Childhood Gems, Updated Daily

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by NYRE2PECT

I had pages, and pages, and pages, and pages of '85 everything....love the Vince Coleman TT card.

It's a special card for sure. Was super hot back in the mid-to-late 08s and still looks so awesome today.

Originally Posted by rfgilles

85' Topps was the first box I ever bought with my paper route money. I have a soft spot in my heart for that set.
88horsepower thanks for starting this thread. Thoroughly enjoy your posts.

Thank you! I really love how this thread has been a source of joy for some people here! 85 Topps really is a special set. To me, it was the first set I remember thinking was absolutely loaded with rookies. So many guys from that set made a real impression on me as a kid.

Originally Posted by DioBrando

Very cool and I didn't know the 85 tiffany had that low a pop. Been meaning to pick up a regular 85. Growing up in St Louis in the 80's, the 85 Vince was big card

Yeah, the Tiffany cards from the 85TT set are tough, especially the four major rookies from it. I have the Tettleton, which is the easiest to get a 10 on, but still tough. The Coleman was so hard to find. I still can't find a decent enough looking Ozzie Guillen or Ted Higuera to send in. Lots of poorly cut cards, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by awz50

That upper deck jt snow is fun

It really is! Crazy seeing him in Yankees threads when he played predominantly with the Angels and Giants.

[88horsepower]

Every so often I think about certain players who unfairly have their legacies linked to a narrative that doesn't fairly define their true greatness. Some examples of this are guys like Gregg Jefferies, who many card collectors have labeled as a "bust" or think of him as someone who was a failure as a ballplayer. While it's true that they hype surrounding Jefferies was incredible, and that he wore out his welcome in the Big Apple while playing for the Mets, did you also know that he was one of the toughest players to strike out during his career? In 6,072 plate appearances, Jefferies struck out just 348 times. He also batted .289 for his career and was a two-time All-Star with Cardinals where he hit .335 over two seasons. Not exactly a bust at all.



Another player who comes to mind when I think of unfair legacies is Robin Ventura. I have to wonder sometimes if he wishes he could go back and not charge the mound when he got plunked by Nolan Ryan. Admit it, the headlock and Ryan pounding away at Ventura's skull is the first thing you think of when you think of Robin Ventura. But when I think of Ventura, I try to go beyond the beanball incident and remember that he was six-time Gold Glove winner who hit 294 career home runs. He also scored over 1,000 runs and knocked in over 1,100 runs for his career. He also made the All-Star Team in both the 90s and 00s. Again, solid player who deserves better than to be remembered for being Nolan's Ryan's punching bag for a night.

[88horsepower]

When we were kids, getting Rated Rookies out of a pack of Donruss baseball cards was akin to getting an insert card before insert cards were a thing. It often felt like we might have uncovered a potential gold mine, perhaps finding a player who someday would enter the hallowed halls of Cooperstown. Of course, this rarely ever happened, and most players had decent to uneventful careers. And, those that did make the Hall of Fame, don't exactly command big money these days even in PSA 10 slabs.



One such set that had no Hall of Fame talent was perhaps the redheaded stepchild of Donruss sets from this era, and I mean no pun intended with the "redheaded" comment, is the scarlet-colored 1990 Donruss set. Almost every Rated Rookie set from 1984-1989 has some major highlights, even the 1985 set which lacked star power but debuted the classic Rated Rookie logo we all know and love. 1990 got off to a fast start with hot rookie prospects like Ben McDonald, power hitting Greg Vaughn, future two-time MVP Juan Gonzalez, and a host of other talents we all had high hopes for.



Unfortunately, the set had some serious issues with quality control and a design that many people compare unfavorably with 1991 Fleer, which had those icky yellow backdrops. I don't think the red borders look as good when compared to 80s Donruss sets and the paint splatters that accompany the red borders are so early 90s and really date the set. However, I find myself strangely attracted to the Rated Rookie crop in this set because so many of the players in the set were guys I loved collecting and most had very solid careers, like four-time Gold Glove Winner Marquis Grissom.



