2012 Topps Archives – cards #151-200 (1984 design)

Happy Father’s Day to everyone!

The last design from the Topps quartet of cards in the 2012 Archives set is 4 years later – the 1984 Topps set.  Similar to the 1983 set, the card front features a dual picture format.  The front has a white border featuring a large photo with a cameo portrait in the bottom left-hand corner and the Topps logo in the top right-hand corner.  The team name is positioned vertically in team colors on the left-hand side, while the player name and position is shown across the bottom right part of the border.  The blue card back features the team logo in the upper right-hand corner, player stats from each season and career totals, and if there’s room, 1983 season highlights.

Gary Carter

There are 3 players in the Archives 1984 grouping who had cards in the 1984 set.  The first one was, like Ozzie Smith in the 1980 set, given the wrong team.  Gary Carter played most of his Hall of Fame career in Montreal, coming over to New York to rally the talented Mets.  He’s often credited as the guy who got them to reach their potential and finally winning that 1986 World Series.  All that is great and good, but he was still with the Expos through the end of the 1984 season.  While it’s a little bit closer to correct than Ozzie on a 1980 Topps card with the Cardinals.  Putting him with the Mets on this card design, well, it just doesn’t look right.  Plus, his actual 1984 card is a beauty – so no contest here!

Jim Rice

New Hall of Famer (fairly new, anyways) Jim Rice is the next player here.  He’s got the right uniform on, though like the George Brett card from the 1980′s, Topps can’t get that part wrong since Boston was the only team he played for.

The era looks about right here, the Archives card (to the left) maybe a little bit later than the 1984 card (to the right).  In fact, these cards in general look pretty similar.  I actually like the Archives card a little bit better.

Nolan Ryan

The last player in both sets with the ’84 design is Mr. Strikeout himself, Nolan Ryan.  Topps got the uniform right and it looks like they’re pretty close in getting the year right as well.

Like the Rice card, I feel like the Archives card (to the left) is a little bit later in the decade.  I also like the Archives card here a little bit better than the ’84 card – Ryan’s ’84 Topps card is one of my least favorite of his cards.

Finally, here’s a few more cards from this grouping that I liked.  It seemed to me like there were not as many great photos as the 1980 subset.  But still some good ones:

Completed set & “master set” – one last look at 1984 Topps

The 1984 Topps and Traded set is my fifth set completed – thus I’m halfway through completing the sets from the 80′s decade!  I’ve also completed my “personal master set” for this year as well – which I’m defining as the base set, the traded set, and any regular inserts.  Here’s the “look back” for this set.

Info about my set:

How I put the set together:

365 cards from the wax box

195 cards from a vending box

100 cards from an eBay lot of rack packs

126 cards from trades

1 card from the Topps Diamond Giveaway

5 cards purchased from Sportlots

Card that completed my set: #251 – Tony Gwynn (1 of 5 cards I purchased from Sportlots)

Set composition: 792 cards (680 individual player cards, 26 Manager/TC, 6 Checklists, 6 Season Highlights, 8 League Leaders, 22 All-Stars, 18 Active Career Leaders, 26 Team Leaders)

Representation of ’83 MLB season: There are 683 different players represented in the set – the 680 individual player cards, and a 3-player highlights card of retiring stars Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski and Gaylord Perry.  Out of those 683 players, 2 players didn’t play in MLB in 1983 – Rollie Fingers and Art Howe missed the season on the disabled list.  The 681 players represent 71.4% out of the ~954 players who played in MLB in 1983.

Last active player from this set: #48 – Julio Franco

An ageless wonder, Franco played his last major league game on 9/17/07 for the Atlanta Braves.  As a pinch hitter, He singled in a run in his last at bat.  Franco did play professionally in the Mexican League in the beginning of 2008 - his 31st season in pro baseball, retiring in May of that year.

Player with the most cards in the set: Steve Carlton - 8 cards

Steve Carlton has an incredible 8 cards in this set, basically due to career achievements combined with the fact that he was still pretty good.  In addition to his base card, Carlton had 2 cards in the Highlights set – one for winning his 300th game, another as a 3-player card with Nolan Ryan and Gaylord Perry commemorating the 3 pitchers’ passing Walter Johnson for the most strikeouts in MLB history.  Carlton had an All-Star card (despite the fact that he was not an All-Star in 1983), and 3 cards in the Career Leaders subset (Wins, ERA, Strikeouts).  Finally, he had a League Leaders card for pacing the NL in strikeouts en route to taking temporary hold of the all-time strikeout record.

