I started full blown card collecting in 1989. I was 12 years old and cards and video games were what life was about for me. The sets that were readily available to me were Topps and Donruss in my hometown. Every now and then, a box of Fleer would sneak in but I never saw Upper Deck. I had the chance to grab some UD on a church trip once to a bigger city but Camilla stuck with the basics. That said, cards were much more widely available then than now. I could get them at Rite Aid, Big B Drugs, Wal Mart and Piggly Wiggly, along with a few convenience stores. Now, Wal Mart remains the lone carrier of cards in my hometown and their selection is pitiful. I went home this past weekend and Wal Mart was stocked full of Magic cards but they had 4 jumbo retail packs of Topps, one football blaster of Optic and one 2017 Heritage blaster. I took the Heritage blaster and posted those hits Friday night.
Back to 1989, Topps was abundant in town so I remember going through a couple of boxes of these during that year. That was not whole boxes at once but definitely by the pack over the course of the summer. I don’t know that I’ve opened a pack of ’89 Topps since then, until now. I really love the design for that year and it’s really the last year Topps had that old school feel to it to me. 1990 brought a definite 90’s design that still remains a popular one with me but is a bit on the extreme side. I like the ’91 design and it was more of a classic look than ’ 90 but was not ’89. Of course, the Future Star was a fine subset of ’89 that I have spoken of before, here. It also held one of the most magical cards of my childhood but more on that later. I don’t remember them being .45 cents per pack back then but I wasn’t the one doing the buying in those days either. But looking back, I don’t understand why I got so much grief for asking for baseball cards when we went to the store.
I have a lot of memories of 1989 and collecting cards. Some good and some not so good. I may have even already told this one but I remember 1989 Topps getting me in hot water with my dad one time. We were on our way to the lake for the weekend and we stopped at a grocery store. Of course, I found the card section and talked him into making a small purchase. However, I did something else that ticked him off and resulted in him buying the cards but telling me I couldn’t open them until the next day as punishment. Being the sneaky kid that I was, I pried open the back of one of the wax packs just to take a glimpse. The only thing I saw was an Orel Hershiser All-Star card. I was satisfied that my pack was going to be ok and I went back to quietly riding in the car. Well, dad eventually saw the creased open wax pack and I had them taken from me for a week. That was a rough one at the time. Little did I know, a .05 cent card would be my undoing. Spoiler alert – I did pull it tonight!
As I said above, the card is a very classic design with the white border, rounded in the top left and bottom right corners where the Topps logo and name banner are. My favorite part of the design is the bubble letters used to show the team name in the bottom right corner. The bubble letters are one of the team colors and it swoops around to provide a spot for the player’s name to be spelled out in a classic wavy banner. The back of the card had a black border with a pinkish/red background. Other than the color, it was typical Topps of the previous years with a full career of stats and informational tidbits, unless the career took up the whole back. The box itself holds 36 packs with 15 cards per pack. So a total of 540 cards but the set itself was 792 cards in more typical set fashion for the late 80’s. The wax pack was a great looking blue color that remains my favorite Topps wax pack of my generation. And of course, gum – lots and lots of dextrose and corn syrup.
So with the outline of the set for you, let’s take a look at the vintage gems I uncovered in these packs. Vintage is technically classified as 25+ years old, right?
Base Cards – The set is loaded with stars from the good ole days of Baseball. The checklist includes Nolan Ryan, Cal Ripken Jr., Jose Canseco, Wade Boggs, Doc Gooden, Daryl Strawberry, Kirby Puckett and others. The card I chose for this piece is Mike Greenwell. I had a discussion last week with @scottberger on Twitter about how Bostonians felt about Greenwell as I had always considered him vastly underrated. It seems that Boston agreed with me, as evidenced by the homemade sign that Scott made pushing for Greenwell to get the All-Star vote ahead of Jose Canseco. Greenwell approved too and signed that bed sheet for Scott. So consider me an even bigger fan. Plus, on the field, he hit over .300 for the first four years of his career (up to the ’89 Topps) with years of .323, .314, .328 and .325. In ’88, he hit .325 with 22 bombs, 119 RBI and 16 SB. Damn solid!
All-Stars – The set also included cards from the National and American League All-Star participants. These were colorful cards with either a red (American) or blue (National) background with the same bubble letter font used for the “All-Star” logo.
Topps All-Star Rookies – Another Topps tradition was naming All-Star Rookies in their sets. The beauty I’ve posted here is Chris Sabo from the 90’s Big Red Machine. Sabo was a very good third baseman known for his signature goggles! Also a beast on RBI 3.
Future Stars – Here is where the big money card was in 1989, Gregg Jefferies. As Ryan (@basecardhero) so aptly reminded me as I was posting cards last night, this card was supposed to be one of those “retirement cards” by now. Jefferies was a hot rookie for the NY Mets and I think I owned (still own) all of his ’89 cards. My favorite was the Topps version because of the Future Star logo. Alas, I did not pull a Jefferies but you have a chance to in the random that’s outlined below. I did pull the second (maybe third) best option with Sandy Alomar Jr. The other great option in the set was Gary Sheffield. I also pulled ’89 rookie Mike Harkey.
Draft Picks – I did pull some good draft picks in this box. I pulled the best one, Robin Ventura, and also Braves phenom, Steve Avery. There were several other pulls but none that really stuck over the years. This Ventura was one of my favorites in ’89 as it was taken in his college uniform.
