Even More of the 1980 Donruss Set that Never Was

All-Stars, Leaders, Traded, World Series and Diamond Kings

Dave Winfield went 1 for 5 with one RBI and a run scored in the 1979 All-Star game. He grounded into a fielder's choice. With Gary Matthews on first and Mike Schmidt on third, Matthews was out at second and Schmidt scored. In his second at bat he doubled to the right field gap. He scored on a Gary Carter single.

Lynn's only at bat was a two-run homer off Steve Carlton scoring Don Baylor. That gave the American league a 3-2 lead in a back and forth game that was decided in the 9th inning. In the top og the 9th, Jim Kern (who was the 1979 Rolaids Relief Man award winner) walked the bases loaded. He was pulled for Ron Guidry who walked in the winning run. The NL won their 8th straight ASG 7-6.

For the 1980 All-Stars I borrowed the look from the 1990 Donruss MVP.  I added All-Star text to the background similar to the MVP. Although the 1990 is much more similar to the base. I ditched one of the banners to give it a cleaner look.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Donruss ever had League Leader cards.  If they did, they weren't in the familiar Topps format. But for the sake of this imaginary set, I've created just that. I chose to do them in the Topps style from the '70s with a single card with the AL and the NL leader.

I picked this card because the Brothers Niekro actually tied for the most wins in 1979 with 21 wins each. Of course with knuckleballers you take the good with the bad.  Joe also led the league in wild pitches. Phil led the league in homeruns surrendered. In the AL Mike Flanagan had a career high 23 victories.  He also had career highs in shutouts  with 5 and strikeouts with 190. He was the AL Cy Young award winner.

Even though these guys led their respective leagues in homers, neither look too happy here.  Maybe because both of them also led their leagues in strikeouts.  Yup, Dave Kingman smashed 48 dingers and whiffed 131 times. In the AL, Gorman Thomas hit 45 round-trippers but fanned an incredible 175 times.

As for the traded cards, I reversed he players names and team names and tried to create a "traded" icon in the same vein as the "Rated Rookie" icon. A couple of big name trades here. Nolan Ryan was a free agent who signed a 4 year $4.5M with his hometown Astros.  He became the first player to earn more than $1M a year.  The Angels GM, Buzzie Bavasi reportedly commented that Ryan "could easily be replace by two 8-7 pitchers", referring to his 1979 record of 16-14.  

In 1980, Rusty Staub was competing with Warren Cromartie for first base. The Expos ended up dumping him for two nobodies at the end of  spring training. Rusty ended up sharing time as DH, first base and outfield for the Rangers. He hit an even .300 in a somewhat limited role. He was traded to the Mets the following season for the second time.

In some sets, Donruss did include World Series cards. But they weren't quite the same as we were used to with Topps.  They were visually similar to the player's card except with a World Series logo on the front. The back would detail their World Series feats.  I kept mine similar to Topps but included the World series logo.  In this particular card you can see Ed Ott easily tagging out Eddie Murray after a laser throw from Dave Parker.

It wasn't until their second issue in 1982 that Donruss included their Diamond Kings subset. But I've got one for the 1980 set. While Donruss relied on Dick Perez for their art, I tried to use photo effects to recreate the style.  Here is "Stretch" McCovey on a 1980 style Diamond Kings card.

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As usual, I am taking request for cards based on this design. So if there are any players or even subsets you'd like to see in a future post, leave a comment.

Even More 1972 Alt-Topps

World Series, All-Star, Leaders and Traded Cards

I'm not done yet. 

Here is what I imagine the World Series cards would look like in my Bizzaro Universe 1972 Topps set.

And the All Star cards.  I went with a Detroit Tigers color scheme because the 1971 classic was played at Tiger Stadium.  Hard to believe that 1971 is still the only season in which both starting pitchers were African-American. 

As a side-note, the Pirates fielded a line up that featured African Americans in every position also in 1971 for the first time in MLB history.  This wasn't done with any forethought of creating history as most of the regular line up featured black players. It was more of a happenstance due to injuries.

