1986 Topps Cards – Big Red Machine

Joe Morgan’s last Topps card was the year before, so the only BRM players left were Perez, Concepcion, Rose, Griffey and Foster. I believe this is Foster’s last card; he was released by the Mets in the middle of 1986 (but I think that means he would still qualify for a World Series game). The Rose card is card #1 in the set. I used to love that Perez card when I was younger – it shows him high-fiving Eric Davis. Beckett used to list it as “Tony Perez w/ Eric Davis”! A cool card, freezing the moment in time, veteran with Rookie, an aging Hall-of-Famer-to-be was playing with the most celebrated prospect the Reds had since Pete Rose and until Aroldis Chapman.

This is the last set that has more than a handful of Big Red Machine cards – though they went out with a bang, as you have 2 record breakers, Concepcion pictured on the Reds leaders card, the Rose manager card, and an entire subset of cards devoted to Pete Rose. The first record breaker is a big one – depicting the moment Rose passed Ty Cobb on the all-time hit list, with a single (naturally) off of San Diego’s Eric Show at Riverfront Stadium. The other card honors Perez for becoming the oldest player to hit a grand slam.

The Rose subset follows his player card, numbered 2-7. Each card depicts 4 of Rose’s Topps card, beginning with his 1963 rookie card, al the way through to his 1985 card back with the Reds. Because of this set, I always knew all of Rose’s Topps cards by memory. I’m sure many others my age were the same way. The back of the cards talk through his accomplishments from each of the 4 years shown on the front of that card. I’m down to about 15 cards to complete this set, but two of them are cards #2-3. I sniped a picture off the internet to show them all together.

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