1989 Topps Senior Professional Baseball Association

While digging in the closet for the 1989 Score Masters set, I came across these. 

Wow. 

I vaguely remember this league and this set. As the PGA Seniors Tour was beginning to become a big time event, baseball launched its own version of a seniors league. These cards were released as a 132 card boxed set similar to a Topps Traded set. I chuckle at the $12 price tag still attached to the box. My guess is that these run for about $1 each on the card show circuit.

I'll let wikipedia tell the story of the league.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_Professional_Baseball_Association

You gotta love a league where Milt Wilcox went 12-3.

This set has a nice collection of former Tigers:

2 Dwight Lowry

10 Marty Castillo

45 Elias Sosa

52 Steve Kemp

61 Jim Morrison

71 Johnny Grubb

73 Milt Wilcox

75 Wayne Krenchicki

111 Ron LeFlore

113 Leon Roberts

117 Ron Jackson

130 Luis Pujols

This is the lineup as best as I can tell. There are no mentions of big league affiliations on the cards, so I'm going from memory. There are a handful of guys I've never heard of, and maybe one day I'll look them up to see if any of them ever were Tigers.

1989 Upper Deck

Folks, we have a winner. Finally. 1989 Upper Deck was the biggest thing to hit the pike in the history of cards at the time. Even though they were solely to blame for triple-digit card values right out of the pack, there's no denying the importance these had on the hobby.

Counterfeit-proof holograms, card backs that were better than most others fronts, and a stellar classic looking design right out of the box made these the Holy Grail of 80's cards, surpassing '84 Donruss without even breaking much of a sweat. It's not often something lives up to the hype, but these did and still do.

Unfortunately it was still the same collection of has beens and never will be's that made up the Tigers set (Ivan DeJesus? Torey Lovullo? Good god, what was I doing in 1989?) 

Anyway, the 1989 Upper Deck Tigers:

47 Paul Gibson

49 Larry Herndon

106 Tom Brookens

117 Gary Pettis

128 Chet Lemon

136 Luis Salazar

150 Matt Nokes

259 Ray Knight

266 Dave Bergman

279 Guillermo Hernandez

290 Alan Trammell

298 Doyle Alexander

352 Jack Morris

355 Ivan DeJesus

373 Mike Henneman

391 Frank Tanana

451 Lou Whitaker

454 Jim Walewander

472 Jeff Robinson

475 Walt Terrell

493 Eric King

652 Pat Sheridan

654 Mike Heath

690 Team Checklist/Alan Trammell

As I recall, Upper Deck got a little sneaky with their Update set. Instead of releasing them as a separate set, they just started issuing packs that included cards 701-800 along with the cards of the base 1-700 set. I have no confirmation as to how pissed Topps was for Upper Deck coming up with a diabolical ploy that Topps would've loved to spring on an unsuspecting public. After finishing a 700 card set, you had to then buy packs that only had 2-3 high number cards, so Upper Deck made sure you spent as much money getting the last 100 cards as you did getting the first 700.

The 1989 Upper Deck, uh, Update set:

714 Ken Williams

761 Fred Lynn

764 Steve Searcy

782 Torey Lovullo

784 Chris Brown

Then once it was all said and done, they issued a factory set of all 800 cards. For something like $70. 

Bastards.

1989 Score

By 1989 it was painfully obvious that Score was not about to let Donruss run away with cards designed for five year olds. The wild cyan/green, purple/orange, and teal/pink color combos were Score's way of telling us that they would not be outdone in the poor design department. It was bad enough that they fooled Tigers collectors into thinking that Ray Knight was wearing a cool road jersey that said "Tigers" across the chest instead of "Detroit." Even worse was that they corrected it.

The 1989 Score Detroit Tigers:

23 Matt Nokes

26 Gary Pettis

44 Chet Lemon

110 Alan Trammell

112 Frank Tanana

129 Doyle Alexander

131 Mike Heath

135 Ray Knight

168 Don Heinkel

171 Darrell Evans

204 Pat Sheridan

230 Lou Whitaker

250 Jack Morris

269 Tom Brookens

275 Guillermo Hernandez

279 Larry Herndon

284 Jeff Robinson

293 Mike Henneman

311 Jim Walewander

314 Walt Terrell

316 Luis Salazar

469 Dave Bergman

471 Eric King

545 Dwayne Murphy

595 Paul Gibson

627 Steve Searcy

Despite other companies giving us loads of traded and rookie players in their traded, update, and rookie sets, Score gave us one.

43T Tracy Jones

It looks like they tried to make up for it by releasing some insert sets, but I don't have any of them, so there's not much else I can add.

1989 Score Hottest Stars:

7 Alan Trammell

34 Jeff Robinson

59 Mike Henneman

1989 Score Young Superstars II: (I have no clue about Young Superstars I....)

7 Eric King

8 Jeff Robinson

27 Steve Searcy

They did however release a nifty little 42 card box set of "painted" looking cards, but this would be the only time they did so. Too bad, because these are pretty nice. They were obviously the precursor to the 2006 Bowman Heritage issue.

1989 Score Masters:

8 Jack Morris

1989 Donruss

Now we are finally getting to some nice cards. Oh wait, no we aren't. I've still got to do '89 Donruss. It's almost impossible to believe these aren't the worst Donruss set. My only guess is that two guys did different designs for these, and then flipped a coin to see who got to do the top and bottom and who got to do the sides. As it turns out, nobody won.