#1, #4 (HL), #136 (LL), #395 (AS), #706, 707, 708 (CL), #780

First Card and the Hundreds: #1 – Carlton HL, #100 – Reggie Jackson, #200 – Andre Dawson, #300 – Pete Rose, #400 – Cal Ripken AS, #500 – George Brett, #600 – Rod Carew, #700 – Mike Schmidt

Highest book value: #8 – Don Mattingly RC

Most notable card: #8 – Mattingly RC (rated #19 in Topps vote of 60 best cards)

You could argue the Strawberry card is a tie with Mattingly, but I think since Strawberry had a card in the 1983 Traded set, Mattingly’s is the only true RC here.

Best card (my opinion): #10 – Robin Yount

I’ll be honest, the photography in this set isn’t the greatest – the 1983 set was much better.  But this is a pretty cool in-action photo of a great player.

Second best card (also my opinion): #8 – Mattingly RC (see above)

Again, I think this gets 2nd more for lack of competition than anything.  I hesitated to put this card in here since the Donruss card is really his more famous rookie.  But this card is pretty cool, too – so it ultimately came down to Mattingly of Strawberry for me.

Best subset card: #4 – N. Ryan / S. Carlton / G. Perry HL

This was actually a really tough one – there’s also the Carlton’s 300th win highlight card and the “retirement” card of Yaz, Bench and Perry.  After Walter Johnson being king for nearly 60 years, these 3 guys all passed the Big Train in the same season.  Then Ryan and Carlton went back and forth for a year-plus as the current strikeout king.  This was such a big deal, it’s got to be this card.

Favorite action photo: #10 – Yount (see above)

Favorite non-action photo: #64 – Kirk Gibson

I really like the alternative Tigers jerseys here.  Add to this the fact that this is the 1984 card of their best player who hit a memorable home run in the World Series – and this is a pretty sweet card!

My Favorite Reds card: #6 – J. Bench / C. Yastrzemski / G. Perry HL

It didn’t beat out the other 3-card highlight card above, but Bench’s last base Topps card will beat out just about anybody from the Reds – particularly the 1984 version of that team!

Other Notable Cards: #182 – Darryl Strawberry (rated #21 in Topps vote of 60 best cards)

As mentioned, the Strawberry isn’t a true rookie card, but it’s still a pretty big deal, and a pretty cool card.  I included most of any notable cards from this set (i.e., the Carlton & Bench/Yaz/Perry HL) above.

Topps Reprints:

• 1999 Ryan reprints – Nolan Ryan
• 2001 Through the Years – Don Mattingly
• 2001 Archives – Mattingly, Bert Campaneris, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Palmer, Bucky Dent, Billy Martin MG, Steve Carlton HL
• 2001 Cubs 50th Anniversary – Ryne Sandberg
• 2001 Topps Traded – Dwight Gooden (’84T), Bret Saberhagen (’84T)
• 2002 Archives – Willie Hernandez, Sparky Anderson
• 2005 Rookie Cup Reprints – Sandberg, Darryl Strawberry
• 2005 Gallery Heritage – Strawberry, Mattingly
• 2010 CYMTO – Mattingly, Sandberg, Strawberry, Julio Franco
• 2011 60YoT – Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson
• 2012 Archives Reprints – Mattingly, Cal Ripken Jr.

Not surprisingly, 5 Mattingly reprints…

My “Master” Set Info:

858 cards – 792 “base”, 132 “update”, 62 “insert”

• Update set: Traded
• Insert sets: Glossy All-Star Game Commemorative, Glossy All-Star and Hot Prospects (send-in)

How I put the other sets together: I purchased the Traded set and the insert sets online

Update set composition: 132 cards (126 players, 5 managers, 1 checklist)

In the update set not in the base set: 29 players, 5 managers

Total in base and update sets: 709 players, 31 managers, 3 retired players

Highest book value in the update set: #42T – Dwight Gooden RC

Most notable card from the Update set: #42T - Gooden RC

Honorable mention here is the Pete Rose Montreal Expos card, but it can’t compete with the Doc Gooden RC.

Most notable insert card: Glossy Send-Ins #29 – Darryl Strawberry

Best Insert card: Glossy Send-Ins #29 – Darryl Strawberry

I don’t think anything in the two Glossy sets can be particularly notable – but I’m sure the Strawberry card was a big part of this set.  Plus, it’s a great photo, so I’m giving it my “best of” award.  Also of note, Carl Yastrzemski was the AL Honorary Captain card in the 22-card Glossy insert set.

