A couple of months ago, I completed the 1982 Topps baseball set. And I've got to say, looking through all those cards as I wrote the set completion post gave me plenty of time to think about the design.
Right from the outset, it's important for me to mention that I really like the original. The racing stripes and colors are fun, vibrant, and very "period correct" for the early 1980s.
However, I'm befuddled with the overall color choices that Topps decided to go with. I think you'll see why if we separate them into three categories.
The Teams That Aced It (3)
On three occasions, Topps did very well with their color matching. The Royals are just about perfect, while the Rangers and Brewers are close enough to feel like a concerted effort was made. If you're lenient, you can add the Red Sox to this group. Topps gave them red and blue, but they're rather far from official Red Sox team red and blue.
The "Halfway" Teams (10)
More often, Topps selected one team color and paired it with a complementary one. That brown in the Astros card is a handsome addition to the dark orange, while the magenta on Rickey's card is just plain fun when paired with the green. As for the Blue Jays cards, they received a purple color that's pleasant and easy on the eye.
The Teams That Went Off the Rails (12)
The other 12 teams in the set contain color combinations that don't seem to make sense at all. And again, this is totally fine. I actually like the orange and brown on Pete Mackanin's card, for example. But let's say you were a young Twins fan in 1982, opening your first packs of Topps cards. If you saw some orange and brown Twins and then discovered that Royals cards had such good team colors, you might have wondered why Topps did your team so dirty.
In any case, all of this research and philosophizing was enough for me to want to redesign each team—even the few that already matched well.
And now the job is done.
I created one example for each team, and they're shown below in alphabetical order by city. (There's a special bonus card at the end, too.) As with other redesigns, I selected the specific card for each team based on content: It had to feature good action, a classic pose, sweet '80s uniforms and hairstyles, or something else that seemed to match the era well.
Here we go.
There were 26 MLB teams back in 1982, so I needed one more card to fill that 27th slot. The all-star subset was an easy choice. I really like how the redesign came out, showcasing patriotic colors for the stars and stripes.
With all the other cards in the original set having white borders, it's pretty unlikely that Topps would have gone with blue borders for a subset card back then. But hey, maybe Bucky Dent's example up there could have been an early box bottom test proof, or something.
So, what do you think? If you follow a particular baseball team, did I do it justice here? Which designs do you like the best? My current favorites are Atlanta, Montreal, and Pittsburgh.
Let me know in the comment section, and thanks for reading!
A few months ago, I shared some awards from my high school hockey days. As fun as it was to look back on those times and link them to card collecting, I also briefly lamented at the fact that many of us didn't keep detailed records of our sporting experiences back then, and how I wished I had more mementos from that time.
It's because we're talking about an era before the internet, and before every local sports league was posting scores and stats on websites, down to its youngest age groups. It was also a time before every parent recorded every second of every game on their phones and then shared highlights all over their social media pages.
Recreational hockey leagues like ours provided a simple schedule printout at the beginning of every year, and kept paper scoresheets for each game, but that's about all. After the game was over, those scoresheets likely went into a file cabinet, and who knows where after that?
It's a shame.
But guess what?
Recently I decided to rummage through some more boxes in the attic, wondering if I could find any other keepsakes from my young hockey days. I knew I didn't have any jerseys from way back then. I wish I still had a couple of them, but it wasn't a big loss. (The jerseys were one-color lightweight mesh, with a screen-printed sponsor's logo on the front and a simple number on the back. It was the same for every team, aside from the color. Very basic. We received a new one every year.)
What I was really hoping to find, at the very least, was a photo or two.
Well, within about 10 minutes of rummaging, I found a couple of 3-subject notebooks from my high school days.
I was on the right track.
Not long after, I found a manila folder containing some doodles and notes from the same time period.
I had some goofball tendencies, for sure.
And then I found another folder.
Do you see the pink, yellow, and white sheets that are peeking out from the right-hand side? That's what got me excited.
They're examples of those printed-out hockey schedules I mentioned earlier!