For the Leaders cards, I adopted the format Topps used in 1970 and 1971.

In the real 1972 set Topps began making late-series Traded cards. I mimicked that here using the original concept model, John Mayberry and another famous guy who wasn't in the original 1972 Topps Traded sub-set.

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I thought I'd try something different. Just wondering if anybody actually reads this all the way to the bottom. If you did, I'll take a few requests for this alternative set. If you have a player you'd like to see, base or sub-set, just post it in the comments before October 15th.  Then I'll do what I can to create those cards and make a final posting under the 1972 Alt-Topps heading by the end of the month.

TBT - Texas Rangers Edition

Last month the Astros hosted the Rangers in an All-Texas turn-back-the-clock game. Both teams wore 1986 era uniforms. The Rangers actually had the same away greys from 1985-1993. Here ia my attempt to mimic the 1991 Donruss Nolan Ryan card.  Lucas Harrell cooperated by striking a similar pose.

Both Harrell and Ryan pitched for the Astros and the Rangers. Nolan led the league with 18 losses in 1973. Lucas led the league with losses in 2013 with 17.  He also led in bases on balls that year. Ryan led the league in walks nine times.  The similarities seem to end there. On the bright side, Ryan pitched until he was nearly 47.  Harrell is a relatively young 31 year old.  Things can change in 15 years.

TBT - Houston Astros Edition

This was a tricky one again. The Astros wore throwback uniforms reminiscent of their 1986 season. This was in honor of 1986 Cy Young award winner Mike Scott who threw out the first pitch. For this week's throwback Thursday card, I made a 1986 Topps card of Jose Altuve. The only problem is that the uniform they chose was rarely worn. It is very similar to the tequila-sunrise unis of the late '70s early '80s. But there are some differences.  As a result, I was unable to find a decent card for side-by-side comparisons.







The most obvious difference between this uni and the earlier versions is that it is paired with a black cap instead of the orange. Also the collar is entirely black instead of striped. And finally there is no number on the pants. As I said, it was a rare combination that the Astros used sparingly from 1983-1986. When looking for an old card to compare unis, the best I could come up with were some Mother's Cookies cards. So here is Nolan Ryan in a similar uniform on this 1985 Mothers Cookies Card.

1980 Topps Nolan Ryan

Houston Astros CTNW Favorites #1

The blockbuster move of the 1979 off-season was the free-agent signing of  Nolan Ryan. Ryan became the first million dollar player in Major League Baseball. His 1980 salary for the Astros, $1,125,000 was more than his combined salary for all his previous 13 MLB seasons with the Mets and Angels.

To this day, Ryan has the most strikeouts of any Astros pitcher with 1866. Yet his 106 wins in an Astros uniform was only good enough for 6th place. He had 1 less than J.R. Richard and 28 fewer than Astros all-time leader Joe Niekro, both of whom are featured on my top 5 list.

Although Houston signed Ryan in November of 1979, he still appeared as an Angel in the 1980 Topps set. I created this card using a press conference photo with Ryan wearing his new team jersey over a dress shirt and tie. I'm not sure if Topps would have gone this route or simply relied on the trusty old air-brush.

There was a 1980 Topps-issued card featuring Ryan on the Astros. Burger King offered a 3 pack of Pitch, Hit and Run cards with the purchase of a large fries. This 33 card set featured 11 pitchers, 11 hitters and 11 runners. It was also the first set to feature Joe Morgan in an Astros uniform after his free agency signing in January of 1980.

Nolan Ryan 1989 Odd-Ball Assortment

Texas Rangers CTNW Favorites #2

By 1989 the major card companies all had traded or update sets, so finding a 1989 card showing the newly acquired future Hall of Famer in a Rangers jersey was not a difficult feat. In addition there were a number of odd-ball sets sold or given away by toy stores, bread companies, department stores, you name it. So for this post I decided to create a bunch of 1989 odd-ball Cards That Never Were for Nolan Ryan:

 

Above are 1989 Cards That Never Were from Bazooka, Cap'n Crunch, JJ Nissen (a bread company that was based in Maine) and Woolworth (a defunct department store). As you can see 3 of the 4 were produced by Topps but only 2 of the 4 were officially licensed. Therefore the logos had to be airbrushed out.

