Inverse, converse, diverse, perverse, and reverse.
2013 TOPPS ARCHIVES DWIGHT GOODEN No one likes to be around someone out of control yet at a distance there’s almost something poetic about someone or something obliterating the boundaries of what’s possible. In the Jefferson Airplane song Wild Times, there’s a lyric that goes: “I’m doing things that haven’t got a name yet.” How very psychedelic. Without a doubt, the equivalent in the baseball card industry was the 1972 Topps set. It marked the…
So you won’t find Ed Bouchee’s name in any list of the 50 Greatest Mets. He didn’t set any team records and he didn’t help the New York Mets win a pennant. What he did accomplish though is very significant. He was the first player to ever appear in a Mets uniform on a Topps card. In the 1962 set, most of the team’s Topps cards are head shots without caps; most of the players…
1991 SCORE DOC GOODEN Pictured is a 1991 Score Doc Gooden “The Franchise” card. It is card number 866 and part of the regular set. The back of the card features a couple of quotes about Gooden by then Cubs General Manager Jim Frey including, “…he can change the mood of the team all by himself” and “everything he does has special qualities.” The card also provides some highlights from Gooden’s 1990 season, noting that…
2003 MLB SHOWDOWN STEVE TRACHSEL This is the 2003 Steve Trachsel MLB Showdown card. This card is based off of Trachsel’s 2002 pitching performance. The game used a 20 sided dice, player cards, and strategy cards to allow a team to be drafted and a game to be played. There were base cards and there were also special foil cards for star players. In the later editions of the set, Hall of Fame player “superseason”…
1981 DONRUSS MOOKIE WILSON From the 1981 inaugural Donruss set is card number 575; introducing shortstop Mookie Wilson. It is worth about .30 cents. In 1981, Wilson appeared in 92 games in the outfield. He hit three home runs and knocked in 14 runs. He stole 24 bases and hit .271. He finished seventh in the Rookie-of-the-Year voting. Hubie Brooks, his teammate, finished third. Both finished behind baseball’s newest pitching sensation, Fernando Valenzuela. In 12…
Pictured is a 1962 Charlie Neal (3B) Salada-Junket Coin. These half-dollar size plastic coins were issued in packages of Salada Tea and Junket Pudding mix boxes. The paper photos fit securely in the team’s orange color coded plastic coin. Originally, the set was intended to be only 180 coins but it was enlarged to include the New York Met and Houston Colt .45 expansion team players. The set eventually included 221 standard coins. Also produced,…
I picked up this 1964 Challenge the Yankees Duke Snider card last week. He is the only New York Met in the 50-card set. The cards were part of the boxed dice game issued by the Hassenfeld Brothers out of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They marketed and distributed the game in 1964 and again in 1965 with a slightly different group of players (including no Snider and no other Met). The idea was that a collection…
1986 TOPPS TATTOOS JESSE OROSCO Topps first introduced wet-application tattoos in 1960 with their Baseball Tattoo Bubble Gum, using crude ink renderings of the stars of the day to wrap a single piece of gum. Given the method of packaging and the ephemeral nature of the product, these can be hard to find today– a near-mint Mickey Mantle would run you about $300. Topps returned to the medium in 1964, with roughly the same packaging…
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