1983 Topps Stickers

Let me just start by saying that if this set came out today, it would be a huge hit among collectors. The 330 stickers are composed of a great collection of reverent, neat looking, and innovative subsets as well as a crisp, colorful, and orderly selection of players from 1983. Not too big, not too small, but just right. Whoever Topps put in charge of this set must have been fired not long after its release, because there are too many good things going on with this set.

Part of the fun of this is going to be trying to figure out what some of the subsets are without having the sticker book they go in. Some are easier than others, and I think I've got them all figured out, but why some are done one way and others another way is a mystery to me. But on we go!

This was one of the boxes I picked up at the National for $5. Each box has 100 packs containing 6 stickers each. That's 600 stickers for less than a penny apiece. As you can see from the wrapper, this product held no value whatsoever from it's original price of 25 cents a pack ($25 a box, in 1983 dollars). I like that already.

The set starts off with gold foil stickers of the top four all-time HR leaders. The real ones. The gold foil sets these apart, while at the same time honoring the greats of the past. Given the success today of archives sets, I've never understood why Topps or Upper Deck doesn't do more things like this in their base sets.

That's followed by a group of players that I have no idea what the correlation is. It looks to be some of the game's older, active players, such as HOFer's Reggie, Yaz, Bench, and Tony Perez, but also includes Dave Kingman, Reggie Smith, and Graig Nettles.

Then come stickers of the A.L. stat leaders of 1982 followed by the A.L. players. These are sorted by team in alphabetical order, starting with Baltimore and ending with Toronto. There are gold foil stickers scattered throughout of a top player on each team.

Now we are at what I think is the coolest part of the set. The split stickers. Anywhere from two to six stickers that combine to make one image. These commemorate the highlights, records, All-Stars, and postseason heroes of 1982.

These are awesome, especially the 6 sticker Rickey Henderson set.

How cool is it that the All-Star stickers fit side by side and form an actual star?

Those are followed by the N.L. stat leaders and players in the same manner as the A.L. earlier.

Then the set finishes with stickers of rising stars that includes Wade Boggs, Cal Ripken, and Ryne Sandberg.

The Tigers in the set are as follows:

63-Lance Parrish gold foil

64-John Wockenfuss

65-Lou Whitaker

66-Alan Trammell

67-Kirk Gibson

68-Larry Herndon

69-Jack Morris

70-Dan Petry

193 & 194-Lance Parrish Record Breaker

318-Glenn Wilson

This is just a beautiful set. It's too bad the card companies today don't look back to something like this as a way to make fun and interesting sets without resorting to contrived crap like errors and parallels to drive sales. But, in true Topps fashion, I came up two stickers short of a full set from a box that had almost enough stickers to make two sets.

Now if I can just get my hands on one of those sticker books....

The National

Ok, so literally the day after I decide that I'm done buying cards, I find out that the National Convention is here in Chicago for the weekend.  I've always wanted to go to one and now I finally had the chance.  

I have to say that I was disappointed and overjoyed all at the same time.

First off, I thought that there would be loads of free giveaways that would justify my $18 ticket just to get in. Nope. I got the Babe Ruth card pictured above. That's it. I received a few free catalogs at a few places, but nothing collectible. While I think the Ruth card is pretty cool, it's a little bit of a let down that it's all I got. 

Second, the graded card thing is out of control. I do not own a single graded card. I cannot stand the fact that it's become impossible to put together pre-1981 sets because of the scarcity of ungraded cards. But there were tables galore that had nothing but graded cards. I saw one where a guy was advertising $5 each. Curious, I looked to see that the first few were all common cards that were released in the last 10 years. Why? Does the world really need a 2004 Topps Jim Edmonds PSA 8? This is just another money grubbing tactic by the fuckers who have ruined this hobby for the people who enjoy the love of collecting.

Which, believe it or not, brings me to the thing I absolutely loved about the show. The amount of stuff I found that has more sentimental than dollar value and just how cheap it was get.

I was 10 when 1980 began and 20 when it ended. So to say that the 80's were my halcyon days of collecting baseball cards would be an understatement. It would also explain my undying love of such things ranging from The Hooters to It's Your Move, but I digress. 

I found a treasure trove of niche products from the 80's for dirt cheap that I have been having a blast opening over the past couple of days. Topps Stickers, Fleer Limited Edition Box Sets, and Donruss Action All-Stars just to name a few. And I only paid anywhere from $2 to $8 a box for this stuff! THAT'S RIGHT, A BOX!!! Not a pack, BUT A BOX!!!

I'm currently opening a box right now and I'm having more fun doing so than I've had in a long time. It's amazing what opening a pack and pulling a John Wockenfuss or Atlee Hammaker will do for the soul. Especially when you paid almost nothing to do it.

So I say that the National was well worth the trip. As down as I am on the hobby these days, the show offered me a cheap alternative to collect players from my favorite era of the game. 

Oh yeah, my big announcement for today was going to be the preview of the 2009 RobbyT cards. But that can wait. Maybe September.

Somewhere there is a Mario Soto or a Toby Harrah that needs to see the light of day.....

Upper Deck lays a turd too

Since my boycott of Topps, I find myself going into Target every other day just looking for something to buy. I've been saving my $$$ to buy Tigers cards off of ebay, but today I just felt like buying a couple of packs of something just to have something to open. 

Boy, was that a waste.

I picked up a a pack of Upper Deck Artifacts baseball and a pack of Upper Deck Football Heroes. I'll let the scans tell the story.

 

A fucking card commemorating when the first dictionary was published? Or a guitar player from an overrated noise making band? Are you shitting me? These are actual cards in a base set of baseball and football cards.