’90 Reds Catchup Post – 1984 Topps + Traded

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

84 Darryl Palmer card scan

I referenced this card in an earlier post – it’s a card Topps made to promote the movie “The Slugger’s Wife”, which I’ve never seen. I was trying to find a picture on the internet with no luck until now. I saw this on ebay for a lot more than I’d be willing to pay. Maybe by linking this site, I’ll be the middleman between the seller and a grateful buyer. A tiny 10% middleman fee would be fine, no?

1984 Topps Glossy Sets

Topps printed 2 Glossy All-Star sets in conjunction with its base set in 1984. The first set was a 22-card set commemorating the 1983 All-Star game. This set had the manager, the 9 starters, and an honorary captain card for each league (retiring stars Johnny Bench & Carl Yastrzemski).

12 Hall of Famers:     R. Carew, G. Brett, R. Yount, J. Rice, D. Winfield, C. Yastrzemski, W. Herzog, M. Schmidt, O. Smith, A. Dawson, G. Carter, J. Bench

Bench is the lone Big Red Machiner.

The next set was a 40-card send-in set returning for its 2nd season. After obtaining 25 “runs” from the ”All-Star Baseball Game” card that came 1 per wax pack, you could send in to get 1 of 8 different 5-card portions of the set. The players in this set were primarily All-Stars from the previous year’s game (1983). Again, this wasn’t true for every player – Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose were not All-Stars in 1983 or 1984, but are included. Darryl Strawberry was not an All-Star in 1983, but was the Rookie of the Year, and he was an All-Star in 1984.

16 Hall of Famers:     E. Murray, R. Henderson, W. Boggs, G. Carter, G. Brett, N. Ryan, D. Winfield, O. Smith, J. Rice, R. Carew, S. Carlton, A. Dawson, R. Yount, M. Schmidt, C. Fisk

Rose is the lone Big Red Machiner. Interesting that Bench is in the earlier set, but not this one.

I got both sets on eBay. The first set was pretty cheap, like $4 including S&H. The second set was a little bit more, but I didn’t feel like waiting to find a good deal.

1984 Topps Traded

Topps again issued a 132-card factory “Traded” set in 1984. The setup of the 1984 Traded set was the same as the previous two years; cards were numbered in alphabetical order, separately from the base set with a “T” suffix as #1-132. The design was the same as the base set, and for the 2nd year in a row the cards were printed in Ireland on white cardstock. The set contains XRC’s of players who didn’t have a card in the base set, players who signed with or were traded to new teams, and new managers.

For the 2nd year in a row, Dealers who ordered cases of the Topps Traded set also received a miniature Bronze Card – this time the card was a replica of Darryl Strawberry’s 1984 Topps Base Rookie Card. For the first time, Topps issued a Tiffany set that had a glossy picture on the front.

There are 3 Big Red Machiners in the set – Tony Perez and Joe Morgan were in the Traded set for the 2nd year in a row, joined by Pete Rose. All 3 left the Philadelphia after a BRM “reunion” and a World Series appearance in 1983. Perez was on a 1 year deal, and returned to Cincy by signing a free agent contract with the Reds. Morgan and Rose were both released in October of 1983. Morgan returned home for his second 1-year stint in the Bay Area, this time signing with his hometown Oakland A’s. Rose signed with the Montreal Expos, where he would collect his 4,000th hit and play for just over half a season. This card is one of the few Rose Expos cards. Cards I know of that feature him in Canadian attire:

84 Topps Traded, 84 Topps Traded Tiffany, 84 Fleer Update, 84 Stuart Expos, 84 All-Star Program insert, (Note that 84 OPC – picture in Phillies uni, but denotes he was traded and team name says Expos)

This is by no means the most expensive set in the 80′s. But from my perspective, it seems pretty loaded for a Traded set. There are 7 Hall of Famers in this set.

