Beniquez and Bobby Grich coaxed a couple of walks in the third inning. Fred Lynn plated Beniquez with a base hit and Grich added a tally on a 4-3 double play off the bat of Doug DeCinces. Brown retired the bottom of the order before yielding to Tom Underwood in the fifth as California held on for a 4-2 victory. In the doghouse for another two weeks before Altobelli called upon him again, Brown entered a contest on September 11, 1984 with the O’s trailing the Tigers by four runs in the fifth. He was cruising along until the seventh inning when Darrell Evans and Larry Herndon delivered back-to-back jacks. The Yankees scored a pair of runs to break a 4-4 tie versus Brown and the Orioles on September 25, 1984 to tag him with his second MLB loss but he fashioned two scoreless frames in Baltimore’s final matchup of the year and got credit for his first victory when Wayne Gross singled home John Shelby and Cal Ripken, Jr. to snap a 3-3 deadlock against Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd. Brown reported to Spring Training with the Orioles in February 1985 but he was flipped to the Twins in exchange for Brad Havens just before the teams broke camp. Assigned to the Toledo Mud Hens (AAA) he crafted a 2.94 ERA and notched 5 saves in 26 outings. Brown made six appearances for Minnesota in July and early August, allowing at least one run in all but one contest. In the second game of a doubleheader on July 7, 1985 at Yankee Stadium, Brown was summoned to pitch the middle innings after Rick Lysander and Pete Filson faltered to leave the Twins with a 7-2 deficit after four frames. Brown poured gasoline on the fire, yielding three singles along with a pair of walks as the Bronx Bombers extended their lead to 10-2 after five innings. New York continued their hit barrage with three more base knocks in the sixth. One run scored but Tom Brunansky ended the inning when he fired a bullet from right field to nail Dave Winfield at the plate. In the home half of the seventh, Andre Robertson delivered a one-out single and Billy Sample reached on a Greg Gagne error. Ken Griffey blasted his second home run of the game to put the icing on the cake as the Yankees went on to claim victory, 14-2. Brown redeemed himself with 2 ⅓ scoreless innings at home versus New York two weeks later. He matched his personal best with four innings pitched during a 12-3 loss to the Mariners on July 31, 1985 and permitted only one run to lower his ERA to 6.75. His final MLB outing came eleven days later at the Metrodome. The Angels had a comfortable 7-0 advantage when Twins’ skipper Ray Miller strolled to the mound and signalled for Brown, his fourth pitcher of the day. Brian Downing greeted him with a bases-clearing triple. He got the final out of the frame and worked around a Rod Carew single to keep the Halos off the scoreboard in the eighth. Brown was still on the mound in the top of the ninth when Reggie Jackson drew a base on balls and Bobby Grich followed with a base knock. Dick Schofield plated both baserunners with a one-out triple. Brown retired speedster Gary Pettis on a grounder to shortstop to register his final MLB out. The beating he absorbed against the Yankees skewed his final 1985 MLB stats: 6.89 ERA, 1.787 WHIP. Excluding that outing yields a more respectable 4.26 ERA. Brown’s career (MLB) totals include a 1-2 record in 15 games (all in relief) with a 5.12 ERA and a WHIP of 1.474. Returning to the Baltimore organization after starting twice and relieving once for Toledo in ‘86, Brown made 27 relief appearances for the Charlotte O’s (AA) and fashioned an ERA of 3.97. 

Glen Cook (#502) – Cook appeared on the Rangers’ radar after crafting an ERA of 3.67 while striking out a batter per inning at three different levels during his third minor league campaign (1983). The right-hander, a 24th round draft pick in June 1981, failed to distinguish himself in a starting or relief capacity in his first two seasons on the farm. He spent the entire ‘84 campaign and the first half of ‘85 with the Oklahoma City 89ers (AAA) where he supplied 9 wins per year along with a 4.16 ERA and a 1.182 WHIP. Texas recalled Cook in late June 1985 to fill the fifth slot in the starting rotation. He scattered 5 hits across 6 ⅓ scoreless frames to prevail in his MLB debut against the Twins on June 23, 1985. Facing the Halos one week later he served up a three-run gopher ball to Ruppert Jones and yielded 5 runs on 10 hits through 6 innings yet emerged victorious in a 10-5 rout. Cook twirled 6 innings of 2-run ball in his third start but came away with a no-decision when Lance Parrish took former teammate Dave Rozema deep for a two-run blast in the seventh inning as Detroit triumphed, 4-3. Cook was absolutely roasted in his final half-dozen big league outings (5 starts) as his ERA rose from 3.44 to 9.45. The Yankees scorched him twice in July, combining for 5 round-trippers and 15 earned runs in 10 innings (13.50 ERA). Optioned to the minors after a loss to Toronto on August 2, 1985 left him with a 2-3 record along with an ERA of 7.68, Cook was among the organization’s September call-ups. He rewarded the club with a disastrous relief outing against the Angels on September 15, 1985 in which he retired only one of the nine batters he faced (a 5-4-3 double play off the bat of backstop Bob Boone). Cook sat unused in the Rangers’ bullpen for 17 days before manager Bobby Valentine summoned him to pitch the last 3 frames versus Oakland on October 2, 1985. The Athletics had a comfortable 8-1 and Cook, in his final MLB appearance, fanned the flames when he served up a two-run dinger to Mike Heath in the seventh. He hurled a scoreless eighth but the A’s tagged him for 4 runs in the top of the ninth including Steve Kiefer’s three-run wallop. Texas trailed 14-1 when Cook whiffed Rob Picciolo for his final MLB out. Back with the 89ers for the next two years, he fared poorly in a starting role during the ‘86 season as he posted a record of 8-9 with a 6.04 ERA and a 1.725 WHIP. Bullpen work yielded better results as Cook produced a pair of wins, four saves and a 4.53 ERA across 31 games. Per his Baseball-reference.com page, Cook resurfaced in 1990 with Acereros de Monclova (Mexican League) but there are no accompanying statistics. 

Jeff Barkley (#567) – Barkley fared well in his professional debut with the Batavia Trojans (A-) after Cleveland chose him in the thirteenth round of the June 1982 Amateur Draft. Starting all but one of his fifteen outings, Barkley notched 5 wins and fashioned a 4.08 ERA along with a WHIP of 1.273. Moved to the bullpen in the subsequent campaign, he quickly ascended the organizational ladder and tallied 24 relief appearances apiece for the Waterloo Indians (A) and the Charleston Charlies (AAA) where he whiffed 11 batters per 9 innings while adding 8 wins and 12 saves to his resumé. The Tribe ended their agreement with Charleston after the ‘83 campaign and Barkley was assigned to the Maine Guides for the subsequent season where he continued to flourish, crafting an ERA of 2.85 and tallying 11 saves through 54 games. He was among the September call-ups for Cleveland and he made his MLB debut in relief against Oakland on September 16, 1984. The Indians led 5-4 in the seventh inning and the Athletics had runners on first and second with two outs. Barkley relieved Tom Waddell and struck out Mike Davis to end the threat. Chris Bando tagged a two-run dinger to extend the Indians’ advantage to 7-4. Barkley got Mickey Tettleton on a pop-up to first base leading off the eighth but he yielded a double to Steve Kiefer and issued a free pass to Tony Phillips. Ernie Camacho pitched the final 1 ⅔ innings to secure the save. Five days later he was summoned in long relief during a 7-3 loss to the Twins. Don Schulze failed to retire a batter and yielded five runs in the opening frame so manager Pat Corrales called upon Steve Farr along with Barkley to hold down the fort. Farr pitched four innings of one-run ball and Barkley retired the first half-dozen hitters he faced before allowing back-to-back hits and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Kent Hrbek. He sat unused for a week before facing Minnesota again on September 28, 1984. Cleveland triumphed in a wild contest, 11-10 after trailing 10-0 after three innings! The Twins led 2-0 in the second when Barkley relieved Jerry Ujdur with no outs and the bases loaded. He whiffed Kirby Puckett but Ron Washington singled to drive home a pair of runners. Mickey Hatcher and Kent Hrbek delivered back-to-back two-base hits to plate three more Twins and put a swift end to Barkley’s outing. The Indians farmed Barkley out to begin the ‘85 campaign but he earned a promotion towards the end of May as the team languished in last place with a 15-25 record. Summoned in long relief with the Tribe trailing the Jays 3-0 in the third inning on May 24, 1985, he immediately served up a three-run gopher ball to Ernie Whitt. Barkley recovered to hurl 6 ⅔ innings while striking out 5 batters in his longest MLB outing. His ERA dropped to 2.25 after retiring all four Brewers that he faced in his next appearance. California’s Ron Romanick fashioned a four-hit shutout in Cleveland on June 20, 1985 but Barkley delivered his finest performance in the big leagues. Working in relief of Don Schulze and Jamie Easterly, the right-hander held the Halos hitless in 5 ⅓ innings, allowing only a base on balls to Rod Carew while posting five strikeouts. He suffered three losses and a pair of blown saves through his last four appearances in June, yielding 8 earned runs in 5 innings to bloat his ERA from a respectable 3.52 to 5.46. Barkley fared better as the calendar flipped to July, notching his first and only MLB save with 2 ⅔ innings of hitless ball in relief of Vern Ruhle in a 5-2 victory versus the Twins on July 1, 1985. Through his first four outings in the month, Barkley scattered a pair of hits over seven scoreless frames to lower his ERA by more than one run (5.46 to 4.37) before the pendulum swung in the other direction. Kansas City cuffed him around a bit on July 18, 1985 commencing a four game span in which he permitted 11 safeties and 7 earned runs in 6 innings. Barkley’s last big league outing came on July 26, 1985 during another lopsided loss to the Royals. He relieved Ramon Romero with Kansas City leading by a score of 4-1 after Darryl Motley led off the sixth with a circuit clout. Steve Balboni greeted Barkley with a big fly of his own. In the subsequent frame Hal McRae went yard for a two-run blast. However Barkley extracted a bit of sweet revenge by striking out Motley and Balboni to end the inning. Unbeknownst to him at the time, they were the final outs of his MLB career. He returned to Maine to finish out the ‘85 season where his overall totals included 13 saves in 24 games with an ERA of 1.62. Cleveland released him at the end of Spring Training in 1986 and he spent the year as a journeyman reliever pitching at the Triple-A level for three organizations (Texas, San Diego and Philadelphia).

