Reaffirmation Of Why I Fucking Hate Topps, Part 4

I knew better than to attempt this. That's why I'm madder at myself than I am at Topps. But this is fucking ridiculous. Let me start with who I'm still missing before I really say how I feel about the whole motherfucking deal.

UH20 Justin Masterson RC

UH39 Jose Molina

UH45 Eric Hurley RC

UH57 Ramon Castro

UH63 Eric Brunfeldt

UH78 Dallas Braden

UH81 J.C. Romero

UH108 Shin-Soo Choo

UH144 Robinson Tejada

UH189 Micah Hoffpauir RC

UH201 Travis Denker RC

UH225 Ryan Tucker RC

UH234 Carl Pavano

UH309 John Bowker RC

Now to the punch. I BOUGHT 8 BLASTERS AND A FUCKING HOBBY BOX AND I'M STILL MISSING THIS MANY CARDS. IIRC correctly, each blaster had 80 cards. The hobby box had 360. THAT'S 1,000 CARDS. HOW THE FUCK CAN THAT NOT BE ENOUGH TO COMPLETE A 330 CARD SET???

Ok, I'm done with capital letters for the rest of this post. But shit, that's fucking ridiculous. On top of the 14 cards I'm missing, I got roughly 100 insert cards, the majority of which are crap (see picture above, which by the way is off-centered, has a ding on the corner, and has two serious crimps about an inch from the top, and that's the way it came out of the pack.....) Hell, I got three Millard Fillmore cards for crying out loud!

Out of all those inserts, I only got one Tiger. (The Galarraga jersey card). If anybody is interested in making a trade for any of these insert cards for some Tigers inserts, please respond below. Not knowing this set all that well, I would suppose that the best three inserts I got are a Miguel Tejada jersey card, something called Silk Collection of Andre Ethier (cool card, but if somebody has a Tiger one of these I'll gladly part with this one), and a chrome refractor of Max Ramirez of the Rangers. I'll trade all three. If you collect a certain team, post below which one and I'll tell you what I have for inserts. I'm also interested in finishing the WBC set if you have doubles of those too.

I know. It's my own damn fault. I knew this was going to happen and I let it anyway. But good grief, this is horrible. The best (being sarcastic here...) part is that the 8 blasters were priced at $20 each, and the hobby box was priced at $72. That would've been $232 before the Meijer discount (I got each blaster for $8 and the hobby box for $40, which is still $104). I'm still missing cards. Yeah Topps, It's Upper Deck cards sitting next to yours in the store which is why collectors are unhappy. Go fuck your collective selves.

1995 Topps

Oh, where should I begin? This is not a bad looking set. But it's ruined for me by the horrible font used for the player name, coupled with the name being in an unreadable gold foil. I still have to tilt these cards back and forth like a Sportflics card and hope to catch the light at the right angle to read these names. 

One thing I'd like to say, I'm a sucker for the multi-player rookie/prospects cards, and this one looks great, as long as I don't consider who is on it. I wish Topps, or Upper Deck for that matter, would do more of these, but with the bizarre rookie card rule that I still haven't figured out (mainly how Bowman gets away with printing cards of minor leaguers, but yet no one else can...) it looks like these have gone the way of packs actually being made out of wax. It's a shame, and I wish somebody would explain that rule to me. 

The 1995 Topps Detroit Tigers:

15 Lou Whitaker

40 Travis Fryman

68 Junior Felix

97 Mike Gardiner

125 John Doherty

153 Tony Clark

182 Milt Cuyler

209 Tim Belcher

220 Cecil Fielder

249 Bill Gullickson

277 Chris Gomez

307 Mike Henneman

334 John Flaherty

362 Chad Kreuter

434 David Wells

457 Joe Boever

474 Alan Trammell

492 Cade Gaspar

519 Kirk Gibson

541 Tony Phillips

557 Danny Bautista

576 Mike Moore

612 Mickey Tettleton

636 Sean Bergman/Shannon Penn On Deck

These even had a pretty cool quasi-parallel set. An all foil design (I know I've bitched about it, but these are ok) called Cyberstats. They look just like the base cards, but the backs have the '94 stats extrapolated as to what they would've done had the '94 season not been cancelled. I thought there were only a handful of these, since I only have a handful of these, but my research has found that there were a lot of these. My research also shows that Big Daddy was on pace for 133 RBI, which would have tied his career high. Mike Moore was on pace to suck even more than he did. Go figure.....