In addition to the aforementioned players in this thread, journeyman hitter Todd Zeile, 2,000-strikeout pitcher Andy Benes, former Braves All-Star Steve Avery, Expos prospect Delino DeShields, and two-time All-Star Robin Ventura also took part in the popular subset. It's one of those true junk-era sets that I can't help but want to slab despite the fact that it's a throwaway set that most people wouldn't want to bother with. I think nostalgia has definitely cashed in on my desires to get all the Rated Rookies mentioned in PSA 9s or better and I'm pretty close to completing my journey, needing just Avery, Benes and Zeile to complete my quest.

[ScooterD]

Bonus points for gems of Juan Gon batting righty and lefty!!!

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by ScooterD

Bonus points for gems of Juan Gon batting righty and lefty!!!

Totally! I am still hunting for a nice PSA 9 of the Reverse Negative version of the Juan Gone Rated Rookie. I do have the standard one, but I do feel like the PSA 10 for the error card is a little too high for what I'd be willing to pay at this point.

[88horsepower]

Today, I'm feeling a little compelled to brag about a certain player who due to injury was never able to flesh out a full major league career, but definitely made his mark during the short time he was active. Ted Higuera was a sensation and quickly rose to fame in his native Mexico when he posted an 8-3 record with a 1.85 ERA playing for Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican League where he would win Rookie of the Year honors. In 1983 he would go 17-8 with a 2.03 ERA and strike out 165 batters in 222 innings pitched.



The Milwaukee Brewers took notice of Higuera's achievements and purchased his contract. After just one season playing in Milwaukee's minor league system, he was elevated to the major league roster and given the opportunity to compete for a role in the starting rotation. The move proved to be very successful for the Brewers with Higuera earning the spot in the rotation and putting up remarkable numbers, going 15-8 and finishing second place in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. The following year, Higuera would win 20 games and lower his ERA over a full point, finishing the season with a 2.79 ERA with over 200 K's. Higuera would finish second in the AL Cy Young Award voting and make his first and only All-Star Team. He wasn't finished, either. In 1987 Higuera would win 18 more games for the Brew Crew and set team marks for most strikeouts (240) and most consecutive scoreless innings (32). Again, he would earn Cy Young votes, this time finishing 6th.



Higuera would continue to thrive in 1988 going 16-9 with a 2.45 ERA and would lead all of baseball with a 0.9999 WHIP. At this stage of his career, Higuera was already past the age of 30 having pitched several seasons in the Mexican League and his body began to show signs of wear. In 1989 he began suffering from a multitude of injuries to his ankles and back. He worked through the injuries but started just 22 games in 1989, going 9-6 with a 3.46 ERA. Two years later he would tear his rotator cuff and miss the entire 1992 season and only pitch sparingly in 1993 and 1994 before calling it a career.



I do think Higuera's career is really quite impressive given the fact that he only pitched for six major league seasons before missing significant time between 1991-1994. Higuera has a 30.3 WAR for his career, and I do think it's notable considering how short the productive period of his career was. Imagine if he had played the first part of his career in the majors instead of Mexico or if he had stayed healthy and continued to pitch well into his 30s like so many of his contemporaries. One can only wonder, but there's no question he made his mark in the late 80s and deserves some recognition for how great he was.

[88horsepower]

I thought since it was April Fool's Day today it might be fun to talk about error cards. No, there's no real connection between error cards and April Fool's Day, it is kind of an upside-down day. In any case, when I started collecting in 1986 I really never took notice of error cards from the past. Even though plenty of error cards existed in 1986, like the famous 1982 Fleer John Littlefield card, errors and variations just weren't a major part of the collecting lexicon in 1986.



It didn't take long for me to figure out that error cards and variations were soon to become a well chased and often rare find in the card world. The very first error card I fell in love with came from 1988 Topps. As a rookie card collector, it was already a ton of fun pulling Future Stars from Topps products in 1987 and 1988, but when I ended up with two different Al Leiter cards from this set, I really did have to scratch my head. In fact, I don't even think I knew at the time which one featured the real Al Leiter.