Did You Know?

Topps included one or more “firsts” about some of the players on the bottom section of the card backs. In addition, the majority of the card backs also contained trivia in a “Talkin’ Baseball” box. The “Talkin’ Baseball” facts in most cases pertained to a fun fact about the player’s current team but was not specific to the player depicted on the card.  

Errors

The 1986 Topps set does not contain any significant error variations.

Rookie Cards

Jose Canseco, Benito Santiago, Paul O’Neill, Cecil Fielder, Lenny Dykstra, Ozzie Guillen, Kal Daniels and Vince Coleman highlight the list of players making their cardboard debuts in the ’86 Topps set.

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (November 1986 edition) lists the 1986 Topps Baseball complete set at $21. Dwight Gooden’s regular issue card ranked as the highest individual value at $2.50 followed closely by Vince Coleman’s first regular issue Topps card at $2.25. 

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1986 Topps baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

Beckett.com (requires subscription to view prices):

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1986+topps&year_start=1986

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/110/1986-Topps

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

Hardball Architects examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Retroactive is a modest collection of selected articles that I have written for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog since 2010. Exclusive content includes the chapter on “Minors vs. Majors” which assesses every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

My collecting days began as Fleer really hit their stride. Following an uneven debut in ‘81 and a lackluster ‘82, Fleer ironed out the rough spots and delivered a solid effort through the next half-decade. The ‘86 effort did not disappoint as the company introduced minor tweaks to the previous campaign to produce another winning product. Fleer employed a simple but effective system for the running order of their checklists: teams were represented based on the standings from the prior season and the players were grouped by team and then sorted alphabetically by last name. This was extremely conducive to set or team building as opposed to the random order in the competition’s sets. Speculative collectors were already clamoring for Jose Canseco rookie cards based on his September 1985 MLB debut (.302 BA, .490 SLG, 5 HR, 13 RBI). Fleer hedged their bets as Canseco was paired with reliever Eric Plunk on one of the new “Major League Prospect” cards rather than making his initial Fleer entry on an individual card.   

Corby Corner

After a successful 1985 set, I feel that Fleer played it safe in 1986, not really embarrassing the decade’s wild side like Donruss did this year. The card itself seemed to be just a flip of the ‘85 one, meaning they just took the team logo from top to bottom and rounded it off a bit. That said, I believe that Fleer really missed an opportunity in 1986, one that Donruss jumped on. 

After 1985’s rookie class, there was bound to be some letdown in 1986, but the drop off was dramatic. Outside of the “Eric Plunk rookie”, there really wasn’t another youngster in the Clemens, Doc, Kirby type realm we saw the year past. To me, sets are more fun to collect and show value when the greatness is spread out and not concentrated in one guy, though I have to admit, when you opened a pack and saw Jose Canseco staring back at you, it was like hitting the lottery as a kid. 

I will give Fleer a pass on this year, maybe they were just distracted since they were putting together an NBA set as well. If I remember correctly there was a rookie with the last name of Jordan in it, UNC guy I think. Maybe you’ve heard of him?

Features

A dark blue border surrounds the player photo on the 1986 Fleer card fronts. A rounded, thin white line encloses the photo and extends into an oval bubble towards the base of the card which displays the team logo to the left and the player’s name and primary position in the center. Each oval utilizes a primary color from the team uniform as it’s background and the checklist is grouped by franchise and ordered alphabetically by player’s last names which greatly aids in sorting and set-building. The checklist runs in descending order based on the standings from the previous season with the 1985 World Series champion Royals leading off. Averaging 25 cards per team, the standard player cards consume the first 625 cards out of 660 in the set. The remaining 35 cards are divided into three categories: special cards depicting stars or superstar players “in-action” or in a group photo; “Major League Prospect” cards with a pair of rookies; and seven checklist cards to close out the set. The Jose Canseco/Eric Plunk rookie card was high on collector’s wish lists from the get-go while the market for several other prospects including Benito Santiago, Andrés Galarraga and Cecil Fielder/Cory Snyder spiked at various times. Each wax pack included a team logo sticker and the wax boxes now held some additional value as the bottom of the box displayed three players and a team logo. There were two box-bottom variations: box #1 contained the Kansas City logo along with George Brett, Ozzie Guillen and Dale Murphy while box #2 depicted the St. Louis logo, Tom Browning, Gary Carter and Carlton Fisk.

The third iteration of the Fleer Update set retained the same layout as the regular series along with the standard 132 additional cards. To differentiate the update sets, the card numbers are prefixed with a “U-”. Barry Bonds, Will Clark, Ruben Sierra, Bobby Bonilla, Wally Joyner and Kevin Mitchell make their first Fleer appearances while Jose Canseco and Andres Galarraga get their own card after sharing the spotlight in the regular series. The Future Hall of Famers series consisted of six players that were destined for enshrinement with the exception of Pete Rose. Randomly inserted into “three-packs”, this one-and-done set packed a punch with Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, Rod Carew, Nolan Ryan and Reggie Jackson. The All-Stars subset made its debut in ‘86 igniting a decade-long run as random inserts in wax and cello packs. The card fronts consist of red (American) and blue (National) backgrounds, depicting a dozen ball players selected by Fleer to represent their “All-Star” team. The ‘86 edition contains superstars such as Cal Ripken Jr., Don Mattingly, George Brett, Rickey Henderson and Dwight Gooden. McCrory’s were the exclusive retailer of the 44-card Limited Edition box sets for the second straight year. The Sticker series continued to be a mainstay in the Fleer lineup as it matched the regular issue for longevity (the product was discontinued after the ‘88 season). New releases included the 120-card Mini set along with League Leaders and Sluggers/Pitchers box sets with 44 cards apiece. The Minis replicated the regular card format from the ‘86 edition albeit with a different photo, and the card size was scaled down to 1 13/16” x 2 9/16”.      

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Update $15, All-Stars $30, Future Hall of Famers $18, League Leaders $5, Limited Edition $5, Mini $8, Sluggers/Pitchers $5, Sluggers/Pitchers Box Cards $10, Sticker Cards $15, Stickers Wax Box Cards $4, Regular Series Wax Box Cards $5. 

One-and-Dones

The players listed below made their lone appearance on a regular-issue baseball card in the 1986 Fleer set.

Bruce Tanner (#218) – The son of former MLB outfielder and long-time skipper Chuck Tanner was drafted in the fourth round of the June 1983 Amateur Draft by the White Sox. The righty tallied 25 relief appearances for three minor league affiliates in the Summer of ‘83 – Appleton (A), Niagara Falls (A-) and Glen Falls (AA). He fashioned a composite ERA of 3.16 and notched 4 saves in spite of an unsightly 1.765 WHIP. Tanner pitched exclusively for the Appleton Foxes in ‘84 and responded with 12 victories along with a 1.96 ERA and WHIP of 1.019 in 37 outings (9 starts). Assigned to Buffalo (AAA) to begin the ‘85 campaign, he spent two months with the club prior to earning a promotion to the big leagues. ChiSox skipper Tony La Russa awarded Tanner the starting nod against Seattle on June 12, 1985 and he secured his first (and only) MLB victory with 6 ⅔ innings of 2-run ball. He retired the first 9 Mariners he faced and then allowed four straight singles to knot the score at 2-2. Rudy Law doubled home a pair of Sox in the fifth and Daryl Boston blasted a 2-run shot off Roy Thomas as Chicago claimed a 6-3 win. Tanner started 4 contests in June for the Pale Hose. Opposing the Athletics in his second start, he issued a bases-loaded walk to Alfredo Griffin (which is REALLY hard to do, given the fact that Griffin only drew four free passes in the previous campaign!). Otherwise he delivered a solid effort, throwing 5 innings of 1-run ball. He exited the contest ahead 3-1 but Dusty Baker cracked a 2-run shot off Bob James in the eighth which propelled the match into extra innings. Harold Baines crushed a walk-off bomb off Keith Atherton leading off the bottom of the 13th, lifting Chicago to a 4-3 victory. Tanner’s third start was abysmal as the Angels tagged him for seven runs in 1 ⅓ innings. Rod Carew and Reggie Jackson knocked in two runs apiece and Ruppert Jones launched a long ball to contribute to the onslaught as the visiting Halos filled up the scoreboard in a laugher, 11-1. In his last MLB start, Tanner yielded 9 hits and 4 runs to the Twins in 5 ⅓ frames which punched his ticket back to Buffalo. He crafted a 3.46 ERA through two stints with the Bisons to merit a September call-up. Deployed strictly as a reliever as the Sox were still in the thick of the division race, Tanner made 6 appearances down the stretch. Through 8 ⅓ innings of relief work he allowed only 2 earned runs along with 7 hits and 2 walks. Tanner’s final MLB outing was eventful – he gave up a pair of singles and made a throwing error on a sacrifice bunt attempt before regaining his composure to strike out the last batter he faced (Tony Phillips). Back in Buffalo for the ‘86 campaign, Tanner fashioned an ERA of 4.16 along with a record of 8-10 in 23 starts. The ChiSox dealt Tanner along with Gene Nelson to the Athletics in December 1986 in exchange for infielder Donnie Hill. He missed most of the ‘87 season but made 16 starts in the following year for Huntsville (AA) resulting in 7 victories and a 3.23 ERA. Tanner split his final campaign (1989) between the Tacoma Tigers (AAA) and the Phoenix Firebirds (AAA). 