13 Lou Whitaker

32 Travis Fryman

123 Tim Belcher

124 Cecil Fielder

135 Junior Felix

136 Bill Gullickson

150 Chris Gomez

165 Mike Henneman

231 David Wells

242 Danny Bautista

252 Joe Boever

267 Alan Trammell

306 Kirk Gibson

322 Tony Phillips

350 Mike Moore

380 Mickey Tettleton

The Traded Set was issued in packs for the first time since '75. I remember buying a ton of these packs and still not getting the Nomo or Chipper cards. I do have all the Tigers though so I guess I should be happy.

16T Brian Maxcy

21T Chad Curtis

31T Todd Steverson

35T Bob Higginson

68T Felipe Lira

88T Pat Ahearne

107T Rob Gable (ok, I lied. I don't have this one. Who the hell was Rob Gable?)

1994 Topps

I like the '94 Topps set if for no other reason than it was the last one where gold foil stamping was not used as part of the base set design.  This was also the first year of the high glossy coating. You can tell this was likely the first year that The Topps Company started using a Mac for design and layout by the multiple vignette gradiations used in the home plate shaped border and the bottom crawl line. The "cursive" writing is a nice touch, ever though it is almost identical to '93 Upper Deck.

Topps also came up with a lot of clever designs for the subsets. The Future Star card with the computer chip background, the Draft Pick card with the scout's clipboard, and the Coming Attractions card with the movie screen motif were all well done and were far and away better than anything they had done with subsets in years past. The only drawback to these cards are the pathetic Tigers who graced them.

I don't think Fuduric ever sniffed the big leagues. JT was an injury bust whose biggest career highlight was striking out Ray Lankford in the 1997 All-Star game before being a part of the Juan Gonzalez trade. Bergman pretty much stunk it up everywhere he went, but Bautista had a nice little career as a 4th OF (batting .583 in the 2001 World Series for the D'Backs). Oh well, this would not be the first time that the future of the Tigers turned out to be lousy.....

The 1994 Topps Detroit Tigers:

19 Scott Livingstone

48 Tony Phillips

75 Alan Trammell

105 David Wells

133 Mark Leiter

162 Bob MacDonald

190 Cecil Fielder

228 Kirk Gibson

257 Chad Kreuter

285 Travis Fryman

313 Future Star: Justin Thompson

342 Danny Gladden

371 John Doherty

410 Lou Whitaker

438 Mike Henneman

448 1b Prospects: Shawn Wooten

467 Joe Boever

488 Eric Davis

495 Mickey Tettleton

523 Mike Moore

552 Bill Krueger

561 Skeeter Barnes

588 Rich Rowland

626 Chris Gomez

654 Bill Gullickson

682 Storm Davis

711 Greg Gohr

757 Draft Pick: Tony Fuduric

768 Coming Attractions: Danny Bautista and Sean Bergman

Topps made no changes to their approach to inserts in '94. The gold foil parallels and Black Gold inserts were the only ones issued. (Although they may have issued some in factory sets that year, but I don't know because I don't have any...)

Topps Black Gold

5 Cecil Fielder

6 Travis Fryman

The Traded set was short and sweet, which is surprising because Fleer's Update set had 8 players, with no Ingram card. 

30T Riccardo Ingram

32T Tim Belcher

89T Junior Felix

1993 Topps

Well between facebook and the election I have been severely slacking around here getting some stuff up. Hopefully I can get on a roll and get this finished by the end of the year so I can move on to newer stuff as well as the unveiling of my own personally designed set of baseball cards. With that being said, let's get going.

If I've said it once, I've said it at least more than once, but never on cyberspace though, and here it is: 1993 Topps was the last great base set they ever made. As far as I'm concerned, they've never even come close, and I don't even have any sentimental attachment to this set. (Other than that bitching card of Buddy Groom in the cool throwback. Check out the rotting Cleveland Municpal Stadium in the background.....) 

It's just a nice looking set. It's uncluttered, easy to read (gold foil will change all that in the years to come) and has some really nice subsets too. In fact, I wish Topps did more things like having multiple managers/all-stars/prospects on a single card. 

The Coming Attractions, Manager, and All-Star cards are nice in an innovative yet not too flashy sort of way. Since I mostly only collect Tigers, it's also a cool way to get some other guys that I normally wouldn't pay attention to, like Art Howe and Barry Larkin. The only thing bad about the Phil Clark Coming Attractions card is that Phil Clark is on it. Otherwise it's a nifty looking card. I know I've bashed the silly Score subsets in the past, and deservedly so, but these never gave off that chintzy vibe to me that Score did. 