I mean you've got rainbow colors with no relation to the teams pictures combined with awful black and blacker bars down the sides. These look like something Yahoo would let you create when making an avatar. Not even a Tigers card of one of my all-time favorites (Fred Lynn) can save this horrible mess.

The 1989 Donruss Detroit Tigers:

18 Jeff Robinson DK

29 Steve Searcy

60 Gary Pettis

62 Guillermo Hernandez

90 Frank Tanana

116 Matt Nokes

153 Ted Power

178 Doyle Alexander

180 Alan Trammell

209 Chet Lemon

234 Jack Morris

271 Mike Heath

296 Walt Terrell

298 Lou Whitaker

327 Mike Henneman

352 Luis Salazar

389 Dave Bergman

415 Jim Walewander

417 Pat Sheridan

445 Paul Gibson

470 Jeff Robinson

508 Tom Brookens

533 Darrell Evans

535 Eric King

563 Fred Lynn

BC-17 Alan Trammell MVP

The Donruss Rookies weren't much better:

17 Torey Lovullo

39 Mike Brumley

Donruss introduced their Traded set in 1989. Still no winners here:

9T Chris Brown

17T Ken Williams

50T Charles Hudson

As bad as these were, they would still be no match for what Donruss would release the year after.....

1989 Fleer

Again Fleer busted out one of those old 44 card box sets designs, while managing to make it even worse with one of the most drab issues ever. The reverse prison bars look pretty much says it all.

The 1989 Fleer Detroit Tigers:

128 Doyle Alexander

129 Dave Bergman

130 Tom Brookens

131 Paul Gibson

132 Mike Heath

133 Don Heinkel

134 Mike Henneman

135 Guillermo Hernandez

136 Eric King

137 Chet Lemon

138 Fred Lynn

139 Jack Morris

140 Matt Nokes

141 Gary Pettis

142 Ted Power

143 Jeff Robinson

144 Luis Salazar

145 Steve Searcy

146 Pat Sheridan

147 Frank Tanana

148 Alan Trammell

149 Walt Terrell

150 Jim Walewander

151 Lou Whitaker

648 Torey Lovullo

655 Team Checklist

There were two lackluster insert cards.

1989 Fleer All-Star Team

11 Alan Trammell

Box Bottom Card:

C-26 Alan Trammell

More of the same from the Update set.

30U Mike Brumley

31U Tracy Jones

32U Mike Schwabe

33U Gary Ward

34U Frank Williams

Mike Schwabe? Where in the hell were we getting these guys from? I was on a break from college that year, so I can't blame not remembering these guys on that? Of course, having moved to rural Tennessee the year before, I was not able to keep up much with the Tigers, but Mike Schwabe? I'm not even bother the folks at retrosheet over this one. That card is bogus. I'm convinced that's a Todd Benzinger error card....

1989 Bowman

There was much anticipation and celebration over Topps' release of their Bowman issue. For the life of me I don't know why. Perhaps it was that bitching Lou Whitaker facsimile autograph?

Yeah, they were sort of a throwback with their complete lack of any sort of design and odd size (they would never do that again) but they just didn't take off like expected. Topps was already in half-assed mode with the first issue of this set (see the recycled Steve Searcy photo) and there was really nothing special about these whatsoever. Take away the Ken Griffey Jr. RC card and I bet you could still find as many unopened boxes of these as you can 1990 Score.

The 1989 Bowman Detroit Tigers:

92 Frank Tanana

93 Jack Morris

94 Doyle Alexander

95 Steve Searcy

96 Randy Bockus

97 Jeff Robinson

98 Mike Henneman

99 Paul Gibson

100 Frank Williams

101 Matt Nokes

102 Rico Brogna

103 Lou Whitaker

104 Al Pedrique

105 Alan Trammell

106 Chris Brown

107 Pat Sheridan

108 Chet Lemon

109 Keith Moreland

Unfortunately, I do not have the card of Randy Bockus. I'm only missing a few of these and he is one. Perhaps that explains why I have no recollection whatsoever of him. I don't even know what position he played. Retrosheet says he was a pitcher.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B/Pbockr001.htm

I guess I'll have to take their word for it....

1989 Topps

1989. One of those nasty four number words like 1996. 2003. From World Champs to 103 losses in only five years. I won't get too caught up in all that here because this is my happy place. I'll just let the cards speak for themselves.

The Topps issue that year was one of the best ever. I like the script look and use of the team colors in the names and frame. I just wish there weren't so many mediocre Tigers.

The 1989 Topps Detroit Tigers:

43 Willie Hernandez

77 Doyle Alexander

127 Walt Terrell

146 Gary Pettis

167 Steve Searcy

193 Sparky Anderson

238 Eric King

267 Jeff Robinson

288 Pat Sheridan

320 Lou Whitaker

342 Tom Brookens

365 Mike Henneman

400 Alan Trammell All-Star

416 Fred Lynn

445 Matt Nokes

467 Jim Walewander

487 Scott Lusader

499 Don Heinkel

514 Chet Lemon

553 Luis Salazar

583 Paul Gibson

603 Frank Tanana

609 Team Leader Card

631 Dave Bergman

645 Jack Morris

667 Dwayne Murphy

743 Mike Heath

770 Alan Trammell

777 Ted Power

For the life of me I could've sworn I had the traded set Tigers, but I don't. A look at this list might explain why:

83T Keith Moreland

112T Rick Schu

124T Gary Ward

128T Frank Williams

129T Ken Williams

The Glossy Rookies:

10 Paul Gibson

Box Bottom Card:

C Darrell Evans