I remember preferring the corrected version of the Leiter, thinking the backdrop looked almost surreal with the sky appearing to look like something out of a horror movie like "The Fog" or something apocalyptic.

Another card I would later become a fan of is from one of my favorite 80s sets of all-time, 1986 Donruss. The set has such a memorable design, with the borders very reminiscent of old Max Headroom episodes.





The variation here with "The Big Cat" is on the back, not the front. On one version of the card has an accent mark over the E in his first name while one does not. The "No Accent Mark" card is far more challenging to find, with only 25 Gem Mint copies graded compared to 212 copies of the "Accent Mark" card in existence. It was tough to track down the "No Accent Mark" card, but I'm sure glad I found one a few years ago as very few hit the open market.



I feel like once 1989 cards came out, the error and variation boom really started, with the 1989 Upper Deck Reverse Negative taking center stage along with the many variants of the infamous Billy Ripken card from 1989 Fleer. But the two cards that had the biggest impact on me as a kid were the Letier and Galarraga cards that I featured here. It does surprise me a bit that Galarraga's cards are still very inexpensive. He's one of the most well-loved players from the era, who hit 399 career home runs and made two miraculous recoveries from cancer during his playing career.

[88horsepower]

While 4/1 represents a holiday for pranksters everywhere, 4/2 represents the birthday of one Pete Incaviglia who turns 59 years old today. To many of us, Pete is the epitome of an all-or-nothing player who could either hit a 450-foot bomb to center field or whiff on three straight pitches. During his rookie season, Inky hit the tenth most home runs in the league (30) but also struck out more than any player in the league (185). The high K-AB ratio would plague Incaviglia's career. Twice he led the league in strikeouts, achieving the dubious honor again in 1988 with 153 K's. In fact, he would strikeout an astounding 788 times between 1986-1990.



Oddly enough, today he'd probably be worth tens of millions of dollars for his power hitting alone having hit 20 or more home runs six times in the first eight years of his career. Today, Incaviglia is still very much involved in the game but in a managerial capacity. In 2021 he was hired as the manager of the Tri-City ValleyCats of the Frontier League. To this day, he still holds NCAA records for the most home runs in a single-season (48) and RBI (143) which he hit while playing for Oklahoma State University.

[88horsepower]

Right around this time every year since 2004 I think about how much I miss seeing the Montreal Expos as part of the baseball landscape. Although they weren't my favorite team, I always found myself drawn to their players and those awesome uniforms. So many great names came out of the Expos organization, particularly in the early 90s when I was at my peak with collecting baseball cards.



Despite the fact that many Expos greats came before them, prospects like Larry Walker, Delino DeShields, and Marquis Grissom all had cardboard debuts in 1990 which felt to me like the start of a youth movement in Montreal. Walker would start creating a Hall of Fame resume. Grissom would go on to win four Gold Glove Awards, half of them with Montreal. DeShields would someday be a key trade component that would bring future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez to Montreal.



The following seasons we would begin seeing cards of players like Rondell White, Moises Alou, and Cliff Floyd all of whom would have solid major league careers. Sadly, most of the players mentioned would find some of their greatest success while playing for other organizations.



The Expos had put together one of the greatest regular seasons I had seen to that point when they strung together 74 wins in 114 games, leading the NL Easst, before the major league baseball strike robbed them of a potential world championship run. That Expos team was loaded with talent with most of the aforementioned players making an impact with that team. I sometimes wonder what would have happened to the Expos had they won it all that year.



Would the Expos still exist or was their fate inevitable given the challenges of being a smaller market team in Canada? It's hard to say, but I have to believe that a World Series would have changed the landscape of major league baseball. In fact, it would have been quite interesting to see both Canadian teams taking three consecutive World Series titles with the Toronto Blue Jays having won back-to-back titles in 1992 and 1993. In any case, I long for the Expos to return to baseball, but for now we may have to settle for reminiscing with some fun cards from yesteryear that feature those awesome red, white, and blue threads.

[rfgilles]

Originally Posted by 88horsepower

Right around this time every year since 2004 I think about how much I miss seeing the Montreal Expos as part of the baseball landscape. Although they weren't my favorite team, I always found myself drawn to their players and those awesome uniforms. So many great names came out of the Expos organization, particularly in the early 90s when I was at my peak with collecting baseball cards.