The 1993 Topps Detroit Tigers:

26 Skeeter Barnes

53 Frank Tanana

80 Cecil Fielder

107 John Kiely

135 Mickey Tettleton

160 Lou Whitaker

189 Tony Phillips

216 Mark Leiter

233 Rick Greene

243 Rob Deer

272 Kurt Knudsen

298 Scott Livingstone

325 Bill Gullickson

353 Buddy Groom

379 Mike Munoz

392 Travis Fryman

423 Ivan Cruz

429 Milt Cuyler

491 Shawn Hare

506 Sparky Anderson

536 Dave Haas

567 Mark Carreon

598 Rico Brogna

626 Danny Gladden

660 Alan Trammell

692 Chad Kreuter

713 John Doherty

756 Mike Henneman

802 Phil Clark

The Traded set was short but sweet.

8T Kirk Gibson

50T David Wells

Topps continued with those crappy goil foil parallels that are just about impossible to read. Had I known they would eventually ALWAYS use the gold foil, I might not have disliked these so much.

In an obvious attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Soul Asylum, Topps debuted the Black Gold insert set. These could have left without a trace and nobody would have cared. They were definitely not the runaway train that Topps had hoped for......

30 Cecil Fielder

41 Mickey Tettleton

1992 Topps

For the second year in a row, Topps produced an outstanding set. I personally prefer the '91's over these, but there were several improvements that put these right up there with them. First and foremost was changing to the all white card stock. For the first year ever, Topps cards flat out popped when you pulled them out of the packs. 

Another thing they did that I loved was bringing back the multi-player prospects cards. I don't know whether it's the fact that Trammell, Whitaker, Parrish, and Morris' rookie cards where all this way, or just the fact that it's cool to get four rookies on one card, (although with Bowman in full swing you didn't necessarily get four...) but whatever it is I like them. I'd like to see them used more today. But with the goofy rules involved now with rookie cards, I imagine they are a thing of the past.

The 1992 Topps Detroit Tigers:

29 Mickey Tettleton

120 Alan Trammell

126 Rico Brogna

143 Paul Gibson

167 Andy Allanson

198 Scott Aldred

221 Skeeter Barnes

272 Jerry Don Gleaton

293 Mike Henneman

319 Tony Phillips

354 Dave Bergman

381 Spark Anderson

397 Cecil Fielder All-Star

425 Cecil Fielder

441 Rob Deer

458 Frank Tanana

472 Rich Rowland

487 John Cerutti

508 Bill Gullickson

522 Milt Cuyler

537 Mark Leiter

570 Lou Whitaker

621 Dan Gakeler

656 Rudy Pemberton

665 Dave Haas

679 Pete Incaviglia

684 Trever Miller

685 Scott Livingstone

722 Walt Terrell

750 Travis Fryman

Topps also introduced the full-blown parallel set in '92 (I'm not counting the Desert Storm cards of '91, because...well....if you have to go to Iraq to get them then they aren't real parallels....) with not one but two variations of their base card. One version had gold foil over the player and team name and were randomly inserted in packs. The second version looked the same as the first, but had the word "Winner" in foil as well. You got these by playing some sort of scratch off game. A co-worker of mine at the time had these by the bushel as he would throw the game cards on a light table to see where the winning scratches were.

They issued their most popular traded set in years. Unfortunately I never got one. These babies were pricey before the Nomar Garciaparra card exploded into the stratosphere. But at least I have a Trever Miller Draft Pick card I can show.

21T Mark Carreon

24T Phil Clark

41T Danny Gladden

44T Rick Greene

I thought Topps and O-Pee-Chee had split ways in '91, and I was wrong. I only have this one card, but it is numbered the same as his Topps base card. Since it is a higher number than most OPC sets usually contain, I am going to assume that the entire set contains the same checklist as its Topps counterpart. 

1991 Topps

If I were to sit down and pick my top five favorite Topps sets of all-time, this would be one of them. This is just about as good as it gets. (The scans really don't do these cards justice) I remember Topps switching to a higher line screen in '91, which in resulted in the clearest and sharpest photographs they ever produced. The nice use of the logo complemented by the subtle blue and orange frames is great. Even the gaudy Topps logo seems to blend right in. Hell, they even managed to make Mike Henneman look like a real ballplayer. 

