1986 1987 1988 Topps Mini League Leaders

The first of a two part series called "Things Topps tried to revive in the 80's that would not catch on until years later....."

Here a couple of months back I came across a website that had a lot of cheap wax boxes from the 80's. I remember messing with these a little bit way back when, but I don't think I ever collected full sets. Since the boxes are cheaper now than they were then I went ahead and picked up a box from each year. Hell, a box of these are about the same price as one rack pack of 2010 cards and these were chock full of HOF.

I'm on a quest to collect all of the 80's oddball stuff and these rank up there among the best. An obvious throwback to the '75 minis, as the name suggests this set is composed of the the statistical leaders of varying years. They are smallish sets (66 cards the first year, 77 cards the following two years) and Topps produced these for 5 years before giving up on them. As per usual with Topps, distribution within each box is awful. I got two of some guys and seven of some others. But I got a complete set out of each box and that's all I was after. Even though the design is minimal, I really think that's a positive thing coming from the 80's.


There's a mostly great representation of Tigers in these sets, Walt Terrell notwithstanding (Walt ranked tied for fourth in shutouts in 1985 with 3, hence his inclusion). Anyways.....

The 1986 Topps Mini-League Leaders Detroit Tigers:
13 Darrell Evans
14 Jack Morris
15 Lance Parrish
16 Walt Terrell

The 1987 Topps Mini-League Leaders Detroit Tigers:
53 Kirk Gibson
54 Willie Hernandez
55 Jack Morris
56 Alan Trammell

The 1988 Topps Mini-League Leaders Detroit Tigers:
10 Darrell Evans
11 Jack Morris
12 Alan Trammell
13 Lou Whitaker


Nowadays the tobacco card inserts that are roughly the same size are pretty popular. They are much harder to get of course, but these cards are available for a fraction of the cost and are pretty cool sets. It's a shame these never really caught on, but it seems like none of the oddball wax products that came out in the 80's were that popular.

1986 Donruss

As usual, Donruss' photography was heads and shoulders above the competition. Year after year they had vibrant, colorful, and crisp pictures. But as would become a Donruss tradition, this was one ugly looking set. 

I remember buying these packs at Grand City by the bushel trying to pull a Jose Canseco RC. At one point I think I had 4-5 cards of each player in the whole set and only one Canseco card. Let me say now that I have hated that bastard a looooong time....

The 1986 Donruss Detroit Tigers:

1 Kirk Gibson Diamond King

49 Lou Whitaker

90 Chet Lemon

105 Jack Morris

125 Kirk Gibson

150 Chris Pittaro

171 Alan Trammell

212 Dan Petry

227 Willie Hernandez

247 Walt Terrell

272 Nelson Simmons

293 Aurelio Lopez

334 Lance Parrish

349 Barbaro Garbey

369 Darrell Evans

394 Randy O'Neal

415 Alejandro Sanchez

456 Bob Melvin

471 Dave Bergman

491 Frank Tanana

516 Bill Scherrer

537 Tom Brookens

578 Mike Laga

593 Larry Herndon

615 John Grubb

Donruss decided to jump into the mid-season boxed set frenzy in 1986 by issuing two different sets. The first was a short lived Highlights set (issued in 1986 an 1987 only) that contained a Jack Morris card. (With a picture obviously taken some time during his rookie year...) The second would become a Donruss staple for years to come, The Rookies, which contained an Eric King card. (Who we got in the deal that brought us Matt Nokes, and who we traded four years later for future White Sox GM Kenny Williams.)

Do not adjust your computer monitor. Yes, Donruss used even crappier colors than the blue they used for the base set.

1986 Donruss Highlights Detroit Tigers:

27 Jack Morris

1986 Donruss "The Rookies" Detroit Tigers:

27 Eric King

1986 was also the first year that box bottom cards made their debut. Donruss was the only company to feature any Tigers though. Your guess is as good as mine as to what "PC" stands for. 