Despite the fact that many Expos greats came before them, prospects like Larry Walker, Delino DeShields, and Marquis Grissom all had cardboard debuts in 1990 which felt to me like the start of a youth movement in Montreal. Walker would start creating a Hall of Fame resume. Grissom would go on to win four Gold Glove Awards, half of them with Montreal. DeShields would someday be a key trade component that would bring future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez to Montreal.



The following seasons we would begin seeing cards of players like Rondell White, Moises Alou, and Cliff Floyd all of whom would have solid major league careers. Sadly, most of the players mentioned would find some of their greatest success while playing for other organizations.



The Expos had put together one of the greatest regular seasons I had seen to that point when they strung together 74 wins in 114 games, leading the NL Easst, before the major league baseball strike robbed them of a potential world championship run. That Expos team was loaded with talent with most of the aforementioned players making an impact with that team. I sometimes wonder what would have happened to the Expos had they won it all that year.



Would the Expos still exist or was their fate inevitable given the challenges of being a smaller market team in Canada? It's hard to say, but I have to believe that a World Series would have changed the landscape of major league baseball. In fact, it would have been quite interesting to see both Canadian teams taking three consecutive World Series titles with the Toronto Blue Jays having won back-to-back titles in 1992 and 1993. In any case, I long for the Expos to return to baseball, but for now we may have to settle for reminiscing with some fun cards from yesteryear that feature those awesome red, white, and blue threads.

I like the clean minimal design on the 90 Fleer.

[NYRE2PECT]

Originally Posted by 88horsepower

Today, I'm feeling a little compelled to brag about a certain player who due to injury was never able to flesh out a full major league career, but definitely made his mark during the short time he was active. Ted Higuera was a sensation and quickly rose to fame in his native Mexico when he posted an 8-3 record with a 1.85 ERA playing for Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican League where he would win Rookie of the Year honors. In 1983 he would go 17-8 with a 2.03 ERA and strike out 165 batters in 222 innings pitched.



The Milwaukee Brewers took notice of Higuera's achievements and purchased his contract. After just one season playing in Milwaukee's minor league system, he was elevated to the major league roster and given the opportunity to compete for a role in the starting rotation. The move proved to be very successful for the Brewers with Higuera earning the spot in the rotation and putting up remarkable numbers, going 15-8 and finishing second place in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. The following year, Higuera would win 20 games and lower his ERA over a full point, finishing the season with a 2.79 ERA with over 200 K's. Higuera would finish second in the AL Cy Young Award voting and make his first and only All-Star Team. He wasn't finished, either. In 1987 Higuera would win 18 more games for the Brew Crew and set team marks for most strikeouts (240) and most consecutive scoreless innings (32). Again, he would earn Cy Young votes, this time finishing 6th.



Higuera would continue to thrive in 1988 going 16-9 with a 2.45 ERA and would lead all of baseball with a 0.9999 WHIP. At this stage of his career, Higuera was already past the age of 30 having pitched several seasons in the Mexican League and his body began to show signs of wear. In 1989 he began suffering from a multitude of injuries to his ankles and back. He worked through the injuries but started just 22 games in 1989, going 9-6 with a 3.46 ERA. Two years later he would tear his rotator cuff and miss the entire 1992 season and only pitch sparingly in 1993 and 1994 before calling it a career.



I do think Higuera's career is really quite impressive given the fact that he only pitched for six major league seasons before missing significant time between 1991-1994. Higuera has a 30.3 WAR for his career, and I do think it's notable considering how short the productive period of his career was. Imagine if he had played the first part of his career in the majors instead of Mexico or if he had stayed healthy and continued to pitch well into his 30s like so many of his contemporaries. One can only wonder, but there's no question he made his mark in the late 80s and deserves some recognition for how great he was.

Whoa....another blast from the past. Teddy Higuera, wow.

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by NYRE2PECT

Whoa....another blast from the past. Teddy Higuera, wow.