The 1991 Topps Detroit Tigers:

16 Mike Heath

75 Jack Morris

106 Ed Nunez

128 Travis Fryman

145 Lou Whitaker

183 Clay Parker

236 Frank Tanana

275 Alan Trammell

281 Larry Sheets

328 Walt Terrell

369 Steve Searcy

386 Cecil Fielder All-Star

389 Alan Trammell All-Star

412 Dave Bergman

431 Paul Gibson

469 Chet Lemon

498 Mark Salas

506 Darnell Coles

519 Sparky Anderson

556 Gary Ward

583 Tony Phillips

597 Jerry Don Gleaton

632 Lloyd Moseby

641 Mike Henneman

658 Scott Aldred

684 Milt Cuyler

720 Cecil Fielder

746 John Shelby

766 Jeff Robinson

Now I don't know what happened, but I don't have the Traded Set. I thought I did. I do have the checklist of cards in the set, but not the set itself. So I'll just stick in this great card of Lou Whitaker instead. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

The 1991 Topps Traded Detroit Tigers:

5T Skeeter Barnes

30T Rob Deer

57T Pete Incaviglia

119T Mickey Tettleton

I was under the impression that this was the first Topps debut set. I was wrong. One of my emailers informed me just today that the first set was done in 1990. When I looked at the checklist he sent me for it, well, I didn't do anything. But I wanted to. It was that bad. Not like this one, which had a few of my favorite Tigers for years to come.

The 1991 Topps Debut Detroit Tigers:

3 Scott Aldred

36 Milt Cuyler

49 Travis Fryman

136 Rich Rowland

163 Steve Wapnick

1990 Topps

This is the worst looking card set in the history of baseball cards. I don't need to say anything else. I can't. The pictures speak for themselves. 

The creative team at Topps should have been taken out back behind the building and shot. What on earth could they have been thinking they were accomplishing with these? 

I usually only post a couple or three cards for each set, but each color scheme of this mess deserves it's own moment of infamy. My god these are awful.

But you know what really sucks the most about these cards? The player names on the front, if you catch my drift.....

The 1990 Topps Detroit Tigers:

11 Paul Gibson

42 Jeff Robinson

77 Dave Bergman

107 Fred Lynn

131 Matt Nokes

146 Rob Richie

177 Mike Henneman

237 Kevin Ritz

271 Chet Lemon

280 Lou Whitaker

327 Ken Williams

343 Frank Tanana

366 Mike Heath

413 Brian Dubois

440 Alan Trammell

471 Mike Brumley

487 Steve Searcy

498 Rick Schu

512 Gary Pettis

555 Jack Morris

586 Ed Nunez

599 Frank Williams

609 Sparky Anderson

632 Scott Lusader

641 Doug Strange

679 Gary Ward

748 Doyle Alexander

767 Tracy Jones

As if the base cards weren't enough of a design nightmare, Topps managed to make a bad thing worse with the Traded Set. There are seven different colors in the motif of these, eight if you count the black. It's a shame that Dan Petry said goodbye while Cecil Fielder and Travis Fryman said hello to Tiger cardboard history on the shittiest looking cards ever made.

31T Cecil Fielder

33T Travis Fryman

77T Lloyd Moseby

93T Dan Petry

95T Tony Phillips

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

1988 Topps

As much as I like to bag on Topps for being a bunch of bastards, I give them credit where it is due. This set is one of the most underrated Topps ever offered. Nice, simple, clean design with a nice player selection. It doesn't hurt that these were the guys from the 1987 A.L. East champs. The Twins cards look like shit though, but luckily for me I don't collect 'em.

My favorite card of the set isn't even considered by many to be a Tigers card. My rule of thumb is that if the featured player is pictured in a Tigers uniform, or card has a Tigers designation despite the player being in another uniform, then he's considered a Tiger in my book. While the Dickie Noles card itself is not that great, the story behind it is. According to retrosheet, he was loaned to the Tigers on Sept 22, 1987, as the Tigers were making their run at the A.L. East crown. He threw a total of 2 IP over 4 games, and inexplicably was returned to the Cubs one month later after the Tigers season had ended. 

The 1988 Topps Detroit Tigers:

14 Sparky Anderson

78 Dan Petry

106 Jim Walewander

128 Johnny Grubb

145 Bill Madlock

177 Fank Tanana

237 Mike Heath

267 Billy Bean

289 Dave Bergman

320 Alan Trammell

340 Jack Morris

366 Chet Lemon

389 Alan Trammell All-Star

393 Matt Nokes All-Star

429 Team Leader Card

449 Jeff Robinson

474 Tom Brookens

492 Doyle Alexander

499 Eric King

514 Pat Sheridan

552 Mark Thurmond

582 Mike Henneman

605 Kirk Gibson

630 Darrell Evans

645 Matt Nokes

668 Walt Terrell

713 Willie Hernandez

743 Larry Herndon

751 Jim Morrison

768 Dickie Noles

770 Lou Whitaker

There was a pretty powder blue box bottom card of Darrell Evans.... 