Colin Ward (#645) – The southpaw was chosen in the third round of the June 1982 Amateur Draft by Detroit. Plagued by control problems throughout his career, the Tigers quickly soured on Ward after a season and a half in which he compiled a WHIP of 1.624. San Francisco picked him up in a February 1984 swap for fellow lefthander Pat Larkin. Despite posting a 5.41 ERA and a 1.720 WHIP for Phoenix (AAA) over the next two years, Ward received a promotion in the middle of September 1985 as the Giants barreled towards a 100-loss campaign. Four days after Roger Craig replaced Jim Davenport as the San Francisco skipper, Ward made his debut as a reliever against the rival Dodgers with his club trailing by 10 runs after six frames. True to form, he issued a free pass to the first batter he faced, Mike Scioscia. The lefty composed himself and retired the next three batters in order. In the eighth inning, Ward walked free-swinging leadoff hitter Mariano Duncan and yielded a one-out single to first-sacker Enos Cabell before inducing a grounder to third by Mike A. Marshall and a fly out to center off the bat of Bob Bailor. Called upon four days later, the portsider whiffed Bobby L. Brown of the Padres to prevent further damage after Greg Minton allowed 3 runs after San Diego extended their lead to 7-2. Ward held the division-winning Dodgers at bay with a pair of scoreless frames on September 27, 1985. After retiring Cabell on a foul pop-up two days later, the left-hander’s pitching record included a 0.00 ERA in 4 ⅔  innings. Craig rewarded the portsider with a pair of starting assignments in the final week of the season. Opposing the Astros on October 2, 1985, Ward breezed through the Houston lineup. He faltered briefly in the fourth, yielding back-to-back singles to Kevin Bass and Glenn Davis followed by a Phil Garner sacrifice fly. Otherwise his first start was a resounding success: 6 innings, 3 hits, 2 walks and 1 run along with 5 whiffs. Holding a 2-1 advantage, Craig turned the game over to the bullpen with predictable results. Mark W. Davis worked in and out of trouble in the seventh but gave up a gopher ball to Jim Pankovits leading off the eighth inning, the first of four Astros to score in an eventual 7-2 defeat. Ward did not fare well in his second start and final MLB appearance against Atlanta on October 6, 1985. He recorded consecutive outs on fly balls to begin the contest, followed by a walk to Dale Murphy and a two-bagger off the bat of Bob Horner to place runners on second and third. Terry Harper ripped a base hit to left field which plated Murphy but Jeffrey “HacMan” Leonard gunned down Horner at home to limit the damage. In the second inning, Ward issued a one-out walk to Paul Runge and a single to the backstop, Larry Owen. Braves’ starting pitcher Steve “Bedrock” Bedrosian laid down a sacrifice bunt. Andres Thomas delivered a two-run single and Paul Zuvella knocked Ward out of the game with a double. Albert Hall greeted reliever Frank Williams with a two-run base knock, leaving Ward with a pitching line of 1.2 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 5 ER. His ERA bloated from 0.84 to 4.38. Giants GM Al Rosen dealt Ward to the Reds for left-hander Bob Buchanan in November 1985. However the deal was voided three months later when Buchanan failed a physical. Failing to make the big-league roster out of Spring Training, the lefty spent the majority of the ‘86 season with Phoenix (AAA) and made 4 starts for the Shreveport Captains (AA). Overall in 26 outings (25 starts), Ward tallied 9 wins against 12 losses along with an ERA of 4.70. Rosen completed a 4-player swap in April 1987 which sent the southpaw to San Diego. Ward appeared in 12 games for the Las Vegas Stars (AAA) in ‘87 and then spent his final year in pro ball with the Vermont Mariners (AA). He made a pair of starts for the independent San Bernadino Spirit, fashioning a 1.86 ERA in 9 ⅔ innings before hanging up his spikes. 

Did You Know?

Fleer included interesting facts about some of the players on the bottom section of the card backs. 

Vince Coleman (#31) – “Stole 289 bases in 323 minor league games from ‘82 to ‘84.”

John Tudor (#47) – “High school pitching coach noted flaw in his delivery while watching him pitch on TV, called him to correct it, and he won 18 of next 19 games.”

Mike Marshall (#131) – “Nickname is ‘Big Foot’ because of size 14 shoe.”

Ted Power (#187) – “Was only 20-game winner in professional baseball in ‘81 and had to do it with Albuquerque (18 in regular season, 1 in playoffs) and Dodgers (1).”

Terry Francona (#248) – “Nicknamed ‘Mandrake’ by his teammates for magical way he swings bat.”

Joe Hesketh (#250) – “Baseball rarity: Charged with a balk even before he threw his first major league pitch in Expos debut in ‘84.”

U.L. Washington (#264) – “Ever-present toothpick is his symbol.”

Marty Barrett (#340) – “Twice got baserunners with hidden ball trick.”

Tom Brunansky (#387) – “Logs each pitch, at bat and result in notebook.”

Jim Gantner (#487) – “Nickname is Gumby.”

Brad Komminsk (#520) – “Hall of Famer Hank Aaron has labeled him as a ‘can’t miss major leaguer’ after watching him move through Braves organization.”

Brad Wellman (#553) – “Earned $1000 in ‘83 by responding to clubhouse dare and shaved his head.”

Mike Mason (#565) – “Was credited with capturing a pack of vicious dogs at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Fla., while pitching there in Rookie League in ‘82.”

Errors

The 1986 Fleer set does not contain any significant error variations.

Rookie Cards

Jose Canseco, Benito Santiago, Paul O’Neill, Cecil Fielder, Lenny Dykstra, Ozzie Guillen, Kal Daniels and Vince Coleman highlight the list of players making their cardboard debuts in the ’86 Fleer set.

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (November 1986 edition) lists the 1986 Fleer Baseball complete set at $20. The rookie combo card depicting Jose Canseco and Eric Plunk suggested a $4 value while the Dwight Gooden card fetched a couple of bucks. The Canseco / Plunk rookie (#649, graded PSA 8) currently sells in the $10-$25 range. 

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1986 Fleer baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1986+fleer&year_start=1986

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/107/1986-Fleer

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects” examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. A cross-section of essays that I penned for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog spanning nearly a decade touching on subjects including “Taking the Extra Base”, “General Manager Scorecard”, “Worst Trades”, “BABIP By Location” and “Baseball Birthplaces and the Retro World Baseball Classic”. Rediscover your favorite hardball arcade and simulations in “Play Retro Baseball Video Games In Your Browser” or take a deep dive into every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations in “Minors vs. Majors”.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

Impressed with both the standard and subsets of Donruss products from the two previous years, I anxiously awaited the release of the 1986 cards. They did not disappoint! I rushed to my local card shop and other vendors to gobble up as much product as I could afford. When the dust settled I managed to hand-collate nearly 4 complete sets while placing one of my Jose Canseco rookie cards aside for safe keeping. I loved the angles, the blue-black borders, the crisp photos and of course, the Rated Rookies! Later that year, I scraped together some birthday money and picked up the inaugural Donruss “The Rookies” set. The card layout is similar to the regular set while substituting a green-black border on the front along with a light green background on the flip side. 

Corby Corner

After such a strong 1985 campaign from all companies, there was an eagerness to see the 1986 series. One of the companies that did not disappoint was Donruss. Their cards were designed in a modern way but without selling out completely to the New Wave 80’s. The “big get” from this set was the Jose Canseco “Rated Rookie”. Canseco’s impact on the game with both speed and power forced many of us to re-examine which players we would want to collect. I moved into players like Eric Davis and Rickey Henderson, who had started combining power with his speed. Yet the card I most remember from this set was the Fred McGriff “Rated Rookie” which I bought at a show in Atlantic City. I admired McGriff’s consistency and felt that this investment would be as safe as they get. Overall, I think that the 1986 Donruss set was by far the strongest this year and catapulted them into a level that 3 years ago seemed almost impossible. 

Features

The ‘86 Donruss card front features sharp blue borders with a series of black lines, angled white text for the player names and position on a red background, team logo in the lower left corner of the photograph and the Donruss logo in the upper left corner. Following the tradition from prior releases, the Diamond Kings subset kicks off the 1986 edition with one player depicted from each of the 26 MLB teams, highlighted by the Dwight Gooden (#26) entry. The rookie card craze reached “next-level” status with the inclusion of Oakland outfielder Jose Canseco (#39) as a member of the “Rated Rookies”. Fred McGriff, Andres Galarraga, Danny Tartabull, Paul O’Neill and Todd Worrell round out the stellar list of first-year players that added to the appeal of the ‘86 set. Hank Aaron puzzle pieces are included in every wax pack and card # 602 depicts the finished puzzle. Pete Rose makes three appearances – card # 62 as the Reds’ first baseman / manager, card # 644 shows a split view of hits 4,191 and 4,192 in his quest to overtake Ty Cobb as the player with the most base hits in MLB history (hence the “Pete Rose Ty-Breaking” designation) and card # 653 is a Diamond Kings portrait entitled “King of Kings”. The Niekro Brothers are featured on card # 645 (“Knuckle Brothers”). The Redbirds’ swift outfielder tandem of Vince Coleman and Willie McGee are highlighted on the “Fleet Feet” card (#651). Seven checklist cards (one for the Diamond Kings series and six for the standard player cards) round out the set. With the exception of the light blue background, the card backs are nearly identical to the 1985 Donruss regular edition. 

Donruss dropped the “Action” from the Action All-Stars set in ‘86 and retired the HOF Sluggers from their lineup. The company produced a new 56-card Rookies set which sparked immediate interest among collectors. The 1986 Rookies featured the first Donruss cards for future stars such as Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Will Clark, Bo Jackson, Wally Joyner and Ruben Sierra. Another inaugural offering was the 18-card Pop-Up series which portrayed the starting players from the ‘86 All-Star Game on oversized (2 ½” x 5”) die-cut cards. Highlights and Super DK’s returned with card counts similar to the previous editions.

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Rookies $25, All-Stars $6, Highlights $3, Pop-Ups $5, Super DK’s $12.50. 