I have quite the affinity for "blast from the past" type of players who often don't get the spotlight treatment a lot of the bigger names gets. Higuera was definitely one those guys I loved from that era who deserves some love here.

[88horsepower]

I'm sure this is a thought many of you have had, especially if you're here enjoying a thread dedicated to the junk era. The thought that some of the best players from that era didn't really get a premium rookie card and how unfortunate it is and a missed opportunity to create a truly iconic card of an iconic player. The first player that comes to mind is Pedro Martinez. As much as I love Upper Deck, there are 4,393 PSA 10's of his only rookie card from the heavily produced 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition set. Can you imagine if Pedro had a card in 1991 Topps and received a Tiffany card or a Desert Shield parallel? Big props to Blowout member GatorPie who created this awesome rendition of a "what if" card.



But, sadly, this card doesn't really exist and we're stuck with his 1991 UD Final Edition card as his only true rookie card. So, being a collector of "rookie-related" cards, I pull from 1992 and 1993 sets when it comes to collecting great Pedro Martinez slabs. His 1992 Gold Leaf Rookies card is what I consider to be one of his better "premium" options for a rookie-related card, but 1993 has some great sleeper cards I would like to shine a light on, starting with 1993 Fleer Major League Prospects.



This might be one of the toughest sets to earn high grades on from this era. In fact, it's nearly impossible. These were randomly inserted into 1993 Fleer packs and split into two 18-card sets. The first series was found in Series I packs and features 1993 NL Rookie of the Year winner Mike Piazza. Series II is where you can find the Pedro Martinez. The black borders are almost always heavily chipped straight out of the pack and many of the cards are very poorly cut straight out of the factory, creating all kinds of centering issues that only add to the frustration of finding one in high grade. In fact, of the 36 total cards from this set that have been sent to PSA only 2 have come back with PSA 10 grades and only 4 have received PSA 9s. Most of the cards end up with PSA 8 or PSA 7 grades due to the aforementioned issues. That being said, I cherish this PSA 9 seen above and have no delusions of ever finding the one PSA 10 copy out there.



Another sleeper from 1993 comes from the Score company who issued a 30-card set that was inserted at a rate of 1:4 super packs. Boys of Summer is a really great insert card and again features a very young Pedro Martinez in what I consider a "rookie related" set since all 30 cards in this set feature rookies and prospects. Martinez exceeded his rookie limits in 1993 so it makes sense why he was included in some of these insert sets that were dedicated to younger players. I love this card quite a bit and consider it to be among my favorites of his early cards and a rather tough slab to find as only ten PSA 10s exist at the time of this post. The Boys of Summer set also features the aforementioned Mike Piazza along with his AL Rookie of the Year counterpart, Tim Salmon and future stars like catcher Dan Wilson and Braves slugger Ryan Klesko.

Some other tough inserts to consider from 1993 are 1993 Pinnacle Team 2001 and 1993 Score Proctor & Gamble, but I have yet to come across those in high grade, but I'm quite pleased with the two cards featured above. What other players do you feel were missed opportunities when it comes to true premium rookies from this era?

[caulaflour]

This thread just delivers and delivers and delivers. I was born in 1980, so all of your experiences and how you describe the players, the cards, the demand and buzz over said cards and players is totally spot-on. Thanks for doing this...I love it.

...as an aside, we started seeing Moises Alou cards in 1990, btw. He might not have been in an Expos uniform yet, but he debuted the same year as the famous Montreal trio.

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by caulaflour

This thread just delivers and delivers and delivers. I was born in 1980, so all of your experiences and how you describe the players, the cards, the demand and buzz over said cards and players is totally spot-on. Thanks for doing this...I love it.

...as an aside, we started seeing Moises Alou cards in 1990, btw. He might not have been in an Expos uniform yet, but he debuted the same year as the famous Montreal trio.

Thank you! I'm really stoked to hear people are enjoying the thread. And you are so right about Alou. I always put him in with the 91 group because that's when he started getting Expos-related cards, but he was absolutely in that 1990 class, having started out with the Bucs. One of my favorite cards of his that I own is from 1990 Procards, playing for the Harrisburg Senators from the Pirates minor league system.