• Morgan & Perez, as noted above
• Tom Seaver, who was selected as a free agent compensation pick by the White Sox. Seaver was left unprotected after a 1-year return to the Mets, who assumed no team would want a 39-year-old pitcher with a decent-sized contract.
• Dennis Eckersley, who was traded from the Red Sox to the Cubs in May. Eckersley helped the Cubs to their first postseason appearance in 39 years, though he lost a game in the NLCS.
• Phil Niekro was signed as a free agent by the New York Yankees. “Knucksy” would win 16 games for the Yankees in 1984 and make his final All-Star game selection. He would also win his 300th games with the Yankees a season later.
• Goose Gossage left the Yankees to sign as a free agent with the Padres. One of many new faces for San Diego in 1984, Goose clinched the game 5 NLCS win to send the club to its first World Series appearance.
• Yogi Berra was signed for his second stint as manager for the Yankees. This card is interesting because this hiring led to a decade-plus rift where Berra did not return to Yankee Stadium. Yogi managed the team in 1984 and agreed to return in 1985 after owner George Steinbrenner told him he would manage the full season. 16 games into the ’85 season, Steinbrenner reneged on that promise and fired Berra. Yogi held a grudge for years and his participation in Yankee celebrations seemed finished; he even stayed away from Yankee Stadium for the dedication of his plaque in Monument Park. To quote the former catcher – “it ain’t over ’til it’s over”. Steinbrenner finally issued a public apology in the late 90′s, and Yogi returned for “Yogi Berra Day” in 1999. There he caught the ceremonial first pitch from Don Larsen – to battery mates for the historical World Series perfect game. At that game, David Cone put an appropriate stamp on the tribute by throwing the 3rd perfect game in Yankees history.

Perez and Berra are the only players featured with the cap from their HOF plaque. Both are on return stints to the team they are most associated with.

The set is best known for the Dwight Gooden XRC; the Strawberry card from the year before and the 84 Donruss Mattingly were some of the cards that started the Rookie card craze in the hobby. Future 2x Cy Young winner Brett Saberhagen and future WS MVP Jose Rijo also have XRC’s in this set.

There were some other Rookies in this set who would go on to have very productive careers, and there were also some guys who would have some serious impact on future pennant winning and World Championship teams. Willie Hernandez would win the AL MVP for the World Champion Detroit Tigers. Darrell Evans didn’t have a great year for the Tigers, but in 1985 he would become the first player to hit 40 homers in both leagues. Graig Nettles joined Gossage in moving from the Bronx to San Diego. Buckner and Johnson would both have what I’ll call “significant” impact on the 86 World Series – Johnson as the winning manager, Buckner as the goat. These are the first cards with those teams.

1984 Topps scans

Here’s what I’d consider the most famous cards of the set. The first two are the most recognizable RC’s from then and now. I’ve read on a lot of blogs that collectors born before the 1980′s (so basically anyone older than me) generally don’t like the RC craze that took over the hobby in the 80′s and 90′s. I tend to disagree with them up to a point. To me, the idea of rookie cards is generally a good one. Having the first card of a star means you’ve either got a card from when no one knew what was to come, or, for these 2 guys, from when they were the new “buzz” in the baseball world. When Doc Gooden or Darryl Strawberry were a rookies for the Mets, it wasn’t just that their RC’s got valuable. They were the biggest stories in baseball at the time. For Gooden, he was the biggest story in baseball in the ’84 and ’85 season. Why shouldn’t their first card carry a premium? Now I agree, this can go too far – it’s done so when you had sets or large subsets that are built just for prospecting guys who are 3 years from even making the majors. The new fix MLB imposed a few years ago (no cards until the guy has made his debut) seems to help this.

The Ryan/Carlton/Perry highlight card is truly iconic to me. Johnson’s mark of 3,509 strikeouts had stood for 56 years, and Johnson himself set the record 6 years before he retired. So this was a 62 year-old record. And 3 guys surpassed it in the same season. Plus, it was the all-time strikeout record – if chicks dig the long ball, the second best thing is the strikeout.

The Quisenberry may not quite rise to the same category as the other 3 – but to me, this card also commemorates a pretty big record. His 45 saves shattered the record of 38. And he truly had a great season. Quiz was quite the character in baseball – at times he seemed halfway amused with his success, halfway struggling with it. He became a poet after he retired, and published a book of his work, “On Days Like This”, in 1998. Sadly, Quiz died of cancer that same year. See the picture of his book at the end of this post.

Speaking of pretty good players, here are some pretty good players on cards pretty early in their career (but not the dreaded RC’s)! These guys hod quite a few batting titles, MVP’s, and a Cy Young Award.

Speaking of winning Cy Young Awards. This guy won a few. Topps honored him with a bunch of different subsets, and they sure went with a variety of poses in doing so. The highlight card acknowledges his 300th win in addition to his ending the season as the all-time strikeout leader.