One-and-Dones

The players listed below made their lone appearance on a regular-issue baseball card in the 1986 Donruss set.

Johnny Abrego (#32) – Selected in the first round of the June 1981 Amateur Draft by Philadelphia with the 20th overall pick, Abrego started 12 games for the Rookie League affiliate in Helena, Montana where he posted a 4.70 ERA and issued 52 walks in 67 innings. An elbow injury forced him to miss the entire ‘82 campaign but he returned in the subsequent campaign where he delivered a 7-5 mark with a 3.97 ERA for the Bend Phillies of the Northwest League. The Cubs obtained Abrego in the December 1983 Rule 5 Draft. He enjoyed a breakthrough season with the Lodi Crushers in ‘84 as he yielded career-bests in ERA (2.10), WHIP (1.177) and strikeouts (139). The right-hander made 5 starts for the Iowa Cubs (AAA) at the tail end of the campaign. Resuming his climb up the organizational ladder in 1985 with Pittsfield (AA), Abrego continued to harness his stuff as he managed a 6-6 record with a 2.45 ERA and a WHIP of 1.222. He struggled in his second stint with Iowa (0-5, 7.92) but managed to receive a callup to the big leagues in September 1985. Cubs’ skipper Jim Frey summoned Abrego from the ‘pen on September 4, 1985 to commence the fifth inning against the Astros after removing southpaw Ray Fontenot for pinch-hitter Billy Hatcher in the previous frame. Chicago led 4-3 after Hatcher singled to drive in a run and Shawon Dunston scored on a wild pitch. Abrego retired the side in order and Ryne Sandberg padded the Cubs’ lead with a two-run blast to deep center field off Mike Scott. In his second inning of work, Abrego got into trouble immediately when he issued consecutive walks to Glenn Davis and Phil Garner. One out later, Jerry Mumphrey doubled to drive in a pair of runs. Ron Meredith entered the contest and promptly gave up the lead when Tim Tolman hammered a three-run shot into the bleachers, leaving Abrego with a 20.25 ERA. Frey inserted Abrego into the starting rotation on September 11, 1985 as the visiting Cubs squared off against the Pirates. The contest remained scoreless into the fifth inning. Tony Pena led off with a double and advanced to third on a base hit off the bat of Denny Gonzalez. Abrego induced Sammy Khalifa to rap into a 4-3 double play but Pena scored easily. The Cubbies tied the game at 1-1 when Bob Dernier snuck home while Ryne Sandberg was caught in a rundown between first and second. Abrego was pulled from the contest after allowing a single to Joe Orsulak followed by an R.J. Reynolds’ sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk to Johnny Ray. Reliever Ron Meredith got Jason Thompson to hit into a 4-6-3 double play and picked up the victory when Leon Durham belted a tie-breaking solo shot off Jose DeLeon in the seventh. After a mediocre outing against Montreal, Abrego fashioned his best effort as a big leaguer against Philadelphia on September 21, 1985. He went 6 innings and yielded 4 hits and 2 runs while striking out 5 Phillies to lower his ERA to 4.86. The Cubs rallied for 8 runs in the top of the fifth off Kevin Gross and two relievers en route to a 9-2 win with Abrego earning his lone victory in the Majors. He was tagged with the loss in his next start against the Mets and took a no-decision in his final start at home versus Pittsburgh. Abrego allowed 16 hits and 8 runs through 7 ⅓ innings in those outings as his ERA ballooned to 6.38. Back in Iowa (AAA) to begin the ‘86 season, Abrego compiled a 7.89 ERA along with a WHIP of 1.876 before walking away from professional baseball upon the conclusion of the 1987 campaign.       

Rich Surhoff (#42) – Philadelphia picked Surhoff in the twentieth round of the January 1982 Amateur Draft. The older brother of B.J. Surhoff reported to Spartanburg (A) where he thrived in a relief role, posting an ERA of 2.55 along with 6 saves in 21 appearances. He split the following season between Peninsula (A) and Reading (AA), notching 8 wins and 10 saves to complement an ERA of 2.83 in 114 ⅓ innings. Surhoff returned to Reading in ‘84 and flummoxed opposing batters while registering 7 victories, 15 saves and a 3.09 ERA. The Phillies rewarded the righty with a call to the Majors in September 1985 following his successful campaign with the triple-A Portland Beavers in which he won 7 games, saved 16 and furnished a 3.17 ERA in 70 games. Surhoff earned a victory in relief of Steve “Lefty” Carlton in his big league debut against the Padres on September 8, 1985. The contest was tied at 5-5 in the fifth inning with runners on first and second. Surhoff retired Carmelo Martinez on a pop-up to second base but allowed the go-ahead run to score on a base hit off the bat of Kurt Bevacqua. He whiffed Bruce Bochy to end the frame and the Phils regained the lead when Luis Aguayo belted a two-run homer off San Diego reliever Ed Wojna. In his second outing with Philadelphia, Surhoff entered the game in relief of Shane Rawley with runners on the corners and two outs in the top of the sixth inning. Expos’ center fielder Mitch Webster stole second and then Vance Law delivered an infield hit to third base. Fred Manrique scored and Webster attempted to streak home but first baseman Mike Schmidt alertly fired the ball to the plate and Daulton applied the tag for the final out. Phillies’ GM Bill Giles dealt Surhoff to the Rangers on the following day (September 13, 1985) for Dave Stewart. He made his Texas’ debut in Anaheim one night later and notched a two-inning save against the Halos. The Rangers scored twice in the top of the eighth against Jim Slaton and Doug Corbett to take a 6-4 lead. Surhoff whiffed the first batter he faced (Doug DeCinces) and retired the side in order. Al Holland allowed a pair of inherited runners to score on a Pete O’Brien single in the ninth as Texas increased the advantage to 8-4. Gary Pettis laced a one-out triple off Surhoff in the bottom of the ninth and jogged home on a Juan Beniquez two-base knock. Rod Carew drew a base on balls to bring the tying run to the plate but Surhoff recovered to induce successive groundouts by Daryl Sconiers and Brian Downing to close out the contest. Facing the Twins on September 24, 1985, the right-hander pitched two scoreless frames and yielded a lone safety off the bat of Gary Gaetti. Three days later at the Kingdome, Mike Mason and Frank Wills squared off in a pitcher’s duel. Mason exited the game with runners on first and second, one out in the eighth and the Rangers trailing 2-0. Surhoff promptly gave up an RBI single to Jim Presley and a three-run bomb to Dave Henderson. Jose Guzman pitched into the ninth inning with a 4-1 lead against the A’s on October 1, 1985. Jose Canseco and Dave Collins supplied back-to-back singles to commence the inning so Rangers’ manager Bobby Valentine summoned Surhoff. He struck out Mike Davis and Dusty Baker and then gave up a base hit to Alfredo Griffin. Tony Phillips hit a harmless fly ball to right field for the final out as Surhoff tallied his second career save as a big leaguer. Surhoff took the loss in his last MLB game on October 6, 1985 at home against California. Entering the match with a 4-3 advantage in the top of the eighth, he permitted consecutive singles to Rob Wilfong and Devon White. He buckled down, striking out Sconiers and retiring Jack Howell on a fly ball to right field. Angels’ designated hitter Rufino Linares walloped a three-run dinger to put the Halos on top for an eventual 6-5 victory. The outing bloated his ERA and WHIP to 6.75 and 1.821 respectively. Surhoff spent the next four seasons toiling in the minors for the Rangers, Cubs, Phillies and Indians prior to hanging up his spikes after the ‘89 season. 

Dave Leeper (#461) – Not to be confused with lefty reliever Dave Leiper – this Leeper played the outfield and merited a first round selection (23rd pick overall) by the Royals in the June 1981 Amateur Draft. The University of Southern California graduate reported to the Jacksonville Suns (AA) for his pro debut where he hit .269 in 67 games. He returned to the Sunshine State and spent the entire 1982 campaign with the Suns, batting at a .293 clip and swiping 24 bases in 27 attempts. Leeper compiled a .281 BA and established career-highs in doubles (29), RBI (83) and runs (74) while competing for Jacksonville and Omaha (AAA) in ‘83. In the subsequent season Leeper set personal marks with 11 triples and 16 wallops to warrant a cup of coffee with Kansas City in September 1984. The parent club was battling for the Western Division title so playing time was scarce as the rookie only made it into four games. Dick Howser sent Leeper up to the dish to face Mike Smithson with two outs in the ninth inning with the Royals trailing the Twins 7-3 on September 10, 1984. The left-handed hitting Leeper popped the ball up towards third and Gary Gaetti settled under it to make the catch. Eight days later, he entered a contest as a pinch-runner for Jorge Orta in the ninth inning and notched his first run as a big leaguer when the next batter, Buddy Biancalana, swatted a big-fly in a 10-0 rout of the Angels. Leeper went hitless in five at-bats over the final two contests of the regular season after the Royals clinched the division, leaving him 0-for-6 as a Major Leaguer heading into the ‘85 campaign. Unable to crack the Opening Day roster, Leeper returned to Omaha and fared well against American Association hurlers to earn a pair of callups – one in mid-season with the other coming in early August. His hitless streak reached 20 at-bats before breaking through with a single against “The Terminator,” Blue Jays’ closer Tom Henke, on August 18, 1985. As the Royals were in the process of claiming another division title, Leeper’s opportunities were few and far between. During the week of August 19th, he managed to drive in 4 baserunners despite logging only one hit in nine at-bats. Batting seventh and playing right field against the Rangers on August 26, 1985, Leeper strolled to the plate with the bases loaded in the third inning to face Jeff Russell. The match was knotted at 2-2 when Leeper stroked a two-run single for the go-ahead RBI’s in an eventual 9-2 victory. Leading off in the final regular season game and the last MLB contest of his career, Leeper supplied a single to load the bases against Chris Codiroli and the Royals tallied twice in the inning. Behind 9-3 in the eighth, Leeper’s final MLB at-bat ended in a ground ball back to the pitcher, Steve Mura. Reduced to part-time status in Triple-A over the next 3 seasons, Leeper produced a .262 BA with 27 two-base knocks. He concluded his journey in the professional baseball ranks during the Summer of ‘88. 