E - Darrell Evans

....as well as two Glossy Rookies....

7 Mike Henneman

8 Matt Nokes

There were a few cards in the Traded set. You can start to see that this bunch wasn't getting any younger.

59T Ray Knight

86T Gary Pettis

100T Luis Salazar

1987 Topps

I was meandering through my first year of what would be many attempts at going to college (this story has a happy ending, many, many years later...) and I wasn't into collecting too much in 1987. Pretty much everything I collected from that year was found years later while digging through commons bins, so I don't have any boring stories about walks in the snow to reminisce about. 

No, my best story about 1987 and the Tigers was going to a game at Fenway Park with my dad that summer to see the Tigers play. A week before my 18th birthday my dad and I took a trip down from Brunswick to see the game. It was a Navy Base bus trip where we got a ride and a ticket for $20 each. We sat way out in right field near the top of the park. Midway through the game, I went down to try and get some pictures. I was down about 12 rows from the field when I stood in the walkway and squatted down behind a couple of nuns to get a few pics.

I asked them if they minded if I took a few pics, and they said not at all. I talked to them for a minute and told them that I was at the game with my dad and told them where our seats were. After I took a couple of pics they told me that they were about to leave, and they gave me their ticket stubs and told me that I was welcome to their seats.

Well hells bells, (hey, I'm not Catholic...) I took off across Fenway to go get my dad and we ended up with fantastic seats looking straight down the third base line just a dozen or so rows off the field. I have a bunch of pictures (of course they are in storage in Tennessee and not here where I could post one) that one day I will make sure to get up on here. I got some great pics of the Tigers batting against Clemens that day.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1987/B06060BOS1987.htm

It was an awesome game and an awesome day and Mike Heath drove in two runs in the top of the 14th inning for a 5-3 Tigers win. (For any Tiger forumites reading this, that's how the 5-3 thing got started....)

With that, here's the 1987 Topps Detroit Tigers:

36 Eric King

72 Walt Terrell

98 Bill Scherrer

148 Dave Collins

171 Chuck Cary

196 Randy O'Neal

218 Sparky Anderson

234 Pat Sheridan

265 Darrell Evans

298 Larry Herndon

361 Mark Thurmond

384 Johnny Grubb

411 Darnell Coles

432 Jim Slaton

483 Dwight Lowry

492 Mike Heath

515 Willie Hernandez

613 Lance Parrish All-Star

631 Team Leaders

661 Lou Whitaker

674 Bill Campbell

687 Alan Trammell

700 Dave Bergman

713 Tom Brookens

726 Frank Tanana

739 Chet Lemon

752 Dan Petry

765 Kirk Gibson

778 Jack Morris

791 Lance Parrish

There were a couple of Glossy All-Stars again. I recorded the 1986 All-Star Game on tape, and I can't count how many times I watched Sweet Lou's HR off of Dwight Gooden. Really, it may be close to 100.

14 Lou Whitaker

20 Lance Parrish

Even the Traded set finally featured one of my favorite players to become a Tiger. I am sure Mad Dog is just seconds away from a HR in that picture. I was at the Tigers-Cubs game in 2000 where Madlock sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame while dressed in his Tigers uniform. Good Times.

46T Mike Henneman

71T Bill Madlock

91T Matt Nokes

104T Jeff Robinson

As exciting as 1987 was for this Tigers fan, my most special memory of that year will always be watching that game with my dad. It was a beautiful day and we had an absolute blast. 21 years later, and I still remember it like yesterday. 

Thanks Dad. Of all the games we've ever been to, that was my favorite one.

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.

1985 Topps

The '85 cards are even more nostalgic for me than the '84 cards, and here's the reason why. These guys are actually the championship team. With the '84 set containing guys like Enos Cabell and Wayne Krenchicki, it's just not the set than truly captures the team. However, the '85 cards have got them all, from Doug Baker to Bill Scherrer, these are the guys that brought home the trophy. The '85 cards are what I will always think of when I think of the guys from '84.