I didn't find a schedule from my freshman year, but the pink one was from my sophomore year, and the yellow one was from my junior year. As for the white one, that's something different from my senior year. We had a pretty cool coach that season who actually kept track of our stats, and wrote out the totals at the end of the season! (I'm not going to show them here on the blog, because they include some personal information like phone numbers and names of friends.)
In any case, the initial hit of nostalgia was strong. The
schedules contained a separate row for each game we played, including the date,
time, location, and opponent. Just looking at the names of the different hockey rinks we traveled to brought me right back to those glory days.
And as I looked over each page, something else kicked the nostalgia into overdrive:
Next to each game, in the margin, there were
hand-written notes from young Gregory! I included any goals or assists I scored,
along with some notes on how I played. It was so much fun to read through them that I decided to transfer everything over to Word documents.
First, here are my high school hockey stats:
NCHL Record
Season
Team
GP
G
A
PTS
PIM
1991-92
No data available
1992-93
Devils
13
6
9
15
0
1993-94
Lightning
15
6
9
15
0
1994-95
Devils
12
5
7
12
2
Totals
40
17
25
42
2
Hey, a point-per-game player is not bad!
I didn't have a big shot, but I was a good setup guy and had some speed. My best skill may have been anticipation. I killed penalties a lot, and was the kind of player who stole passes, blocked shots, got the puck out of the zone, and tried to keep it there. I really enjoyed those aspects of the game.
As for that missing first year of stats, I think our team was called the Flyers. And it would be my guess that my personal stats weren't as solid. I'd
only been playing hockey of any kind (i.e., roller hockey) for a couple
of years at that point, and I had a lot to learn about positioning and skating. I had a lot to learn about everything. So
maybe it's not such a bad thing that my scoring stats don't exist for
that first year.
Regardless, I was determined to improve, and the season schedules provide evidence of how I maintained that determination over the years. Here are a few examples of the notes that I wrote to myself after each game:
1/3/93: 0G, 0A Could have done better.
12/28/93: 1G, 0A Game-tying goal. Good forechecking on penalty late in the game with 3–2 lead.
1/10/94: 0G, 0A Good game. Good, hard work. Almost a couple of assists.
1/24/94: 0G, 1A O.K. Need to get in a better mindset.
1/31/94: 1G, 1A Got in a better mindset! Nice goal.
I'm so glad I took those notes. They provide such a fun look at the ups and downs throughout the seasons.
To the Moms and Dads Out There
Now that I'm older, it completely stuns me to look through those hockey schedules. Many of the games didn't start until 8:00pm—or even sometimes 9:00! And quite a few of them were held at outdoor rinks throughout the county, with almost no indoor seating for spectators.
I'm trying to imagine being a parent like my mom. You come home from a long day of work, get dinner ready, and then instead of relaxing, you have to get your winter coat back on, drive your teenager to a game, cheer from a cold seat, and get home around 10:30 or 11:00pm, only to go right back to work the next morning.
There was one week during the 1993-94 season when we actually had three consecutive games during the week—Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Dang! I definitely don't remember such a rigorous schedule.
So to all the moms and dads out there who support their children with their sporting endeavors, an enormous thank you.
Fun News
I did find one photo.
There I am, likely during one of those weeknight games, on an outdoor rink. It sure seems like I'm wide open.
When I zoom in and look closely at some of the equipment I'm wearing—specifically the gloves and the skates—I'm going to conclude that this was my first season of rec league hockey. 1991-92. Freshman year of high school. I'd really love to find more photos, but for now I'm happy to have at least this one.
And like I mentioned in the hockey trophy post, I'm happy to have played most of those seasons with a few of my high school friends. That senior year—when our coach tabulated all our stats—was a good one. The four of us finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 7th in team scoring. (I was 3rd.) It felt good to represent our high school like that.
Other Fun Stuff
Here's a clip featuring the video game my hockey-loving friends and I would have played the most:
And here are a few more hockey cards we would have been excited to find in packs. (Brands
like Finest, Flair, Upper Deck SP, and Leaf Limited had joined the
party—each with some inserts that were rather scarce for the time.)