Steve Engel (#510) – A southpaw chosen in the fifth round of the June 1983 Amateur Draft by the Cubbies, Engel commenced his career with 11 starts for Geneva of the New York-Penn League. He prevailed in 7 of 9 decisions while furnishing a 3.63 ERA, a 1.139 WHIP and 9.6 SO/9. Pitching for Lodi (A) in ‘84 he won 11 games and posted a 2.68 ERA through 27 starts. The portsider produced a 3.60 ERA between stops at Pittsfield (AA) and Iowa (AAA), prompting the Cubs to recall him at the end of July ‘85. Manager Jim Frey penciled Engel in as his starting pitcher against the division-leading Cardinals on July 30, 1985. St. Louis tallied 3 in the first frame on a Willie McGee solo homer and successive bases-loaded walks to Ozzie Smith and Tom Nieto. The Runnin’ Redbirds pressed the pedal to the metal in the second as the eventual 1985 NL Rookie of the Year Vince Coleman coaxed a walk and advanced to second on a McGee single. The pair executed a double-steal and Coleman scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Jack Clark. Engel breezed through the third inning but yielded a double to opposing hurler Kurt Kepshire leading off the fourth. Coleman aka “Vincent Van Go” tripled to plate Kepshire and Frey summoned Warren Brusstar from the ‘pen. McGee rapped a two-base hit to drive Coleman home and close the line on Engel’s first start: 3 IP, 6 H, 5 BB, 6 ER. Engel returned to the rotation on August 15 and started 7 games for the Cubs over the next month, notching his lone MLB victory in a complete game against Houston on August 26. The score was knotted at 2-2 entering the sixth frame when Chicago loaded the bases on a couple of singles and an error by third-sacker Phil Garner. Jody Davis delivered the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly to center field and Shawon Dunston extended the lead to 4-2 on a single. Bob Knepper remained in the game as Engel strolled to the dish with runners on first and third. Bam! – three run homer for the young hurler and second hit of the day. Through 8 big league starting assignments, Engel posted an ERA of 5.79 so Frey relegated him to the bullpen for the final three weeks of the ‘85 campaign. He coughed up a two-run blast to Sal Butera in a 17-15 loss to the Expos in his first relief outing on September 24. Two days later he delivered a scoreless frame against the Mets and in his final appearance versus the Pirates on October 3, he put up 3 goose eggs to register the save in a 13-5 victory to lower his Major League ERA to 5.57. Chicago GM Dallas Green dealt Engel to the Astros in July 1986 as the “player to be named later” in a transaction initiated the previous winter which sent Cubs outfield prospect Billy Hatcher to Houston for veteran center fielder Jerry Mumphrey. He bounced between starting and relief work while toiling for the Triple-A Iowa Cubs and Tucson Toros and the results were miserable: a record of 6-11 with an ERA of 6.89 and an unsightly WHIP of 1.840. Engel appeared in only 4 games (3 starts) for the Springfield Cardinals (A) in ‘87 and then twirled for three professional teams in ‘88 including 9 relief outings with the Mexico City Tigers. He issued 14 walks in 7 ⅔ innings to put the pin in his prospect balloon.  

Tom Runnells (#569) – Middle infielder Runnells persevered through 8 minor league campaigns before making his Major League debut. Signed as an amateur free agent by San Francisco in June 1977, Runnells reported to Great Falls (Rookie) and proceeded to bat .290 in his first taste of pro ball. During his sophomore season with the Fresno Giants (A), he attained career-highs with 163 base hits, 32 stolen bases and 83 runs scored. Runnells played all over the diamond and earned a promotion to Phoenix (AAA) in 1980 where he compiled a .282 BA over the next 3+ seasons. He elected to become a free agent after spending six campaigns in the Giants organization without a call to the big leagues and inked a deal with the Reds in October 1983. Runnells clubbed 6 long balls as the second-sacker for the Wichita Lugnuts (AA) in ‘84, tying his career total through his first 7 seasons. The following year in his age-30 campaign, Runnells compiled a .290 BA and slugged a career-high .403 with the Denver Zephyrs to finally merit a promotion to the big leagues. He debuted as a pinch-hitter against Fernando Valenzuela in the seventh inning of a contest on August 10, 1985 with the Reds trailing the Dodgers, 2-1, and was retired on a pop-up to shortstop Mariano Duncan. Player/manager Pete Rose inserted Runnells into the starting lineup the next day as the second baseman, batting second. After grounding out to third base twice, Runnells registered his first MLB safety against Los Angeles’ starting pitcher Jerry Reuss in the seventh frame. Reuss yielded consecutive hits to Gary Redus and Runnells with one out in the ninth but he induced Dave “Cobra” Parker to ground into a fielder’s choice and whiffed Buddy Bell to preserve a 4-0 shutout. A combined 0-for-8 in the next two games versus the Padres convinced Rose to return Runnells to the bench for the foreseeable future and the utility infielder appeared as a pinch-hitter or defensive replacement 11 times through early September, going hitless in five at-bats. The Reds faced the Cubs on September 8, 1985 and Rose either tied or surpassed Ty Cobb for most career hits (due to an accounting error in the historical records). Runnells rapped his first base knock in nearly a month when he batted for the pitcher in the sixth inning of the match, which was suspended by darkness after 9 innings (Wrigley Field did not have lights installed yet). Two weeks later, Ted Power yielded a pair of unearned runs to Atlanta after third baseman Wade Rowdon committed errors on consecutive plays in the top of the eleventh inning. Runnells batted for Power in the bottom of the frame and ripped a double against Atlanta reliever Rick Camp for his first extra-base hit in the big leagues. He advanced to third on a fly ball to center off the bat of Ron Oester but got stranded there when Nick Esasky whiffed for the final out. Runnells delivered two safeties in nine October at-bats to finish the season with a .200 BA (7-for-35) with 3 runs scored. Starting the ‘86 back in the minors, Runnells received another cup of coffee when he spent nearly a month in the Majors from mid-May to early June. His lone knock in 11 at-bats and final hit as a big leaguer occurred on May 24, 1986 against Pittsburgh left-hander Pat Clements. Entering in the seventh inning as a defensive replacement for the second baseman (Oester), Runnells laced a double leading off the top of the ninth. In his final MLB plate appearance, the utilityman rapped into a double play with Giants’ reliever Juan Berenguer on the mound. The final verdict on Runnells in the Majors – 8-for-46 (.174 BA) in 40 games. Defensively he did not commit any errors while spending the majority of his innings at shortstop. He posted a .228 BA with Denver (AAA) in ‘86 to close out his professional career. Runnells managed the Expos to a record of 68-81 (.456 WPCT) from 1991 to 1992.  

Carlos Ponce (#595) – Signed by the Brewers as an amateur free agent from Puerto Rico in January 1980, Ponce immediately impressed his new employers when he produced a .347 BA and slugged .552 in 69 contests with the Butte Copper Kings (Rookie). Playing first base almost exclusively as a minor leaguer, he clubbed 15 long balls and swiped 23 bags in 29 attempts as a sophomore with the Burlington Bees (A) and then drilled 31 doubles along with 13 triples for the Stockton Ports (A) in ‘82. Ponce busted out in ‘83 with the El Paso Diablos (AA), pacing the circuit with 50 two-baggers and finishing third with a .348 BA while slugging .591 with 21 blasts, 111 RBI and 16 steals. He toiled in Vancouver (AAA) for two years waiting for an opportunity with the Brew Crew and managed to hit .320 in his second season as a member of the Canadians. Milwaukee finally called him up to the Majors in the middle of August 1985. Batting against ace reliever Willie Hernandez as a pinch-hitter in his first MLB action, Ponce flew out to right field with two outs in the ninth inning as the Brewers lost, 4-3, on August 14, 1985. He took an 0-for-4 in the next two games before scratching out a pair of singles against Gene Nelson and Dan Spillner in a 12-5 drubbing by the White Sox. Ponce pummeled his lone MLB long ball off southpaw Britt Burns the following afternoon. Trailing the Tribe 10-2 after five frames on August 23, 1985, Milwaukee manager George Bamberger inserted Ponce as a defensive replacement for first baseman Cecil Cooper and he responded with a two-run double off reliever Vern Ruhle to raise his BA to .250. The skipper rewarded him with 5 starting assignments over the next week but Ponce scuffled at the dish with only one safety in 18 at-bats, dropping his average nearly 100 points to .158. He sat for the next ten days before starting in left field against the eventual World Series champions on September 8, 1985, delivering two hits and a walk in a 13-11 loss to the Royals. Ponce saw action only twice in the next two and a half weeks before Bamberger penciled him into the lineup against Baltimore left-hander Mike Flanagan. Playing first base and batting fifth, he rapped a two-base knock in four trips to the plate as Jaime Cocanower shut out the Orioles, 3-0. Right below the “Mendoza Line” with two weeks remaining in the season, Ponce laced one base hit in his final 15 at-bats, a single against Yankees’ ace Ron Guidry in a 3-0 defeat on October 3, 1985. He concluded his rookie year with 10 hits in 62 at-bats (.161 BA), one home run and 5 RBI. Ponce continued his baseball career overseas, spending the next half-decade with the Yokohama Taiyo Whales of the Japan Central League. He flourished at the dish, compiling a .299 BA and slugging .562 from 1986 to 1989 as he supplied 30 doubles, 30 dingers and 97 ribbies per year. 

Did You Know?

Donruss included interesting facts about some of the players on the bottom section of the card backs. 

“Oil Can” Boyd (#50) – “Picked up his unusual nickname in college where beer was called ‘oil’.”

Pete Rose (#62) – “Loves his Wheaties.”