PC4 Kirk Gibson

PC5 Willie Hernandez

The astute observer will have noticed that I have featured Aurelio Lopez as the top of all three 1986 checklists. This was the last year that he would appear as a Tiger on any baseball cards, and this past Sunday would've been his 60th birthday.

RIP Señor Smoke.

1986 Fleer

You know it was an uneventful collecting experience when your only memory of a set is needing something like 12 cards to finish your set and opening a pack that had all 12 cards in it. That really did happen in the year that was 1986.

The cards themselves are ok. Nothing to shout about, just ok. Sadly, Fleer would never again come close to issuing a set this nice, and it ain't all that nice.

The 1986 Fleer Detroit Tigers:

221 Juan Berenguer

222 Dave Bergman

223 Tom Brookens

224 Darrell Evans

225 Barbaro Garbey

226 Kirk Gibson

227 John Grubb

228 Willie Hernandez

229 Larry Herndon

230 Chet Lemon

231 Aurelio Lopez

232 Jack Morris

233 Randy O'Neal

234 Lance Parrish

235 Dan Petry

236 Alex Sanchez

237 Bill Scherrer

238 Nelson Simmons

239 Frank Tanana

240 Walt Terrell

241 Alan Trammell

242 Lou Whitaker

243 Milt Wilcox

633 Super Star Special Alan Trammell

656 Team Checklist

I swear to god I don't remember Dave Engle being a Tiger. Really. This also looks to be his only appearance on a card as a Tiger. Oh well, I started college that fall. I'm sure there's a lot of stuff I don't remember from back then.

The 1986 Fleer Update Tigers:

17U Bill Campbell

21U Chuck Cary

27U Darnell Coles

28U Dave Collins

39U Dave Engle

64U Dave LaPoint

It says a lot about a year when the frigging stickers are the coolest thing in a Fleer set. Even more when the backs are cooler than the fronts. As far as I know Cobb was the only Tiger in the set. He's card #3 just in case you're interested.

1986 Topps

My apologies to the three people who are regular readers here. Between the need to take a step back at the end of the disappointing season and having a couple of friends come to visit Chicago on nights that I might have otherwise blogged, things got a little slack around here. No worries though, things should be getting back on track.

I think part of the slack though is that I've been sort of reluctant to go forward. 1986 was the year I graduated high school, and it was probably the first year that I just didn't get into collecting like I had in years past. It didn't help that the card companies made some of the ugliest and lackluster cards ever in 1986.

I can still remember my buddy Brian and I walking to the old card store that used to be on Maine St. in Brunswick, Maine on a sunny, cold morning in January when these cards first came out. I can also remember going back to his house and opening our packs and looking at these like someone had just farted. 

I could go into detail, but I won't. These cards suck. You know it and I know it. So here they are. (Ok, so maybe the team leaders card is cool, but I swear you got two of these in every pack, and one was always Greg Minton.....)

The 1986 Topps Detroit Tigers:

20 Lou Whitaker

36 Tigers Leaders - Lance Parrish

47 Juan Berenguer

73 Randy O'Neal

101 Dave Bergman

121 Nelson Simmons

130 Alan Trammell

160 Chet Lemon

192 Milt Wilcox

217 Bill Scherrer

243 Johnny Grubb

270 Jack Morris

295 Kirk Gibson

367 Aurelio Lopez

393 Chris Pittaro

411 Sparky Anderson

436 Doug Flynn

461 Walt Terrell

479 Bob Melvin

515 Darrell Evans

540 Dan Petry

563 Alejandro Sanchez

592 Frank Tanana

609 Barbaro Garbey

643 Tom Brookens

670 Willie Hernandez

688 Larry Herndon

740 Lance Parrish

788 Marty Castillo

Topps again released the Glossy All-Star cards in rack packs:

3 Lou Whitaker

10 Jack Morris

I can't remember how they were released, but Topps also issued a Glossy Rookies set too:

8 Eric King

And of course they issued a traded set.