[NYRE2PECT]

Originally Posted by caulaflour

This thread just delivers and delivers and delivers. I was born in 1980, so all of your experiences and how you describe the players, the cards, the demand and buzz over said cards and players is totally spot-on. Thanks for doing this...I love it.

...as an aside, we started seeing Moises Alou cards in 1990, btw. He might not have been in an Expos uniform yet, but he debuted the same year as the famous Montreal trio.

i was on the Expos in youth baseball...our first year we went 1-19. It got better after that, but I always enjoyed wearing the colors. Mon'real!

[88horsepower]

On this day in 1989, Orel Hershiser's major league record 59-inning scoreless innings streak finally comes to an end. At Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, Hershiser gives up a single to Todd Benzinger who drives in future Hall of Famer Barry Larkin. Larkin was nearly picked off by Hershiser after getting a leadoff hit to start the game, but advanced on a throwing error from Hershiser, which set up the Reds to score the first inning run that ended the streak.



That record still stands to this day and ranks as perhaps one of the more untouchable records in baseball history. The closest someone has come to matching Bulldog's mark was in 2015 when Zach Greinke went 45 2/3 scoreless innings. Several other pitchers have reached 40 or more scoreless innings, but nobody has ever come close to the nearly 60 straight innings Hershiser accomplished during that magical 1988 season in which he took home the Cy Young Award and also won NLCS and World Series MVP honors.

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by NYRE2PECT

i was on the Expos in youth baseball...our first year we went 1-19. It got better after that, but I always enjoyed wearing the colors. Mon'real!

Those Expos threads are really awesome. Very cool that you got to represent those for youth baseball! My buddy and I were coaching for our Little League a few years back and we specifically asked if we could bring back a defunct team’s uniforms with the Expos in mind, but the league said we didn’t get a choice. I wish we could have been the ‘Spos for a season!

[88horsepower]

A very happy 54th birthday to Bret Boone!



How many families can claim to have four different family members spanning three generations who played in major league baseball? Even more impressive, all four were All-Stars at least once. Grandfather Ray, father Bob, and siblings Aaron, and Bret Boone may as well be baseball royalty. Bret Boone had some impressive years with, most famously, the Seattle Mariners. It was in Seattle that Bret became a major offensive force, crushing 37 home runs and driving in an AL best 141 RBI. Although Bret has denied it, famed steroid user Jose Canseco accused Bret of using, having chatted with Bret during a 2001 spring training game when he noticed Bret's more muscular physique. Bret has pointed out that during the 2001 season, the he never played against Canseco in spring training and that Canseco never reached second base at any point during the regular season that year when Canseco's Angels played the Mariners.



Although Bret, to my knowledge, never tested positive for PEDs, it is rather suspicious to see his power numbers increase so suddenly in his early 30's. Bret was a very solid infielder from 1993-2000, averaging 15 home runs during that span. From 2001-2003 he averaged 32 home runs per season, making it rather suspicious to see him elevate his power numbers at a point in a player's career when numbers tend to decline. Whether he used to not, there's no denying Bret was a terrific middle infielder. The second baseman was a four-time Gold Glove winner, taking home the honor while playing for Cincinnati and Seattle. Four different times, Boone ranked #1 in the league in fielding percentage for a second baseman and twice he ranked #2.

[rfgilles]

Originally Posted by caulaflour

This thread just delivers and delivers and delivers. I was born in 1980, so all of your experiences and how you describe the players, the cards, the demand and buzz over said cards and players is totally spot-on. Thanks for doing this...I love it.

...as an aside, we started seeing Moises Alou cards in 1990, btw. He might not have been in an Expos uniform yet, but he debuted the same year as the famous Montreal trio.

Agreed. 88horsepower you do an amazing job tying in the cards to the player's career.

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by rfgilles

Agreed. 88horsepower you do an amazing job tying in the cards to the player's career.

Thank you! It's a labor of love, but one I am really happy to hear is appreciated. It's a joy to do this.