Dwight Gooden (#75) – “NL Cy Young winner last year.. Joined Herb Score as only 2 pitchers in history to achieve 200 strikeouts in each of 1st 2 major league seasons.”

Pat Tabler (#129) – “Has phenomenal 22 for 35 (.659) career average in bases-loaded situations with 54 RBI.”

Tim Raines (#177) – “Is first player in major league history to steal 70 or more bases 5 straight seasons.” 

Vince Coleman (#181) – “Stole 7 bases in 1 game at Johnson City in ‘82.”

Marty Barrett (#294) – “A slick practitioner of the ‘hidden ball’ trick, he pulled it off twice last year vs. Angels.”

Dale Berra (#295) – “Set major lg. record by reaching 1B via catcher’s interference 7 times in ‘83.”

Joel Skinner (#330) – “White Sox took him over 2,000 other players as the first selection ever in the free agent compensation pool.”

Jackie Gutierrez (#335) – “His father competed for Colombia in 1936 Berlin Olympics as a javelin thrower.”

Tom Browning (#384) – “Became 1st major league rookie to win 20 game ssince ‘54 last season.”

Davey Lopes (#388) – “Became the oldest man in history to eclipse 40 stolen bases in a season last year.”

Len Matuszek (#494) – “Made baseball history 6/1/84 when, vs. Cubs, became only 8th player ever to play entire major league game at 1B without making a putout.”

Phil Niekro (#580) – “Oldest pitcher in history to win 15 games in a season.”

Ray Knight (#597) – “Is married to pro golf star Nancy Lopez.”

Mookie Wilson (#604) – “Nicknamed ‘Mookie’ by his grandmother.”

Errors

The 1986 Donruss set does not contain any significant error variations.

Rookie Cards

In addition to the aforementioned Jose Canseco “Rated Rookie” card, Toronto teammates Cecil Fielder and Fred McGriff made their cardboard debuts in the ‘86 Donruss set along with Vince Coleman, Kal Daniels, Darren Daulton, Lenny Dykstra, Andrés Galarraga, Ozzie Guillen and Paul O’Neill. 

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (November 1986 edition) lists the 1986 Donruss Baseball complete set for $30. Jose Canseco (#39, $7), Dwight Gooden (#75, $2.50) and Vince Coleman (#181, $2.50) held the highest individual values at the conclusion of the ‘86 season. Jose Canseco’s rookie card (#39, graded PSA 8) currently sells in the $25-$35 price range while Barry Bonds (1986 Donruss The Rookies #11, graded PSA 8) fetches anywhere from $10 to $25. 

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1986 Donruss baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

Beckett.com (requires subscription to view prices):

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1986+donruss&year_start=1986

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/105/1986-Donruss

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects” examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. A cross-section of essays that I penned for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog spanning nearly a decade touching on subjects including “Taking the Extra Base”, “General Manager Scorecard”, “Worst Trades”, “BABIP By Location” and “Baseball Birthplaces and the Retro World Baseball Classic”. Rediscover your favorite hardball arcade and simulations in “Play Retro Baseball Video Games In Your Browser” or take a deep dive into every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations in “Minors vs. Majors”.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

Topps came through again with another stellar effort in ‘85. Consistently delivering the largest checklist of the “Big 3” (Topps sets numbered 792 in those days), the inclusion of the 1984 Olympic baseball team along with a bumper crop of rookies took this set to the next level. My one slight criticism of this set is a recurring theme but particularly in the 1985 Topps series I was not a fan of the color scheme utilized on the card backs. The results were not crisp and easy to read (compare the card backs below for Kiko Garcia (1985 Topps) and Paul Mirabella (1983 Topps). I admired the layout on the front of the 1985 Topps series – the full player photo, the skewed team name and logo were appealing to the eye and allowed the collector to easily sort by team name (my preferred method at the time). Opening the packs I would first remove the stick of bubble gum and set it aside in a pile to be chewed later. While it would have resulted in a higher price per pack, I wished that the gum had been individually wrapped to prevent the inevitable staining of the cards that it was wedged between. Alternatively the gum could have been placed at the top of the pack and separated by one of the insert / giveaway cards that you were encouraged to collect in order to send away for the Glossy subsets. 

Corby Corner

I’m not sure why but the 1985 Topps set was my favorite of all-time. Aside from being the most well-known company, I really believe Topps saw the competition coming from within the industry and knew they needed to up their game. The previous series (‘83 and ‘84) introduced the head shot in the bottom left corner as a new angle but it didn’t really add much. In ‘85 Topps selected the bold, in-your-face pictures of the players as well as the team name stamped across the bottom. Doc Gooden’s card comes to mind.

In addition, as Donruss implemented the rated rookies, Topps countered with the 1984 Olympic team which, of course, included the 1987 shock to the baseball world, Mark McGwire. Along with Doc and McGwire’s rookies, Clemens, Puckett, Hershiser and Eric Davis graced the set for the first time. I found “Eric the Red” to be the one with the most potential and stocked up on his cards, though sadly the cardboard of his card might have been stronger than his body. Overall, Topps maintained it’s stance as the industry leader in 1985, but on the horizon was what I believe to be the worst card of my early collecting – the 1986 Topps card. 

Features

The standard Topps baseball card set from 1982-1992 consisted of 792 cards. The 1985 series commences with a 10-card Record Breaker subset with Dwight Gooden (#3, “Most Rookie Strikeouts”) and Nolan Ryan (#7, “Most Career Strikeouts”) topping the list. A 13-card subset (#131-143) highlights fathers and sons who played in the Major Leagues. Former #1 draft picks including Darryl Strawberry, Harold Baines and Bob Horner are featured in a 12-card series (#271-282). One of the most popular subsets (#389-404) depicted 15 members of the 1984 Olympic baseball squad along with head coach Rod Dedeaux. American and National League All-Stars from the previous campaign are featured on cards 701 through 722. Topps reverted to a single player photo on the card front with the bottom section containing the team name, team logo, player name and primary position. The back of the cards are similar to prior efforts with the player name and biographical data spanning the top, single season and career totals covering the mid-section while the bottom is devoted to notes and/or trivia. The color scheme on the card backs (red on gray with a green border) makes the information difficult to read.   

Vince “Vincent Van-Go” Coleman and Mickey “Froot Loops” Tettleton along with Chris Brown, Mariano Duncan and Ozzie Guillen debuted in the 1985 Topps Traded Set. The mail-in offer for Glossy Send-Ins allowed collectors to send away for portions of a 40 card subset with the superstars of the mid-1980’s including Cal Ripken Jr., Don Mattingly, Tony Gwynn and Dwight Gooden. Glossy All-Stars commemorated the 1984 Mid-Summer Classic with a 22 card set. Topps came out with a set of 30 3-D cards that were oversized (4 ¼” x 5 ⅞”). 

The 1985 Topps Stickers set numbered 376 in size and measured 2 ⅛” x 3”. The silver and bronze “Gallery of Champions” offered 12 replicas from the standard 1985 Topps set with dimensions of 1 ¼” x 1 ¾” highlighted by Dwight Gooden, Tony Gwynn, Don Mattingly and Ryne Sandberg. Topps again issued the Tiffany and Tiffany Traded sets exclusively through hobby dealers. The Tiffany cards typically fetch four to six times the amount of the standard sets. The Rub Downs returned in ‘85 encompassing 112 ballplayers on 32 transfer sheets. The oversized (4 ⅞” x 6 ⅞”) Topps Super cards expanded from 30 to 60 cards in ‘85. Identical to the standard series cards in appearance, this set includes the usual suspects.  

The subset values according to the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles are as follows: Tiffany $225, Traded $15, Traded Tiffany $50, Glossy All-Stars $5, Glossy Send-Ins $10, 3-D $15, Gallery of Champions $350, Stickers $15, Minis $2000, Super $10, Rub Downs $10.

One-and-Dones

The players listed below made their lone appearance on a regular-issue baseball card in the 1985 Topps set.

Keefe Cato (#367) – Selected by the Reds in the second round of the June 1979 Amateur Draft, Cato reported to the Billings Mustangs (Rookie) squad where he overmatched the opposition. Starting 11 contests for the squad he fashioned a record of 9-1 with a 1.33 ERA, 0.716 WHIP and 10.3 SO/9. Cato posted similar statistics (6-3, 1.70) for the Tampa Tarpons (A) in the first half of the 1980 campaign to merit a promotion to Double-A ball. He struggled over the next season and a half at Waterbury (AA) with a composite 4.29 ERA and a WHIP of 1.449. The right-hander bounced back in ‘82, supplying an 8-4 mark with an ERA of 3.19 in the high minors. Cincinnati promoted Cato to the big leagues and he made his MLB debut against the Dodgers on June 13, 1983. Trailing 5-1 to Fernando Valenzuela and the Los Angeles crew, manager Russ Nixon signaled to the ‘pen and Cato twirled a scoreless frame in the top of the ninth. He  whiffed Valenzuela for his first MLB strikeout. He received credit for a victory the following evening when he pitched 2 ⅓ innings of hitless ball in relief of Bruce Berenyi. Dann Bilardello drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth inning against Padres left-hander Gary Lucas. Cato whiffed Sixto Lezcano and Luis Salazar before Nixon summoned southpaw Bill Scherrer to face Ruppert Jones. Scherrer struck out Jones to seal the win for the Redlegs. Cato’s stint with the big club was short-lived and he delivered a composite ERA of 3.45 between Waterbury (AA) and Indianapolis (AAA) in 25 games (13 starts). Demoted to the Wichita Aeros (AA) to begin the ‘84 campaign, Cato worked primarily as a reliever where he compiled a record of 8-9 with an ERA of 4.19. He was recalled twice by the parent club and dazzled the Reds’ faithful during his first outing of the season. In a 12-1 laugher against San Diego on June 7, 1984, Cato rapped a pair of singles off Friars’ reliever Floyd Chiffer to register his first MLB hits. He singled to load the bases in the eighth and came around to score on Brad Gulden’s three-run triple. In the ninth inning he added an RBI to his stat sheet when his single to center field knocked in Dave “Cobra” Parker. Capping the effort, Cato hurled 3 ⅔ scoreless innings allowing only one hit (a single by Tim Flannery with two outs in the ninth) to notch his first career save. Graig Nettles launched a round-tripper against him in his next appearance but he rebounded with two innings of two-hit, no run ball versus Houston on June 12, 1984. Nevertheless the Reds sent him back to the minors but recalled him a month later. Cato’s ERA sat at 1.35 when he warmed up in the bullpen on July 13, 1984. He entered the contest against the Expos in the seventh inning and immediately yielded a double to Derrel Thomas and a walk to Doug Flynn. After whiffing opposing pitcher Bob James, Cato escaped the threat when Eric Davis caught a fly ball off the bat of Tim Raines and doubled Thomas off second base in a play that was scored CF-2B-P! Montreal led 3-2 in the eighth when Pete Rose singled and Andre Dawson homered. A walk to Gary Carter and subsequent two-base hit by Tim Wallach sent Cato to the showers. Suffering from a case of gopheritis, Cato yielded long balls in 4 consecutive appearances and his overall numbers for July 1984 are dreadful: 9 IP, 17 H, 4 BB, 13 ER. His final MLB outing came against San Diego on July 26, 1984 where he gave up 3 runs in ⅔ of an inning. Tony Gwynn ripped a double to right field and skipper Vern Rapp jogged to the mound and signaled for John Franco. Cincinnati shipped Cato to the Padres for southpaw Darren Burroughs in October 1984. He spent the ‘85 campaign with the Las Vegas Stars where he compiled a 7-10 record with an ERA of 5.28 in 44 appearances (10 starts). Cato posted similar numbers (7-10, 5.06) while splitting his final professional season between the Memphis Chicks (AA) and Omaha Royals (AAA). 