Fuck you too Upper Deck. We are done. $3 a pack for 4 cards, and I get crap like this? 

It's a sad sound to hear the hobby you've loved since you are old enough to remember come crashing to a screeching halt.....

Come August 1st, there's going to be a big announcement here at Detroit Tigers Cards and Stuff.

Topps has done it to me for the last time

You've got to be fucking kidding me. 

For the first time since 2005, Topps has produced a Detroit Tigers version of it's base factory set. In 2005, the set included a 5 card exclusive insert set of several promising Tigers prospects that made it a nice piece to pick up. 

Fast forward to 2008. Topps picks the Tigers again to do such a set for. BUT THIS TIME THE 5 CARD EXCLUSIVE SET IS MADE UP ENTIRELY OF GUYS AT THE END OF THE TIGERS BENCH, INCLUDING 2 WHO ARE NO LONGER EVEN WITH THE TEAM!!!!!

What a fucking joke. The people at Topps are fucking idiots. Brandon Inge is the best you could do? While there still is no card available for Rick Porcello? Denny Bautista and Jason Grilli? Seriously? On the 40th anniversary of one of the most improbable world championships of all time? Mickey Lolich, Willie Horton, or Al Kaline never crossed your fucking minds? Ramon Santiago did though? Zach Miner too? Really?

Any chance that I would ever buy another pack of Topps product went out the window with this bullshit set. From now on I'll just buy Tigers cards off of ebay. 

I am finished with with Topps. This is fucking ridiculous.

Fuck it. I'm just going to make my own full set from now on.

Stay tuned.

George Kell Night in Arkansas

A month ago or so the Arkansas Travelers had a George Kell Night to honor the former Tiger great from Swifton, Arkansas. HOF Al Kaline and Brooks Robinson were also in attendance that night too. Sadly, I was unable to get down there to see the game, but fortunately my family brought the game to me!

A little backstory first. My cousin's little boy Carter is playing his first year of t-ball this year and his team was the Tigers. So I sent him a Tigers t-shirt and some other schwag early in the season. I swear I think one of the first things his parents taught him was that my favorite team was the Tigers, so that his first t-ball team is the Tigers was pretty cool to me.

Well as it turns out Carter wore his Tigers gear to the game that night and was fortunate to be the last kid in the line to get his picture taken with Mr. Kaline. My cousin said that Al's face lit up when he saw Carter wearing a Tigers shirt! 

They passed along the photo to my folks who recently came up for a visit. Unbeknownst to me, my uncle also sent along the George Kell bobblehead that they gave away that night. Needless to say, I have two prized possessions now from a night I'll never forget even though I wasn't even there! 

Thanks everybody!

Meet The Parents

A big shout out to Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, a couple of people I like to call Dad and Mom, for coming up to visit me in the Windy City this past weekend. 

We had a great time seeing the sights and eating at some of the finer establishments in town, the best being Gino's East. Dadgum, that was some mighty fine deep dish pizza pie!

The highlight for me was ascending the Sears Tower. Not all Batman-like, but the express elevator that goes from the basement to the 103rd floor observation deck in less than 60 seconds had my knees shaking by the time I got off that mofo. I'm not too good with heights to begin with, so I was pretty proud of my bad self for making the trip. 

We also went to some place called the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum on Michigan Ave. It was free. That's about the best thing I can say about it. Oh, and it was air-conditioned. That was pretty cool too on a warm Sunday afternoon.

Sadly we weren't able to get to one of the Marlins-Cubs games, as the four game series was sold out. But we managed to have fun nonetheless.

Well, with summer rounding second and heading for third I should have a lot more time to get back to bitching about my favorite hobby in the world. And I've saved up a bunch to bitch about.....

Independence Day

Wow, I didn't realize it had been something like three weeks since I last wrote about something that no one is interested in! So let's just consider this a stretching exercise and move on.

I spent a lovely 4th of July at The Cell watching the most nondescript game I think I ever attended. The game itself was a bore. All I can recall is a Jack Cust home run and somebody plowing into A. J. Pierlsfhaskasuy on a play at the plate. Luckily I was in the stands and didn't have to hear Hockeroo yell "He gone!!" when the A's runner was called out.

But all the rest of the festivities were as top shelf as you could expect on Independence Day in the South Side. 

To start off with the Sox gave away caps with the desert camo motif to the first 10,000 fans. You can see the kids in the stands in this picture wearing them. 

The Sox also wore a uniform variation of this as well. (But why the shit brown hats when the ones they gave away looked so much cooler?)

Oh yeah, if you go back and look at the picture of the kids in the stands, and you look up in the first row of the upper deck above the red sign right next to the foul pole, you barely see a little dot. That's me!

Getting back on the subject, a young hottie came out and sang the National Anthem. Midway through a couple of U. S. Navy jets came screeching overhead in one of those goose bumpy moments that was ultra cool. Afterwards, thousands of red, white, and blue balloons were released into the sky.  

Throughout the game there were many video messages from the White Sox players thanking our troops. There was also a parade of some of our troops around the field to thunderous applause. 

The game itself was bo-ring, but the fireworks show afterwards made up for it. I'm not all that big on fireworks per se, but I enjoyed it.

But what I really enjoyed most was the hot, drunk, young blonde a section over who in her haste to answer her cellphone knocked her purse off her shoulder, talking her dress strap with it and letting her amazingly gorgeous right breast fly out into the open. She drew the attention of all six of us still left in the upper deck at the end of the game and managed to give new meaning to the word FREEDOM!!!

Happy 4th of July indeed!!!