Ryan was traded to the Rangers at the ripe old age of 42. He still pitched 5 seasons and threw his 6th No-Hitter in 1990 and his 7th in 1991 both for the Rangers. His record was 51-39 in 129 games.

Selling Fake Cards

You may or may not have noticed that I have been absent from this blog for a couple months now. I have just been overwhelmed by work, family, the holidays, you name it. As a result have had less time to spend on my hobby.

And that is what this is, my hobby. It is not a money making proposition. In fact it costs money and produces nothing. And I am fine with that. But lately a couple of eBay sellers have been using cards from various blogs and selling them. Including this blog plus Bob Lemke's Blog, When Topps had (Base) Balls, Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought To Be and several other.

Several times I have had request for physical cards. I have always responded that I make virtual cards only but you are free to use them as you like. I understand collectors (I am one myself). There a many completionists (for lack of a better word) who want to fill in the blanks left by Topps of their favorite player, team or set. Go ahead print one out and put it in your binder.

Just don't put them on eBay. Please.

The problem comes when somebody who is not familiar with the hobby pays $40.00 for this:

I posted this as part of my Mets Favorites series here. This guy has used several other cards of mine most selling in range of $8-$18. Except for this one selling for only $0.99 :

You can see the disappointment on Joe's face. LOL

The funny thing is this guy has lifted cards from this blog that are not even mine. Including this one that was put out by Topps themselves. Which proves that the guy selling our cards, is just looking at the pictures and not reading the text.

Some poor sucker paid $15.50 for a print of this with a blank back. He could have bought the actual card with an actual back, printed by Topps as part of their 2012 Archives set. It is currently going for as little as $0.73 on COMC.com. That's even less than my 1966 Joe Torre All Star.

I know I've been rambling on a bit here. I don't have a solution to this. There will always be hucksters trying to make a quick buck. And I agree with the blog written on Baseball Card Breakdown that it DOES hurt the hobby. The best we can do is bring these people into the light and expose them for what they are.

A couple decades ago somebody was printing fake Pete Rose rookie cards. They got caught and the judge allowed the cards back into the market as long as they were stamped "counterfeit". I knowingly bought one of these stamped cards a long time ago for about $10 bucks. I collect rookie of the year cards and there was no way I would be able to afford a real one. It is currently filling the hole in my binder.

Other expensive holes are filled by Topps reprints such as:

Topps included an almost exact reprint of this card in its 1999 Topps Stars set. No gold foil stamp on the front, No refractor imaging, just a nice clean reprint. This particular card is extremely hard to find. I don't remember what I paid for it but it wasn't cheap. Oddly the autographed version is easier to find and goes for $50-$100 on eBay.

I know, rambling again. The point is, I know the hobby. I know what I am paying for. I have knowingly bought fake cards but I knew what I was getting. 

Not everybody does. 

I made this blog for my own entertainment. It is awesome that other people enjoy it as well. The truth is I would like to have hard copies of a few of my cards as well as some of the cards created by other hobbyists. But I don't want to contribute to these scams. 

Sorry for not posting in 2 months and then posting a long babbling semi-coherent post. 

I welcome and encourage comments on this issue. You can post them here, or on Baseball Card Breakdown's post on the same subject. Or on When Topps had (Base) Balls post that started the dialog. I am following all the comments closely.

1973 Topps All Star Cards - American League West

The Oakland A's is where I really have to stretch this concept. With seven All Stars (including coach Dick Williams) but only 1 starter, I attempted to make a manager/coach type card. But 6 photos were too many to squeeze into the coach boxes. This was the next best option.

For the White Sox I was able to use the same format as the Mets. With Dick Allen Starting and May and Wood in reserves, this style fit nicely.

Carew was the sole representative from the Twin Cities so I didn't need a new card for him.