Jeff Cornell (#514) – Kansas City chose Cornell in the eighth round of the June 1978 Amateur Draft. After appearing in 7 contests as a reliever for the Royals’ Rookie League affiliate, he was promoted to the Jacksonville Suns (AA) where he spent the next 4 campaigns. Cornell worked chiefly out of the bullpen until 1981 when he started 26 games. He compiled a record of 22-29 with a 3.52 ERA and a WHIP of 1.431 for the Suns. Traded to the Giants for Dennis Littlejohn in February 1982, Cornell split the season between the Shreveport Captains (AA) and the Phoenix Giants (AAA) where he fashioned a composite 3.38 ERA with 16 saves. Back in his element as a reliever, Cornell excelled in ‘83 as he notched 18 saves with a 3.30 ERA against Pacific Coast League competition. Waiting patiently to be recalled to the Majors, he returned to Phoenix to begin the ‘84 season. San Francisco brought Cornell up to the big leagues two months later and he pitched a scoreless inning in his debut on June 2, 1984. Entering the contest in the sixth inning with the Giants behind by two runs, he relieved Jeff D. Robinson and struck out the first batter he faced (Garry Templeton). The Padres exacted revenge on the following day, stringing 5 singles and intentional walk together with two outs in the seventh inning to tag Cornell with the loss in the first game of a doubleheader. Toiling in relief of Scott Garrelts against the Dodgers on June 13, 1984, he was credited with the victory when San Francisco rallied for 7 runs in the fifth frame. Six days later Cornell lowered his ERA to 4.70 but took the loss when third baseman Joel Youngblood’s fielding error led to 4 unearned runs resulting from a Brad Komminsk grand slam. The second game of a double-dip versus the Pirates on July 13, 1984 lasted 18 innings and Cornell figured in the outcome. He took the mound in the bottom of the eighteenth after Frank Williams shut down the Buccos with 6 scoreless frames. Lee Mazzilli led off with a single and moved to second base on a balk. Lee Lacy’s sacrifice bunt advanced “Maz” to third. Giants’ skipper Frank Robinson ordered intentional walks for Bill Madlock and Tony Pena, loading the bases for Jason Thompson. Pittsburgh’s first-sacker delivered a walk-off single. In his final five outings for San Fran, Cornell was battered for 11 earned runs in 9 ⅓ innings to raise his ERA from 4.66 to 6.10. Overall he posted a 1.904 WHIP through 38.1 innings to warrant a return trip to Phoenix. The Giants released him at the end of April 1985 and the Cubs picked him up on a minor league deal. Cornell composed a 3.46 ERA while winning 8 games and saving 5 for the Pittsfield Cubs (AA). He walked away from professional ball after spending the ‘86 campaign in Iowa where he furnished an ERA of 5.69 and a WHIP of 1.682.

All of the remaining players in the 1985 Topps set appeared on at least one other regular-issue baseball card with the exception of four amateur athletes depicted in the USA Olympic subset:

Sid Akins – (#3, Texas Rangers, June 1984) – Akins compiled a 3.14 ERA working mainly as a relief pitcher in the minor leagues for the Rangers, Braves and Cardinals’ organizations. He played pro ball for five seasons (1985-89) and reached Triple-A as a member of the Richmond Braves in 1988.

Flavio Alfaro – (#4, Atlanta Braves, June 1984) – Alfaro pilfered 29 bags but hit only .193 for the Durham Bulls (A) during his lone season in professional ball (1985). 

Bob Caffrey – (#1, Montreal Expos, June 1984) – Caffrey recorded a .234 BA through five campaigns in the Expos’ farm system. The catcher / first base prospect established personal bests with 29 two-base hits, 20 big-flies and 72 ribbies while splitting the ‘87 season between Burlington (A) and West Palm Beach (A).   

John Hoover – (#1, Baltimore Orioles, June 1984) – Hoover’s professional debut consisted of five appearances (4 starts) with the Rochester Red Wings (AAA) at the tail end of the 1984 season. Assigned to the Charlotte O’s (AA) for the following campaign, he started 37 contests and compiled a 10-20 record with a 5.23 ERA before Baltimore demoted him to class-A ball in the spring of ‘86. Hoover crafted a 9-8 mark with an ERA of 4.56 for Charlotte in 1987 and then received a change of scenery when the Orioles shipped him to the Expos with two other prospects in exchange for Jay Tibbs in February 1988. He achieved a single-season high 10 victories in 28 starts for the Jacksonville Expos (AA). Montreal released Hoover at the end of Spring Training in ‘89 and he inked a minor league deal with Texas one month later. He enjoyed his finest campaign with 9 wins, an ERA of 3.38 and a WHIP of 1.224 for the Tulsa Drillers (AA). The Rangers rewarded Hoover with a cup of coffee in May 1990. Making his big league debut on May 23, 1990 with Texas trailing Detroit 4-1 in the eighth inning, he yielded back-to-back singles to Mike Heath and pinch-hitter Matt Nokes. Jamie Moyer relieved Hoover and allowed Heath to score later in the frame on a sacrifice fly. His second and final big league appearance occurred on May 25, 1990 against his original organization, the Orioles. Kevin Brown was tagged for 7 runs (4 earned) in 4 ⅓ innings so manager Bobby Valentine summoned Hoover from the bullpen. Rene Gonzales greeted Hoover with a squeeze bunt to plate Randy Milligan. He retired five of the next six Baltimore batsmen before the floodgates opened in the top of the seventh. Four base hits and three walks resulted in five tallies as the O’s extended their lead to 12-1. Hoover rebounded to retire 7 of the final 8 batters he faced.  

Did You Know?

Topps included interesting facts about some of the players on the bottom section of the card backs. 

Don Baylor (#70) – “Don once worked as salesman for Brooks Robinson’s Sporting Goods Store.”

Willie Upshaw (#75) – “His cousins, Gene & Marv Upshaw, played in NFL.”

Rich Hebner (#124) – “Rich is employed as a grave digger in the off-season.”

Al Oliver (#130) – “Has largest collection of men’s cologne in baseball.”

Ron Gardenhire (#144) – “During the season, Ron travels with a Baseball Encyclopedia to obtain autographs of players.”

Steve Yeager (#148) – “Steve’s uncle, Air Force Brigadier General Chuck Yeager, became the first man to break the sound barrier, October 14, 1947.”

Reggie Jackson (#200) – “He owns a collection of rare and antique automobiles.”

Art Howe (#204) – “Art was working as a computer programmer when a friend urged him to attend tryout camp in 1971.”

Chili Davis (#245) – “Chili is big leagues’ first Jamaican-born player.”

Rod Carew (#300) – “Has photographic and dark room equipment in his home.”

Dave Schmidt (#313) – “His confidence on the mound has been expressed on his license plates which read ‘Tuf-2-Hit’.”

Doug Sisk (#315) – “Was considered for the 1976 Olympic Rifle Team.”

Britt Burns (#338) – “Had incredible high school career ERA of 0.12.”

Steve Garvey (#450) – “Steve was once Dodgers’ spring training batboy.”

Pete Ladd (#471) – “Spent two years as a probation and parole officer at Cumberland County Jail, Portland, Maine.”

Rick Dempsey (#521) – “Rick has performed his famous ‘Baseball Soliloquy in Pantomime’ act twice in Boston during rain delays.”

Joe Lefebvre (#531) – “Joe is the owner and operator of a florist shop.”

Bob Clark (#553) – “Bob works as an embalmer during the off-season.”

Bill Madlock (#560) – “Bill has over 30 antique clocks in his collection which he began in 1978. He also collects antique furniture and automobiles.”

Al Bumbry (#726) – “He served 11 months in Viet Nam as a platoon leader, earning a Bronze Star.”

Errors

The 1985 Topps set does not contain any significant error variations.

Rookie Cards

Mark McGwire (Olympic card), Kirby Puckett, Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden, Orel Hershiser, Eric Davis and Bret Saberhagen highlight the roster of players making their cardboard debuts in the ’85 Topps set.

