Piniella and Oester are back from the previous year’s Topps set, as is Bill Doran from the ’83 Topps Traded set. However, Rick Mahler doesn’t have a base card in the ’84 set as he spent nearly the entire 1983 season in the minors. Oester is also on a subset card as the Reds’ team leader in batting average. Bill Doran’s base card is his Rookie Card (if you don’t count XRC’s as rookie cards). Jose Rijo’s XRC is in the Topps Traded set.
1984 – Lou Piniella, Ron Oester, Ron Oester (TL), Bill Doran RC
After going 15-5 with a 1.68 ERA in the Florida league as an 18-year old the previous year, Jose Rijo made his major league debut for the Yankees in 1984. This was quite a big jump for Rijo, who wasn’t quite ready and went 2-8. Interesting that Rijo and Piniella were briefly teammates (basically for the first half of the ’84 season), and Piniella was later Jose’s manager when he won the 1990 WS MVP.
1984T – Jose Rijo XRC
I never realized the Rijo-Piniella Yankee connection before…