1992-93 Score USA Greats #8 Brian Leetch, 1993-94 Upper Deck Silver Skates #R6 Steve Yzerman, 1993-94 Stadium Club Finest #1 Wayne Gretzky
At this point of the post, it's almost too easy to say something like, "Where does the time go?" or, "It feels like just yesterday". But you know what? There's a reason why so many folks say things like that.
It's true.
Those were such fun times, and looking back on those stats and the hand-written notes has filled me more so with good energy than with sadness or a longing for a time gone by. I'd love to go back, sure, but in quite a few ways I still am that teenage kid inside.
And I'm proud of high school Gregory for his laser focus. There can be a lot of distractions in high school, not to mention all the chemical and biological stuff going on inside your body as you go through adolescence. But high school Gregory was determined to play hard and improve his skills on the ice, and to work equally hard in school. He wouldn't let anything stop him. Good stuff.
As for collecting? By the time I reached my senior year, I'd lost interest. And that means I missed out on many of the inserts, autographed cards, and relics that would flood the hobby in the mid- to late-1990s.
But it was fine. I had a new challenge coming up the next year:
College hockey tryouts.
I know I've got at least a few mementos from that time. Could be a mission for my next rummage through the attic.
A few months ago, I shared some cards from the early 1930s that were more like little pieces of art. They were originally issued by a German margarine company called Sanella—one card in each package. Impressively, the Sanella company published an accompanying "Handbook of Sports" that you could order separately. Inside, you'd find a space reserved for each card, along with detailed information about each sport or activity.
There are 112 cards in the set, and many are quite affordable considering their age and delicate nature (they're paper thin). The first four I purchased were "absolute had to have 'em", but I knew I'd eventually go back to look over the checklist and find a few more that I really enjoyed, either for the artistry or the sport featured.
Have a look at these beauties:
Last time, I mentioned how a successful piece of art should draw you in and force you to look at it. It freezes that moment of action. And this card certainly does it! What a great angle, too. You can almost hear the creaking of the oars and the swishing of the water as the rowers do their thing.
I haven't followed women's professional tennis since the days of Maria Sharapova, Martina Hingis, and the Williams sisters. I only have a few tennis cards of any kind in my collection. However, I couldn't pass this one up. The image is cropped in such a way that makes this woman seem like she's playing in an opera house instead of on a tennis court. Her name is Cilly Aussem, and in 1931 she became the first German (man or woman) to win the singles title at Wimbledon. Considering the Sanella set was issued in 1932, it's no surprise that Aussem was included!
As a hockey player and fan, I knew I wanted this card from the start. However, it was a bit more pricey than many of the others in the set, so I took my time and did some searching. When I saw the color and centering on this particular copy, I went for it. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot of descriptive text on the back of the card—only that this particular game is between Brandenburg and S.C.C. (Sport-Club Charlottenburg).
Based on some quick research, it looks like a Brandenburg player (red and white) is about to score a goal.
Finally, we've got this gem. You're looking at Clas Thunberg, a speed skater from Finland who took home five Olympic Gold Medals in the discipline—three in 1924, and two in 1928.
This image must be from a speed skating competition, but I like to think that Clas is back home in Finland, and this is just the way he commuted to the office in the morning.
Here's the back of his card, for reference:
Most of that text consists of advertising, plus instructions on how to order your handbook. (It will be delivered postage-free upon receipt of a 70 Pfennig stamp addressed to "Sanella," P.O. Box No. 125, Berlin C2. Please clearly indicate your address.)
So, I've got eight cards from this set now. And there's a reason why I went for that many.
In no world was I going to just tuck these cards into a box and forget about them. I had to display them in a binder.
Eight-pocket pages do exist, and that was my initial intent. However, after taking some measurements, I discovered that these Sanella cards are just a tiny bit too big for those pockets. The next-best thing was the 5-pocket page that you see above. There's a noticeable amount of empty space around each card, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do.