[88horsepower]

On this day in 1988, Cincinnati Reds third baseman Chris Sabo ties a major league baseball record in just his second big-league game. The future Topps Rookie All-Star gets credit for eleven assists at the hot corner during the Reds' 8-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals at Riverfront Stadium. Later that season, Sabo would earn his first of three All-Star nods and eventually beats out Cubs first baseman Mark Grace for NL Rookie of the Year. Sabo would hit .271 in 1988 with 11 home runs and 46 steals and have the 3rd highest defensive WAR in the NL (2.4) on his way to taking home the top rookie honor.



I really found myself to be quite fond of Chris Sabo following his 1988 rookie season. When I discovered that he was a Rookie of the Year winner, I assumed he had to be a pretty awesome player. It didn't hurt that he had a signature look with those Jabbar/Dickerson-esque goggles he wore. I just thought he was cool. Then I ended up pulling his Topps rookie cup from a 1989 Topps pack and the deal was sealed, Sabo had to be a stud if he earned one of those cool gold cups on his Topps card. It's really something how many of us were probably heavily influenced by the Topps Rookie All-Star cups, thinking we had something worth a decent amount of coin back in the day when pulling a .75 card from a .40 pack really meant something to a kid in junior high school!

[NYRE2PECT]

Originally Posted by 88horsepower

A very happy 54th birthday to Bret Boone!



How many families can claim to have four different family members spanning three generations who played in major league baseball? Even more impressive, all four were All-Stars at least once. Grandfather Ray, father Bob, and siblings Aaron, and Bret Boone may as well be baseball royalty. Bret Boone had some impressive years with, most famously, the Seattle Mariners. It was in Seattle that Bret became a major offensive force, crushing 37 home runs and driving in an AL best 141 RBI. Although Bret has denied it, famed steroid user Jose Canseco accused Bret of using, having chatted with Bret during a 2001 spring training game when he noticed Bret's more muscular physique. Bret has pointed out that during the 2001 season, the he never played against Canseco in spring training and that Canseco never reached second base at any point during the regular season that year when Canseco's Angels played the Mariners.



Although Bret, to my knowledge, never tested positive for PEDs, it is rather suspicious to see his power numbers increase so suddenly in his early 30's. Bret was a very solid infielder from 1993-2000, averaging 15 home runs during that span. From 2001-2003 he averaged 32 home runs per season, making it rather suspicious to see him elevate his power numbers at a point in a player's career when numbers tend to decline. Whether he used to not, there's no denying Bret was a terrific middle infielder. The second baseman was a four-time Gold Glove winner, taking home the honor while playing for Cincinnati and Seattle. Four different times, Boone ranked #1 in the league in fielding percentage for a second baseman and twice he ranked #2.

I am the same age as Aaron and I remember watching the little Boone's run around Palm Springs during Spring Training back in the day thinking how cool it would be to a have a dad in the majors.

[ScooterD]

Two points:

1. Any post centered around Rec Specs is awesome and appreciated.

2. Threads like these are why I wish we had separate sections for hobby and business discussions.

This is so much more interesting and entertaining to me than my ROI, a bursting bubble, economic downturn, and complaints about increasing print runs and wax prices. There is nothing wrong with those topics, but I don’t understand them the way that I understand that Rec Specs were cool (if only for a fleeting moment).

[caulaflour]

I remember those goggles so well....as a 9 and 10 year old pulling Sabo I was like, "who is this nerd?" but then I read the back of the card and was like, "Oh, he's good!" So sad it lasted so briefly.

1989 Topps. THAT was the "1st Round Draft Pick" beginning. We were all trying to pull those cards. I remember my eyes bugging out of my head when reading the stats on the back of those (read: high school stats, lol). I was convinced Willie Ansley was going to be the next Babe Ruth.

One final thing: I'm wondering when the Jeff Bagwell 1991 Upper Deck Extended is gonna be featured (unless I missed it/forgot already). Remember trying to find those Upper Deck high packs and trying to hit those, and it going up to $4 in Beckett? lol. I was so pumped to get not only the Bagwell but also Kirk Dressendorfer....man the A's uniforms looked gleaming white in those cards.