1984 Donruss

I stumbled across this pack last weekend and pretty much had to get it. I've only opened one other pack of '84 Donruss in my life. I bought that one twenty years ago at a card shop the same time I bought my box of '87 Donruss. Oddly enough, I paid the same price for that pack as I did for this one, a crisp five dollar bill. It was a rip off then and it's a rip off now, but what the heck, I can afford to splurge for one of these packs every twenty years.

Duke Snider puzzle piece 7, 8, 9
38 Doug Frobel Rated Rookie
644 Bob Stanley
5 Leon Durham Diamond King
258 Harry Spillman
471 Milt Wilcox
480 Joel Youngblood
591 George Frazier
92 Juan Espino
202 Tim Flannery
313 Spike Owen
423 Brian Downing
21 Larry Parrish Diamond King
Checklist #4
643 Jose Oquendo
147 Mickey Hatcher

I want to start off by saying that I knew when I bought it that this pack was going to suck. No, I don't have some sort of Johnny Smith "Dead Zone" power where I can tell the suckiness of a pack just by touching it, it was the fact that this pack (and every other one in the box) was open. And I mean blatantly opened, one whole side of the wrapper was just flapping in the breeze. But opened just neatly enough to slide the cards out and back in again. ON EVERY PACK IN THE BOX. I mean, come on. I'm not naive enough to think that pack searching doesn't happen, but at least have the decency to reseal the damn things. On the other hand, at least my Mike Hatcher card is fairly wax-free and I have a pretty pristine wrapper out of the deal. You have to respect the colossal brass balls it takes to proudly display "Searched Packs: Five Dollars" right at the front of your business establishment.

Now, about the cards. They suck. They suck bad. The tone is set by the first card pulled. Poor Doug Frobel has a look that says, "dude, I'm so sorry. This pack really really sucks". Yes Doug, I know. The lowlights (no highlights in this pack) include: Bob Stanley, who thanks his lucky stars every night that Bucker made a more boneheaded play than he did. Joel Youngblood, who got a hit for two teams in the same day when he was traded to the Expos because he sucked. Juan Espino sucked so bad he wasn't even in the majors in 1984. Brian Downing wasn't a bad player I guess. My favorite card in the pack is the Leon Durham Diamond King, but even that one is tarnished. A few cards later in the pack is Tim Flannery, the man who hit the grounder in Leon's famous "Gatorade Glove" play in the '84 NLCS. The Diamond Kings are the more common Perez-Steel error version, which sucks because I have all of those. It's not all bad though. Like I said, the wrapper is practically mint. I'm only 20 cards away from a Duke Snider Puzzle. And since I have so little of this set to begin with, only the Diamond Kings and the Flannery cards are doubles. No big deal. I didn't buy the pack for the cards, I paid for the experience of being the second person to open this pack. To be honest I don't even really like the '84 set, it's got a bad design and worse photography. Just take this as a warning all you pack busters out there: Don't buy open packs unless you're the one that did the opening.