Speaking of all-time leaders with a lot of subset cards. Here’s Rickey’s 4 cards that I pulled. Much like fellow recent Hall-of-Famer Andre Dawson – Rickey’s base Topps cards always seem to be a really good picture.

Speaking of recent HOF-ers. Here’s 12 more cards of Hall-of-Famers. I like most of these shots. The Jackson card does seem to show another lack of variety across the years – most of his 80′s Topps cards have him kneeling down at the end of that powerful swing. The Jenkins card was his last Topps card; it’s strange that he had a base card this year, despite retiring at the end of the 1983 season. Bench, Yastrzemski and Perry did so as well, and they were only featured in subset cards. The Seaver card shows his 1-year return to the Mets, and I never knew Jim Rice was in the “Oscar Gamble crazy afro” club too!

Here’s some other recognizable players. This is Hernandez’s first regular issue card with the Mets (he was in the Traded set the year before). I like the Fernando shot – this was when he was still considered one of the best in baseball. Garvey is shown in his first regular issue card without the Dodgers – he helped get the Padres to the World Series in 1984. Good shot of future manager Brenly in all his catcher’s gear. Bucky Dent with the Rangers? I didn’t know he played with the Rangers. He had some cool glasses though.

Speaking of cool glasses, these guys are the pre-cursors to Chris Sabo. I wonder if Knicely wore his glasses under that catcher’s mask.

As mentioned, here’s Quiz’s book. This is the largest picture I could find.

1984 Topps Cards – Big Red Machine

For the ’84 set, I got every base card except Pete Rose. His card is shown here. So is the Bench/Yaz/Perry retirement card, which is the last Topps card for Bench and the other 2 Hall-of-Famers. The base cards I did pull are below.

BRM-ers were a part of 5 of the subset for “active career leaders”. In fact, for the one for NL hits, Perez and Rose were on there. I pulled 2 of this subset, but was still missing 3 others. See the scan below.

Here are the ones I didn’t pull, so I stole the pic from the WWW. The “Big Dog” was on 3 of these!

1984 Topps vending box

In the past I was posting how much of the set was completed by the vending box break (stand-alone – as if I had just opened that box and not the wax box). Doing this and then putting it together with the wax box I’d opened was taking too much time. So I’m just posting how the vending box did for completing the set.

Since the wax box was so poorly collated, it stood to reason that the vending box would do better in helping complete the set. It did. I got 194 base cards that I hadn’t had from the first box break. So I had a total of 560 cards, or 71%, toward finishing the set. I did get the Ripken 3rd year card and the Sandberg 2nd year card out of this pull, so that was a good thing. Gwynn is the only notable card I didn’t pull from one of the boxes. So I don’t have his RC or his 2nd year card.

I also bought a few rack packs as part of an eBay auction. After opening everything, I have 660 cards out of the set. So I’m getting there. As usual, I’ll post some pictures in a later post this week.

1984 Topps wax box break

I finished breaking the 1984 wax box, which I bought from BBXC, it ran fifty bucks. I pulled both the key Rookies – Mattingly and Strawberry. Of the key 2nd year guys, I only pulled Boggs – so no Gwynn or Sandberg. I also didn’t pull the Ripken card.

So not so great there, and overall, the collation was pretty awful for this set. It seems to be getting gradually worse – 1980 was the best (though ’83 was good too), and you’d think it would improve since the set got 66 cards bigger in 1982. I had a total of 174 doubles out of the 540 cards in the box – compared to 20 from the year before! That’s a really bad drop-off!

The one saver here – Topps packaged the cards so that the wax was again touching the front of the first card. In 1983, it was touching the back, and because of that and the gum stain, basically 2 cards per pack were not salvageable. Well this year, it was the exact opposite. For whatever reason, the gum stains only ruined a couple cards. And since the front touched the was, I was able to get the wax off the front of most of the cards. So compared to about 70 ruined cards from 1983, I had only 4 or 5 this box, and only 1 was a single. Stats for the box:

36 packs per box * 15 cards per pack = 540 cards

174 doubles

366 of the 792 card set. (46.2% set completion)

36 “All-Star Baseball” game cards

1 singles was, so I really about the same portion of the set as above. Still much worse than last year - I can’t wait until the gum issue goes away! Though that will probably not be until the mid 90′s. I still haven’t had a real valuable card with a stain yet, so that’s good.

I’ve opened the vending box as well; I’ll update my checklist of cards for the ’83 set in a little bit – including that break.