Besides, the Sanella cards are pretty happy in this particular binder, which houses a small-but-growing collection of vintage sport and non-sport cards from sets like Gum Inc. Adventure and World on Wheels (which you see peeking out from underneath).
Ultimately, these kinds of cards have been fueling a good portion of my collecting energy these days, and I might keep searching for more examples. There's certainly a lot out there, and the artwork is often fantastic.
Thanks for reading along, and here's to the continued search!
From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could
find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a
goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In
this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a
little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well.
The first two weeks of middle school are in the books, and you're tired. It's a new building. A new workload. New classes. New pressures. And it's fine. You're handling it.
But still, you're tired.
Now it's Sunday, and you've been out helping dad with some errands. That's also fine.
But still, you're tired.
Then dad gives you an escape.
"How about some lunch?"
Absolutely. You're definitely hungry, and if you know dad, he's not taking you home for a cold, uninspired bologna sandwich. There are plenty of places to eat out here on the road.
So you nod in agreement, sit back, take a breath, and let dad drive.
It seems like it takes a while, but eventually you roll up to this place:
What in the world are you even looking at there? A fish place? Where even is this? How far did dad actually drive?
But you know what? All those questions don't matter. You're here. So that's where you're eating. You get out of the car and head to the front entrance with dad.
And then you walk in and see this:
Welp. The pirate/landlubber theme is still going strong on the inside.
But it's not all weird. The smell of french fries is pretty strong. And looking around at what other folks are eating, some of the fish is battered and fried, too. You even see some chicken fingers.
Then, while you're waiting on line to order, it gets even better. There's a big, poster board display on the wall next to the cash registers highlighting a special promotion.
GET A FREE 5-CARD PACK OF LONG JOHN SILVER'S BASEBALL CARDS WHEN YOU ORDER A MEAL WITH A 32-OUNCE COCA-COLA
Your eyes light up, and you turn to dad.
"I guess we're both getting a meal with a 32-ounce Coke", he says with a sly grin.
Ah, now it all comes together. You bet dad saw an advertisement in the paper, and that's exactly why he brought you to this place. Even sweeter, you know he's going to give you his pack, so you can open one, and keep the other sealed if you want.
You both order the fish and chips with some hushpuppies, plus the Coke. It's not long before your order is ready, and as the cashier slides the trays over, you spot the packs of cards.
Once you find a booth and sit down, dad slides a pack over to you.
Before you dig in to your meal, you flip it over.
Darryl Strawberry? Cool!
He's got one of the swings that you and all your friends try to imitate when you're playing Wiffle ball, or baseball at the park.
And then as you look at the design, it hits you:
It's just like the posters that you and some of your friends have on your walls—only in baseball card size!
The fun discovery only increases your appetite, so you chow down. The food is good, and Long John Silver's is quickly becoming one of your favorite places to eat.
Once you finish eating, you ask dad if you can open one pack right there at the table. He says it's fine with him, so you go for it.
Pretty good result! Along with Darryl, you find some great stars. Boggs, Raines, Trammell, and Sabo.
After inspecting the header card a little more, you discover that you received Set #5. There are 8 Sets in all, which means there are 40 different cards to collect. Hopefully there will be more trips to Long John Silver's in the near future.
You ponder the possibilities, and flip over one of the cards.
Nice color photo. Nice stats. They could have filled the space at the bottom a little more, but overall, it's a decent effort by Starline.
Then you flip over the header card.
Sweet! It's a form you could use to order the actual posters! (You've got to tell your friends about this. If you all start going to Long John Silver's, you'll have the complete 40-card set in no time.)
As you leave, you notice a bell hanging from the wall with a little rope hanging from it. An employee tells you that you can ring it on the way out. One ring means the food was good, two rings means the food was great, and three rings means someone is in trouble.
You give that bell two solid rings, and dad does, too.
Now let's talk about the restaurant.