I loved these cards when they came out, but years later I think they are kind of vanilla from a design standpoint. Topps borrowed heavily from their '84 football release here. It wouldn't be first time they recycled a design, but since these are the World Series champs, I can let 'em slide this time.

The 1985 Detroit Tigers:

20 Chet Lemon

47 Dave Rozema

73 Rusty Kuntz

99 Milt Wilcox

126 Ruppert Jones

133 Father and Son Ray Boone

143 Father and Son Ossie Virgil

160 Lance Parrish

192 Howard Johnson

243 Barbaro Garbey

269 Doug Baker

307 Sparky Anderson

333 Willie Hernandez

368 Dave Bergman

408 Sid Monge

435 Dan Petry

461 Marty Castillo

480 Lou Whitaker

512 Tom Brookens

539 Aurelio Lopez

565 Kirk Gibson

586 Bill Scherrer

591 Larry Herndon

610 Jack Morris

643 Johnny Grubb

672 Juan Berenguer

690 Alan Trammell

708 Lance Parrish All-Star

744 Doug Bair

792 Darrell Evans

This would also be the first year that any Tigers would make the Glossy All-Star cards that were inserted into the rack packs, and what a nice group it was. At one time it seemed like I had over 5,000 '85 Topps cards, but yet I don't have the Greenberg Glossy. Go figure.

14 Lou Whitaker

18 Chet Lemon

20 Lance Parrish

22 Hank Greenberg

The Traded set was short and sweet with only two cards. Chris Pittaro, the most Sparky-hyped prospect since Dave Rucker, and Walt Terrell, who would be a solid pitcher for years to come.

91T Chris Pittaro

119T Walt Terrell

They are what they are. A nice looking set feature the best baseball team from 1984. That's good enough for me.

1984 Topps

Of course there's no way I can objective about these cards now, so I'll keep it brief. I wasn't wild about these. Mediocre is the best adjective I can use. Fortunately the nostalgia factor gives these a big boost. 

But what a summer it was. I've got a few tales of my own about Tigers baseball that summer and what better place to spin them. 

My uncle went to high school with Glenn Abbott in Arkansas. That summer my aunt and uncle's family came to visit us in New Baltimore. My dad got tickets for me, him, and my uncle to go catch a twi-night doubleheader against the California Angels. We were at the gates when they opened as my uncle was going to flag down Glenn and say hello to him.

Well my 15 year old mind extrapolated that into getting to go into the clubhouse and get autographs from all the players, hang out in Sparky's office and chat baseball with, you know, the works. Well we looked high and low for Glenn to no avail. We couldn't find him anywhere.

Dejected, we then proceded to see the Tigers lose both games to the Angels. What a lousy night. I was bummed out all the way home.

When I got up the next morning, my dad and uncle were sitting at the breakfast table. I still remember my dad telling me, "Well I know why we didn't see Abbott last night." 

He'd been released from the Tigers that day.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1984/08141984.htm

A few years ago I came across an Abbott rookie card. My uncle still talks to him to this day and got Glenn to autograph it for me. My uncle has told him the story of our visit to Tiger Stadium that day, and Glenn told him that I have a standing offer the next time I am in Arkansas to meet and get a picture with him and his replica World Series Trophy. You can bet that one day I will.

And now, the 1984 Topps Detroit Tigers:

14 Tom Brookens

24 John Martin

42 Johnny Grubb

65 Kirk Gibson

95 Aurelio Lopez

119 Johnny Wockenfuss

136 1983 Strikeout Leaders Jack Morris

147 Dan Petry

174 Juan Berenguer

195 Jack Morris

223 Wayne Krenchicki

259 Sparky Anderson

284 Howard Bailey

303 Marty Castillo

333 Larry Herndon

356 Glenn Abbott

371 Dave Gumpert

398 Lou Whiatker All-Star

427 Rick Leach

457 Dave Rozema

482 Enos Cabell

510 Alan Trammell

536 Glenn Wilson

588 Milt Wilcox

611 Chet Lemon

640 Lance Parrish

666 Detroit Tigers Team Card

695 Lou Whiatker

731 Lynn Jones

The Traded set from that year is obviously chock full of players that would contribute to the World Series championship, the biggest being Willie Hernandez. So it's somewhat of a shock that this is the only card I am missing from the set. For the life of me I can't recall why I would have all of the others, but not his. Oh well. 

11T Dave Bergman

36T Darrell Evans

41T Barbaro Garbey

51T Willie Hernandez

59T Ruppert Jones

66T Rusty Kuntz

80T Sid Monge