Saturday, January 10, 2009

1987 Fleer grocery rack

1987 Fleer three-pack grocery rack [$8.00 each] - I could probably buy a Barry Bonds rookie for $8 if I looked hard enough [and I bought one at 'peak' prices during his juiced up home run years], but the idea of pulling a Bonds out of a pack [or maybe pulling a $1 Will Clark or Bo Jackson] is type of nostalgic thinking that gets me nickel-and-dimed in my collecting endeavors.

I have a paranoia of busting any pack from the last 30 years [probably the time frame from where I can afford to bust most packs] - but I takes my chances on this dusty piece of poop collecting dust.

There are three 17 card wax [actual wax] packs and 51 card per rack - with one Headliners insert per rack.

Pack one
#4 of 6 Rickey Henderson Headliners insert
- likely 2009 Hall of Fame inductee; the card is probably worth a quarter or less [there is a 'fisheye' you can see on the card - the yellow dot you can see on the line going through his neck, behind his collar].
Baseball stickers - New York Yankees and San Diego Padres


#502 Steve Lyons - off-center or miscut, take your choice

#209 Tony Perez - off-center or miscut, take your choice
#191 Milt Thompson
#378 Dan Quisenberry
#8 Sid Fernandez
- actually had a decent career, even though I vaguely remember him as fat and ineffective [not quite the case].
#298 Clint Hurdle - the current Colorado Rockies manager was once a Sports Illustrated coverboy as a top prospect.
#131 Dale Mohoric

#319 Andres Galarraga - I mimicked the Big Cat's wide-open stance during a junior high 'pick up' baseball game in PE and actually hit a home run. He fell of the face of the earth in 1992, but had a resurgence in 1993 that would last through the late 1990s. He actually finished his career a home run short of 400 [he has Mike Scioscia to thank for that] as he finished up his last Major League season with the Anaheim Angels.
#247 Ernie Camacho
#337 Floyd Youmans
#91 Vern Ruhle
#231 Cliff Johnson
#437 Greg Brock
#219 Jesse Barfield


#457 Fernando Valenzuela - at the end of the 1986 season, the 25-year old lefty [listed age on the card is 11-1-60] had a 2.94 ERA with 99 wins against 68 losses. Most telling or most predictive of what he would do in the 'second part' of his career was the number of innings he pitched from 1982 through 1986 as listed on the back of the card [285, 257, 261, 272 1/3, 269 1/3]. In 1987 he threw another 251 innings, before Fernando would face some mid to late career challenges as a professional.
#64 Jim Pankovitz

Pack two
Baseball stickers - Montreal Expos and Baltimore Orioles
#268 Chris Brown - R.I.P.

#544 Kent Hrbek - still probably wouldn't have been anything more than a baseball card 'minor star' in 1987. Current Minnesota Twins' first baseman Justin Morneau is putting up comparable numbers to Hrbek.
#161 Dan Petry
#611 Barry Jones
- nice uniform number '69' as a rookie and/or a spring training invitee.
#482 Jim Traber
#574 Lee Smith - these cards are nice for their time, but fall short because of quality control issues.

#600 Matt Young
#40 Spike Owen
#123 Scott Fletcher

#618 Johnny Ray - swinging a sledgehammer. You can barely make out what is written, but it looks like 'The Kid' is written on the side.
#61 Bob Knepper
#392 Alfredo Griffin
#539 George Frazier
#436 Dave Anderson
#435 Marvell Wynn
- this 'run' of cards are off-center/miscut
#109 Willie Randolph
#350 Paul Molitor
- card is worth $0.15, but even less with a wax stain on the back.

At this point, I thought I would have been able to pull at least one 'decent' rookie card - and several star cards.

Pack three
Baseball stickers - Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees
#492 Julio Cruz
#282 Greg Minton
#543 Neal Heaton
- I remember from my formative years of baseball watching, this guy learning a particular pitch back in 1990 that allowed him to have enough first-half success to be named to the National League All-Star team that season.
#280 Roger Mason - I remember him as a 'reclamation' project back in the early 1990s.
#622 Don Robinson - I remember his reputation as a hefty, good hitting pitcher.
#74 Rick Burleson
#562 Leon Durham
#594 Jim Presley
#395 Jay Howell

#128 Pete Incaviglia - more fisheyes? Incaviglia is probably the Matt LaPorta of the 1980s. LaPorta is an up-and-coming power hitting prospect with the Cleveland Indians.
#265 Juan Berenguer
#69 Dave Smith - R.I.P.
#393 Moose Haas

#533 Allan Anderson - I can only laugh when I pull two of the same card and of Anderson of all people! I remember him as a retread common in early 1990s sets.
#533 Allan Anderson
#449 Alejandro Pena

2 comments:

Jeffrey Wolfe said...

51 cards and no pulls oh well '87 Fleer is still awesome. I love the Matt Young card, Fleer had the new Mariners logo a year before Topps and Donruss! As a Pirates fan I remember well Neal Heaton's first half in '90. Nobody could figure out how a washed up Expos middle relief guy won ten games in three months and made the All Star team. He claimed he invented a new pitch the "screwknucklecurve" I think but everyone knew he was full of it. The real reason was the Pirates were really good that year and he had awesome run support. He was out of baseball a few years later.

William said...

I'm surprised that you're suprised that you busted a late-'80s wax pack and didn't find any major rookies in it.