Managers – Oh yes, in fine Topps fashion, the manager card was ever present. There were some legendary managers in ’89, like the pictured Don Zimmer and Tommy Lasorda. There were also some duds that shall remain nameless.
Record Breakers – The first few cards in the set were Record Breaker cards that commemorated some big statistical performances. The card pictured is George Bell and it outlines his 3 home runs on opening day in 1988, which was a major league record. Others included Wade Boggs consecutive 200 hit seasons (6 – attributed to an all chicken diet), Andre Dawson and more.
Team Leaders – In lieu of a team photo card, the team leaders was a semi-checklist card with a star pictured on the front, in this case Bo Jackson of the Royals. The back of the card listed the team leaders in the major statistical categories.
Turn Back The Clock – The final insert in the set was a small collection of Turn Back the Clock cards featuring stars of yesterday (as in before ’89) and featured a Topps card of a star from the early years. The card featured here is of Lou Brock and is from 10 years prior to ’89. It covered major events of the ’79 season on the back of the card. I also pulled Hank Aaron (15 years ago), Gil Hodges (25 years ago) and Tony Oliva (25 years ago).
All in all, a great trip down memory lane even though the Jefferies card eluded me. This was a set that was very important in cultivating my collecting efforts as a 12 year old beginner. Another fine example of value being in the mind of the collector. I won’t be putting these cards up on eBay and making any money but the evening spent thumbing through cards from my youth is priceless but I will be buying another box to try and finish up the set. The cost of the box is very reasonable and I really did not pull a ton of duplicates so the collation was pretty good. The gum stains are a drawback for anyone looking for mint cards. It also left Ken Griffey Jr. for the Traded Set. This is still one of my favorite Topps sets, for design and sentimental reasons. Because of these reasons, I will give it a Dub Score of 4. I think you’ll like the walk down memory lane if you bought these in ’89 and buy another box today.
As for the random I mentioned, this has the potential to net you 2 of the best cards from the ’89 set. I saved the last 4 packs to random off to one winner who follows the instructions below. I did not pull a Gregg Jefferies or Gary Sheffield so the odds are that one of them is in these final 4 packs. Who knows, maybe both of them are there. All you have to do to win these 4 packs is retweet this blog post (which is the pinned post on Twitter) and respond to the post with the year you started collecting cards. It’s that simple. Thanks for checking it out!
Dub Score – 4
Scoring Scale
- Let me be the sacrificial lamb so you don’t have to buy these cards. Just read the post and thank me later.
- There is worse but there is much better – not worth the effort though.
- Middle of the road – I wouldn’t talk you into buying these but I certainly wouldn’t talk you out of them.
- You should probably go out and buy a box and enjoy the rip – I did! It has some downside but worth the ride.
- Stop reading and find a box to buy and get to Breaking! What are you waiting on?
Awesome post! I have a feeling the “Dub Scale” is going to grow legs and become something…
It may grow legs and become something but that something may be very weird! Thanks for checking it out as always. So glad to have like minded collectors such as yourself to discuss the good old days of collecting.
The card availability of my youth was like yours…I could only readily find Topps and Donruss in town. The 7-Eleven by where my dad worked had Fleer and every once in awhile I would get a pack of those. Those were BIG days!
By 1990, I could find everything except Leaf.
There was a Suwanne Swifty down from my house that also had the occasional Fleer. That store actually still had ’89 Donruss packs in 1992-93…..
The only I absolutely despise on this set, was the horrendous artwork used for the #1 draft pick—absolutely terrible.
I loved the fact that they were in their college uni’s but I understand where you are coming from on the design. The ’89 design in general is plain but very classic for me. It’s clean and memorable. The draft picks were different.
Great post. I was also 12 years old in 1989 (well, I turned 13 that year but after the baseball season) and also have fond memories of this set. I always thought the graphics looked like a glob of toothpaste, but in a good way.
I remember that Jefferies card being the one everyone was chasing (it eluded me for quite a while), though in retrospect I’m not sure why – he had rookie cards in the 88 Donruss and Fleer sets so this was listed as an “FTC” in Beckett and not quite as prestigious but for some reason everyone wanted it anyway.
There was this thing in the late 80s where Topps sets almost always missed out on the big rookies while Donruss or Fleer had them – no Jose Canseco or Fred McGriff in 1986, no Greg Maddux in 1987 (though he only really became the key star rookie from that year later), no Jefferies, Mark Grace or Roberto Alomar in 1988 and no Griffey in 1989 (probably the biggest exclusion of all). Then in 1990 it seemed like Topps finally caught on and got most of the key rookies that year (while Fleer and Donruss missed out on Frank Thomas). So 1989 was sort of the end of the “Topps getting scooped by Donruss and Fleer on key rookie cards” era.
You make a great point about Topps missing out on the key rookies. They were mostly included in the Traded sets but those weren’t readily available in my area. My only spots for cards were Wal-Mart and grocery stores and they didn’t carry the traded stuff. I miss the fact that they didn’t have those guys in their true rookie year. I also don’t understand why the ’89 Jefferies was more popular than his ’88 cards other than those sets were considered “inferior” to Topps. Thanks for checking out the post and commenting. I appreciate it!