1986 Topps Traded:

17T Bill Campbell

26T Darnell Coles

27T Dave Collins

53T Eric King

59T Mike Laga

61T Dave LaPoint

Not even bad ass Darnell Coles cold make these cards look cool, and if he couldn't do it, nobody could.

1986 Fleer Limited Edition

Year two of the Limited Edition sets, and as ugly as they are, not even close to the worst it would get. But pretty bad nonetheless.

At least the stickers were somewhat cool.

The worst player of the set? Chris Brown, pictured sweating his ass off here at Wrigley while wearing a jacket, unbeknowing that one day he would be a Tiger, who would eventually go on to drive trucks for Haliburton in Iraq and die a few years later in a house fire in Texas. 

RIP

The Tigers:

19-Kirk Gibson

44-Lou Whitaker

Boy was this an ugly set.

1986 Donruss Major League All-Stars

Following along with their Action All-Stars set, in 1986 Donruss actually produced a 3.5" x 5" set of all of actual All-Stars from the 1985 All-Star Game, with a new twist. 

The set contains all 58 participants in the 1985 game, along with a card of the Metrodome and a checklist card.

The first 18 cards are the starting nine from each side, with the rest of the set consisting of the reserves and the managers.

The MVP of the game was newly acquired Padre Lamarr Hoyt.

This was the infamous game where Lou Whitaker lost his uniform in transit and had to buy a Tigers jersey at the game and color his number on the back with a magic marker.

For the first time the oversized set resembled the Donruss base set of the same year.

The worst All-Star of the bunch? Yep, you guessed it. Scott Garrelts, who looks like the offspring of Greg Minton.

Tigers were aplenty this year, and include:

11-Lou Whitaker

18-Jack Morris

42-Dan Petry

43-Willie Hernandez

45-Alan Trammell

58-Sparky Anderson

The new twist I mentioned earlier? The very cool and innovative "pop-up." A die cut card that you could unfold to be a self standing deal. There was one of each starter in the game. Again, kudos to Donruss for collation, as I got a full set of 18 as well as doubles of both Tigers, Morris and Whitaker.

This box also included the box bottom card panel that Donruss started the year before. This box had the following:

Best 80's Albums No One Ever Listened To: Chapter 4

Once upon a time there was a band called Men At Work, who were the hottest thing going on the planet until a little album called Thriller came out and ushered them into obscurity pretty quickly. The lead singer of the band, Colin James Hay, continued on with a solo career after the band's demise. Sadly, his career since has been under the radar, and undeservedly so.

His first solo album Looking For Jack came out in 1986, and although it mirrored the foray into world music by such bigger names as Sting and Peter Gabriel, it went unnoticed by most. 

There are many great tracks on the album. Hold Me, the title track, Can I Hold You, Master Of Crime, and These Are Our Finest Days are ever bit as good as anything from the Men At Work catalog. If you were a MAW fan and have never heard this album, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

That being said, this gives me the perfect segue into telling about my experience of seeing him live in Saugatuck, Michigan a couple of weeks ago. Armed only with an acoustic guitar, he played a dozen or so songs while completely entertaining the crowd with anecdotes of his 30+ year music career. He is one of the last of my musical heroes from my youth that I had yet to see, and the wait was worth every bit of it. I've roughly assembled a set list from memory for any fans who might want to check out some of his other stuff. (Sadly, he played nary a song from Looking For Jack!)

Going Somewhere

Beautiful World (Note: My old favorite CJH song.)

Who Can It Be Now?

What Would Bob Do?

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Are You Looking At Me?

Melbourne Song (Note: My new favorite CJH song.)

I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You

Down Under

Maggie

Overkill

I Wish I Was Still Drinking

Waiting For My Real Life To Begin (Note: My second new favorite CJH song.)

It was a fantastic show that I saw in the company of good friends and we were all ecstatic at just how great it was. Saugatuck is a great little vacation town in West Michigan that I look forward to going back to someday.

CJH will be on tour later this year with Ringo Starr's All Star Band, and if they come to a venue to you I highly suggest you take your ass down and check it out!!!