The Royals boasted 6 All Stars but no starters. One of the more questionable moves of the All Star game was when Cookie Rojas pinch hit for Rod Carew against Bill Stoneman. Having a right hander who was hitting .261 in 1972 pinch hit for a left hander who led the league in batting average, against a right handed pitcher? Crazy, right? Nope, 2 run homer! Earl Weaver is a mad genius.

Nolan Ryan was the sole rep of the California Angels but never saw action. I broke from using action shots on the individual All Star cards because this is just a great picture. Ryan never actually played in this uniform. By 1972 the hats had a capital "A" and they had adopted the same elastic waistband look that dominated baseball in the 1970s. This must have been a promo shot after his trade in 1971 or possibly they were still wearing these unis in spring training in 1972. Either way it was too cool to pass up.

In their first year in Texas, the Rangers sent Toby Harrah to represent the team in the All Star game. He didn't play.

1961 Topps Checklist - Cards That Never Were - 17th Series

I went back to the 1961 design. I had been going in order since my 1st series checklist. My last one was from 1975. I just could not bring myself to use the 1976 design. It is just plain ugly. And the ones coning up in the order are pretty plain looking. I haven't decided if I am going to start rotating through all the checklists again or just use this one with different photos. But I am not going to use the 80s and 90s checklists, just too boring.

This checklist really has basically 2 running themes separated by yet another Mantle card. So not much variety.  The photo on top is one that most fans will recognize. Robin Ventura was foolish enough to charge the mound on Nolan Ryan and paid the price. 

1969 Topps Deckle Edge Nolan Ryan

New York Mets CTNW Favorites #3

In 1969 Nolan Ryan was an occasional starter and middle reliever for the Amazin' Mets. There were signs of his future greatness. In 89.1 innings he fanned 92 batters. Unfortunately for the Mets, his best years would come after they let him go.

1968 Topps Nolan Ryan

Going Horizontal

Sometimes life gets busy and we all need to take a break. I haven't abandoned the blog but it has been put on the back shelf. I do have several cards made that I want to share, and a few continuing themes that I don't want to leave unfinished.  

This is one of those cards I had sitting around. I made it in response to a comment by Vonnoosh back in June. I was also starting to play with the idea of making horizontal "action" cards in sets where none existed. This was before I decide to use All Star Game MVPs as the subject for the Horizontal cards.

I have every intention of continuing this blog for my own entertainment if nothing else. I may post a little less frequently, but I have a few new ideas I want to explore.  

1972 Kellogg's Nolan Ryan

California Angels CTNW Favorites #1

In what was one of the most lopsided trades in MLB history, the Angels got fireballer Nolan Ryan, everyday rightfielder, Leroy Stanton and 2 others. In exchange the Mets got Jim Fregosi. Fregosi's career numbers plummeted and the Mets sold him to the Rangers the following season.

Hindsight is 20/20. At the time of the trade Fregosi was coming off a bad year because of a tumor found in his foot. Prior to that he was a 6-time all star and a gold glove winner. He had also received MVP votes in 8 consecutive seasons, 1963-1971.Ryan was coming off a 10-14 season with a 3.97 ERA. Ryan had a great fastball and threw plenty of strikeouts but he was still wild and threw nearly as many walks. 

1976 Topps Rangers Strikeout Leaders

Since I made one for the Cardinals, I needed  to make one last franchise leader card for the Rangers. Again, I used the 1976 Topps leader format for the last card in my World Series leader theme. 

Charlie Hough leads the Rangers with 1452 all-time strikeouts. Hough made his only All Star appearance in 1986 with the Rangers. Although he had 3 strikeouts in 1 2/3rds innings, catcher Rich Gedman had a hard time with his knuckleball with a wild pitch and a passed ball leading to the NL's only runs in a 3-2 AL victory.

Nolan Ryan is now the Owner/President/CEO of the Texas Rangers and is shown repeatedly during telecasts of this Series. He threw the final 2 of his record 7 no-hitters in a Rangers uniform.

C.J. Wilson had a career high 206 strikeouts this year. He also had 26 K's in the 2011 post-season.