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (November 1985 edition) lists the 1985 Topps Baseball complete set for $22. Dwight Gooden (#620, $5) was the only individual card to list above one dollar. Mark McGwire’s rookie card (#420, graded PSA 8) currently sells in the $25-$40 range while Kirby Puckett (#536) frequently sells for $25.

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1985 Topps baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

Beckett.com (requires subscription to view prices):

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1985+topps&year_start=1985

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/103/1985-Topps

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Architects examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Retroactive is a modest collection of selected articles that I have written for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog since 2010. Exclusive content includes the chapter on “Minors vs. Majors” which assesses every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

I remember having great expectations for the 1985 Fleer baseball cards after their previous effort garnered my attention and fed my obsessive need for order. Not only did Fleer offer quality photography and a legible table of player statistics, the set checklist was sorted by team and alphabetically by the player’s last names! I sifted through my cards slowly, placing each card into the appropriate slot in the container that I purchased specifically for this purpose. Partitioned into equal-sized sections for each team, I memorized the positions of each franchise within my card carrier based on the team nicknames from A to Z, which I can still recite with ease to this day: Angels, Astros, Athletics, Blue Jays, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Dodgers, Expos, Giants, Indians, Mariners, Mets, Orioles, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, Rangers, Reds, Red Sox, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox, Yankees. The Fleer wax packs aided further in this pursuit with the inclusion of team logo stickers which adorned my card carrier along with the covers of my baseball card albums. I absorbed all the information in the Beckett price guides that were now arriving in my mailbox on a monthly basis. With Rod Carew’s pursuit of 3000 hits during the ‘85 campaign, I began a quest to collect all of his cards (ultimately falling a bit short). 

Corby Corner

Like I stated in the Donruss article, 1985 was a great year for baseball and the cards themselves. In fact, Fleer was now being looked at as on par with Topps as one of the leaders of the industry. Fleer always did a solid job with keeping their cards simple but aesthetically pleasing. The cardboard they used allowed for less damage than both Topps and Donruss. I began to buy more Fleer cards as I felt they were undervalued at the time but I would be rewarded later.

That brings me to my biggest buy since I got into the game. With a $20 bill in pocket, I went down to the local card store. Having seen a young pitcher named Roger Clemens strike out 20 batters in his last game, my game plan was to buy as many rookie cards of this young fireballer as I could. When all was said and done, I had about a dozen mostly Fleer and Topps. Crazy to think they were going for only $1.25-1.50 a piece at that time. I still have most of them in a safe, but as the market imploded and the steroid scandal engulfed Roger, the value of those cards have reverted closer to the original price than any visions of dollar signs my 12-year-old mind conjured up that afternoon in ‘86.

Features

The standard Fleer baseball card set from 1981-1990 consisted of 660 cards. Maintaining the ordering scheme established in the ‘81 set, the checklist is organized by teams based on their position in the standings from the previous season. The method facilitates set building and organization for collectors of the Fleer brand as opposed to the haphazard order of competitors’ products. Team logo stickers accompanied each wax pack. The bulk of the set features individual player cards numbered 1 through 625. A pair of “In Action” cards for Cal Ripken Jr. (#626) and Mike Schmidt (#627) include 4 photographs in a 2×2 orientation depicting the various stages of their swing path. “Giving the Signs” (#628) utilizes 3 horizontal shots of Tigers’ skipper Sparky Anderson relaying a sequence of messages to his coaches or perhaps he’s simply adjusting his cap. The next 6 cards highlight two or more ballplayers along with captions such as “A.L. Pitcher’s Nightmare” (Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield, #629), “N.L. Pitcher’s Nightmare” (Mike Schmidt and Ryne Sandberg, #630) and “N.L. Rookie Phenoms” (Dwight Gooden and Juan Samuel, #634). Continuing in a tradition started with the 1983 Fleer set, the next subset omits the border from the left or right side of the card allowing the collector to place the two cards side-by-side to form a larger picture. “Toronto’s Big Guns” (Willie Upshaw, #635 and Lloyd Moseby, #636) and “Holland Tunnel” (Al Holland, #637 and Lee Tunnell, #638) get the dual-card treatment in ‘85. Career milestones for Reggie Jackson (500 home runs) and Pete Rose (4,000 hits), a “Father/Son” card of Cal Ripken Sr. and Cal Ripken Jr., a Cubs team photo and a “Perfect Game and 2 no-hitters” (Mike Witt, David Palmer and Jack Morris) round out the 18-card subset. Twenty “Major League Prospects” containing two rookies apiece run from card #644 through #653 highlighted by the cardboard debuts of Danny Tartabull and Glenn Davis. The final seven cards are checklists. 

Fleer followed up their smashing success Update set but it failed to live up to the hype of its predecessor due to a relatively weak rookie class. Star Stickers made their annual appearance and a 44-card boxed set entitled “Limited Edition” debuted in the first season of a 3 year run. The Update set lists for $20 in the 1997 edition of the Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. A complete set (126) of the Star Stickers was valued at $50 while the boxed set of Limited Edition cards held minimal interest in the hobby community with a $6 price tag.

Every card is printed with a silver border and the photo is surrounded by another border in the team’s dominant color scheme. The team logo is situated in the upper left corner with the player’s name and primary position denoted in white lettering across the top of the inner border. The backs of the cards are very similar to previous Fleer efforts with the exception of a red background in the top section where the card number, player’s name, team and position are listed. The “Did You Know?” section and biographical information are printed in white text on a black background towards the lower third of each card. The mid-section delivers seasonal statistics and career totals in black text over columns shaded in light red or white. 

One-and-Dones

All of the players in the 1985 Fleer set appeared on at least one other regular-issue baseball card. 

Did You Know?

Fleer included interesting facts about some of the players on the bottom section of the card backs. 

Ryne Sandberg (#65) – “In 1983, he became the first player in NL history to win a Gold Glove in his first season at a new position.”

Kent Hrbek (#281) – “Broke into Majors in unique fashion by belting 12th inning home run to win a game in Yankee Stadium, Aug. 24, 1981.”

Mike Witt (#316) – “Pitched 13th perfect game in Major League history on final day of ‘84 season, beating Texas 1-0.”

Len Barker (#318) – “Pitched 3-0 perfect game victory against Toronto Blue Jays, May 15, 1981.”

Fernando Valenzuela (#387) – “Became the first rookie to capture the Rookie of the Year Award and the Cy Young Award in the same season.”  

Andre Dawson (#394) – ‘Enjoys deep-sea fishing.”

Carney Lansford (#429) – “Direct descendant of Sir Francis Drake, the 16th century British admiral.”

Jim Beattie (#484) – “Nicknamed ‘Zelmo’.”

Brad Wellman (#623) – “Earned $1,000 in August, 1983 by responding to a clubhouse dare and shaving his head.”

Errors

The 1985 Fleer set does not contain any significant error variations.

Rookie Cards

Kirby Puckett, Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden, Orel Hershiser, Eric Davis, Bret Saberhagen, Danny Tartabull and Glenn Davis highlight the roster of players making their cardboard debuts in the ’85 Fleer set.

Price Guide (Then and Now)

The “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly Price Guide” (November 1985 edition) lists the 1985 Fleer Baseball complete set for $16.50. Dwight Gooden (#82, $3.50) was the lone individual card to fetch more than one dollar. Kirby Puckett’s rookie card (#286, graded PSA 8) currently sells in the $25-$50 range.

Please add a comment below if you would like to share any memories from collecting the 1985 Fleer baseball card set or your experiences with card collecting in general!

Articles in the Series

The 1984 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1984 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1984 Topps Baseball Set

The 1985 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1985 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1985 Topps Baseball Set

The 1986 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1986 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1986 Topps Baseball Set

The 1987 Donruss Baseball Set

The 1987 Fleer Baseball Set

The 1987 Topps Baseball Set

The 1988 Donruss Baseball Set

References and Resources

Beckett, Dr. James, Rich Klein and Grant Sandground. Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles. Dallas, TX: Beckett Publications, 1997. Print.

Beckett.com (requires subscription to view prices):

https://www.beckett.com/search/?term=1985+fleer&year_start=1985

http://www.tuffstuff.com/priceguides

http://www.baseballerrors.com/

Trading Card Database – Photo Gallery

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/101/1985-Fleer

About the Authors

Derek Bain is a New Jersey native with a passion for baseball, statistics, computers and video games who enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Tom Corby – Cousins with Derek, I am a history teacher at New Egypt High School. I have three kids, Addison, Jaclyn, and Mason and I’m happy that I get to coach them in their sports as well. In my spare time I enjoy reading, anything beach related, and fishing when time allows. 

Derek’s Books

“Hardball Architects – Volume 1 (American League Teams)”, published in July 2020, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

“Hardball Architects – Volume 2 (National League Teams)”, published in April 2022, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. 

Hardball Architects examines the trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks and other transactions for the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, divided into a 2-volume set (American League and National League). All key moves are scrutinized for every team and Sabermetric principles are applied to the roster construction throughout the lifetime of the organization to encapsulate the hits and misses by front office executives.

“Hardball Retroactive”, published in June 2018, is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.  Hardball Retroactive is a modest collection of selected articles that I have written for Seamheads.com along with my Baseball Analytics blog since 2010. Exclusive content includes the chapter on “Minors vs. Majors” which assesses every franchise’s minor league successes and failures in relation to their major league operations.

“Hardball Retrospective” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com. Supplemental Statistics, Charts and Graphs along with a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com. In Hardball Retrospective, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original teams. Using a variety of advanced statistics and methods, I generated revised standings for each season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition. Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the real-time or “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here. 

“Hardball Retrospective – Addendum 2014 to 2016” supplements my research for Hardball Retrospective, providing retroactive standings based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Win Shares (WS) for each “original” team over the past three seasons (2014-2016). Team totals from 2010 – 2013 are included for reference purposes. “Addendum” is available in paperback and digital (Kindle) format at Amazon.com.