3/26: My Favorite Baseball Card Designs
If you don’t read Bored’s blog, which deals mostly with sports stuff, especially when it comes to nostalgia-related matters, then get your hippie ass over there now. While I’m not one for debating who was more deserving of seventh place for the 1991 Cy Young award (I don't even know who won it -- Jack Morris?), he recently said something that struck a chord with me. When debating which multi-millionaire deserved the 2003 AL MVP award, he remarked, “And god damn do baseball cards suck now or what?”
Yes they do. And thanks for the idea.
As a kid, I loved collecting sports cards, particularly those dealing with baseball and football. In the 1980s and early 1990s I actively took part in this hobby. However, after around 1993 I stopped collecting, mostly because it seemed that the industry went from collecting for fun to collecting for money. Packs of cards that used to cost 50 cents for a pack of 15 (and that gum – blech) went up to several dollars for a pack of less than 10 cards. No thanks.
I never collected cards for the money; I collected out of nostalgia. Now that I’m older, I’m grateful that I’ve managed to hold onto these little pieces of memorabilia. A few months ago I opened up my collection and went through some boxes, just to see how the cards are holding up, and I couldn’t get myself away from shuffling through thousands upon thousands of these cards. The last time I did any sort of “inventory” on my cards was in the late 1990s, and one of these days I need to go back and re-organize these bad boys.
Like I said, most of my collecting was done during the 1980s and early 1990s, but I also have a few cards from the 1970s and 1960s that I picked up at various shows and hobby stores over the years. However, for me the 1980s and early 1990s were a great time for collecting baseball cards, and below is a list of my favorite designs of this era. Keep in mind I do just about everything in life half-assed, so I have no real criteria or rhyme or reason for some of the years I prefer. The only rule I set was to make each of my “Top 5” from a different company. The reason for this is there are a few designs I like with similar layouts, so that’s kind of like double-dipping to me (see the 1986 and 1991 Donruss brands below).
Without further ado, here is my Top 5. Keep in mind the rankings are determined by an extremely complicated win-share formula that if I showed you I'd have to kill you.
Number 5:
1988 Score
I didn’t collect a lot of this brand, which came out toward the end of my collecting days, but I always liked the 1988 year, mostly because of bright color schemes on the front. Plus I liked that little triangle at the bottom where the player’s name and position is, and there was that white frame around the player's image; those were some nice touches. I give this a 20 win-share.
Number 4:
1990 Donruss
I was never a fan of Donruss cards, although like I said above, they had a design scheme in 1986 that I liked, which was used again (sorta) in their 1991 set. However, I also dug their 1990 design, which seemed to be a drastic change from how they usually produced their cards. Donruss went with a base red color and an artsy font for names. In addition, the “speckles” used as an enhancer effectively broke up the solid background. I give this a 35 win-share.
Number 3:
1990 Upper Deck
I have a love-hate relationship with Upper Deck. When these cards came out on the market, it was an omen that my days of being involved with this hobby were numbered. These cards were pricier than what I had been used to collecting, and there weren’t as many cards per pack, but damn there some nice-looking designs. The 1989-1991 sets all pretty much looked the same, so I went with the 1990 brand because it had a simpler design than the other two years, and when you dealt with cards that looked this good, sometimes it’s best to keep it simple. I give this a 75 win-share.
Number 2:
1987 Topps
Topps was the big dog of card companies during this time, but I never really got into their designs; most of the time they just seemed stale. However, 1987 was an exception. That wooden background brought out the colorful box where the player’s name was printed. Also, it was a near-perfect complement to the team logo, which was at the top left corner of the card. I give this a 76 win-share. (Originally I had the Topps brand at number 3 and Upper Deck at number 2, but upon further review I couldn’t let the brand that helped bring about my disinterest in the industry lounge in the second slot.)
Number 1: 1984 Fleer:
By far my favorite baseball card design, and I really can’t explain why. There was no real color coordination for teams, like the 1987 Topps or 1988 Score cards. There wasn’t a fancy background, like the 1990 Donruss brand, and it certainly wasn’t made of the same quality as the 1991 Upper Deck set. However, the white background meshes perfectly with the blue bars, and the white and black text is a great combination, as is the placement of the team’s logo on the lower right corner. This gets a 10,000 win-share for me.
Like I said before, there were a few other cards that I liked which didn’t make the cut. They include, in no particular order:
1986 Donruss
1991 Donruss (note the resemblance in design, or at least there is one for me)
1989 Fleer
1982 Topps
1990 Topps.
In addition, there was a 1988 Classic Card series that for some reason I’ve always liked, and it dealt with Phil Nieko’s final year in the major leagues. There’s one card featuring him on the Indians, another card of him pitching for the Blue Jays and a final card of him finishing off his career where it started, with the Braves.
But baseball cards weren’t the only things I collected. There was also football, a topic I’ll cover in a future entry.
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