1984 Topps

I went to a card show last weekend and there was a dearth of packs to buy. On my way out, I decided I absolutely had to buy something to open up, and I settled on 5 packs of 1984 Topps for $5. It was kinda like Subway, minus the annoying commercials and the mediocre sandwiches. Well, there is the 24-year old piece of gum, but that is more of a chemistry experiment at this point.

183 - Al Williams (Classic set here. Team name down the side, inset photo of the player's head and photography that is, at least, a step up from the 70s and early 80s.)
265 - Donnie Hill (Split time between AAA Tacoma and Oakland in his first major league season. I suppose that would make this his rookie card. Is anyone in the market for a Donnie Hill RC?)
424 - Dann Bilardello (I don't understand people that are named Dann, with two Ns. Other famous Dann's: Dann Florek of Law & Order fame, who also played Mr. Slate in the Flintstone's movie... seriously! Well, okay, he's the only famous Dann.)

91 - Dan Spillner (Just a plain old Dan here. Spillner was coming off a 2-9 1983 season where he posted a 5.07 ERA. Man, is this pack crappy or what?)

696 - Pirates Batting & Pitching Leaders / Team Checklist (Finally, actual good players. Kind of.)
374 - Don Money (Don Money had a name for another line of work.)
441 - Bob Lillis (The Astros manager of the time. I liked these manager cards because they listed their major & minor league playing stats on the back. I learned that Bob Lillis played for the Cardinals in 1961 before moving onto the Colt .45's where he'd finish his career.)
142 - Rich Gale (complete with wax stain)

- Topps All-Star Baseball Game Sweepstakes Card (Whew. It's nice to take a break from all the awful baseball players. I'm well on my way to collecting 25 runs and going to the 1985 World Series. Wait... NOOOOOOOOOOO! Curse you, Don Denkinger!!! You make small, impressionable children cry and question everything in life.)
145 - Gary Lavelle (Actually, this guy was a great lefty reliever in looking at his stats on this card. 7 sub-3.00 ERA postings in 10 seasons and a career-to-date 2.82 mark looks really good.)
46 - Ray Smith (Ugh, another part-time player. This pack obviously contained 12 Mattingly rookies and was resealed.)

538 - Kevin Bass (I'm not sure why, but the Astros team name was a bit purple which doesn't really fit with their color scheme. I played for a little league team that was the Astros and liberally used their team's uniform design, so I have always had an appreciation for the 80's Astros unis. This runs contrary to my feelings about all things Houston these days, however.)

749 - Doug Flynn (Doug Flynn was an Expo, and had 452 at-bats in 1983, so he gets an image of his card here. This is the closest I've gotten to a legitimate full-time position player in this pack, so don't question me! Don't mention the fact that was a career .238 hitter, either. I mean, he played with Joe Morgan, right? So he obviously knew the game.)
642 - Tom Underwood ("Tom pitched 6 innings to record Victory, 6-28-83." Why is "Victory" capitalized? No idea. Why is this remarkable? No idea, either. The line on the back of the card could have easily read "Tom is a spot starter who was born in Kokomo, Indiana." and we would all be satisfied.)

757 - Larry Bowa (When Larry Bowa is the "hit" of the pack, you know things aren't so good.)
275 - Len Matuszek (complete with gum stain)

Alright, I've done enough damage here, so I'll leave you all alone. I was planning on opening the rest of the packs on my blog, but I'm a little apprehensive about it after seeing what happened with this one. Well, they don't call this place A Good Pack A Day, do they?