The first Long John Silver's restaurant opened in Lexington, Kentucky in 1969. The founder, Jim Patterson, saw an opportunity to be the first fast-food chain dedicated to seafood, and went all-in on the maritime, nautical theme inside and out. Success came pretty quickly, thanks in great part to the quality food and the dining experience. Within a few years, the chain opened new locations around the US.
By the early 1980s, there were more than one thousand Long John Silver's restaurants across the country. Toward the later half of the decade, the number was closer to 1,500!
In the 1990s, that number started to decline. Not only was it impossible to continue the kind of growth the franchise had experienced to that point, but other fast food giants had also started to notice the popularity of the seafood chain, and reacted by adding fish items to their own menus.
Since then, the Long John Silver's name has had some struggles, including bankruptcy, ownership changes, and the closing of numerous locations.
However, the chain has recently had some success. They've rebranded, placed some healthier options on the menu, created more drive-thru facilities, and modernized by adding an online ordering system. As of this writing, there are nearly 500 Long John Silver's restaurants operating in the United States, and a small handful abroad in places like Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia.
Here's a TV commercial that promotes the baseball card set. (Sounds like it's narrated by Mel Allen!)
So how about you readers and collectors?
Do you have any of these cards in your collection? Have you ever eaten at a Long John Silver's?
Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!
What if I told you that back in the early 1970s, there was a young minor league baseball prospect in the Cardinals' system who was so determined to make it to the big leagues that he learned to play different fielding positions?
It wouldn't surprise you much, right?
Well, what if I added that one day, a minor league teammate saw him warming up by throwing left-handed, instead of using his natural right hand? And how his left-handed throws looked pretty darn good? And that when this teammate asked why he was warming up lefty, the young prospect said that if their coach ever wanted him to pitch, he wasn't going to pitch right-handed because he didn't want to risk blowing out his throwing arm. (Simple as that, right?)
And what if I added that later, this young prospect injured his right shoulder in a collision at home plate, but was still so determined to make it to the big leagues that he switched positions from catcher to outfielder, using that trained left arm to make the necessary throws back to the infield?
And what if I added that a few years later, the young prospect's coaching staff didn't think he would pan out as a big leaguer, and cut him from the team? And that despite the setback, this young prospect was still determined to be a star in some sport, somewhere, so he turned to the sport in which his father excelled?
And would you believe it if I told you that this young prospect, named Randy Mario Poffo, eventually turned into this guy?
Well, believe it or not, it's true. As Randy Poffo's professional baseball career was winding down, he began training with his father—who was a successful wrestler himself—to become the best professional wrestler in the world. Such was Randy's determination.
And did he ever accomplish his goal. Two-time WWF World Heavyweight Champion. WWF Intercontinental Champion. 1987 WWF King of the Ring. Pro Wrestler of the Year in 1986, 1987, and 1988.
The story was inspiring enough for me to create a custom card.
Over the years I'd seen a few Randy Poffo customs, but none that captured baseball and wrestling on the same card. So that's where I wanted to go. I thought a design from the Then & Now series would fit nicely, and settled on the one you see above. There's young Randy on the left, in his catcher's gear. Then you've got "Macho Man" Randy Savage on the right, sporting his championship belt.
And you know I had to create a custom card back for this two-sport star. Here it is, with stats and everything. I'm going to enlarge it so you can look through the numbers more easily.
The baseball stats reveal that Poffo was a pretty decent ballplayer. Solid batting average, some power, and what seemed to be a good eye at the plate.
As for the wrestling stats, wow, that's a lot of matches over a long period of time. Macho Man was pretty athletic in the ring, and I can't even imagine the wear and tear he put on that body over all those years. But it sure was fun being a kid in the 1980s, watching him do his thing.
You can find plenty of entertaining Macho Man highlights online—both in the ring and during those classic pre-match interviews. And I encourage you to do so. But for this post, I wanted to include something different. Here's a three-minute interview where Mr. Poffo discusses his baseball career and his transition to wrestling.
Nothing was going to stop that guy. We should all be so determined.
And that's another custom card in the books. I really had fun working on this one, and I hope you guys are enjoying it, too.
