1989 Fleer Baseball... PINSTRIPES!!!

Well, it's time to bust open some more wax. This time, it's real wax. 1989 Fleer baseball. There's a few good rookies in this set. Unfortunately, Fleer only stopped printing them last spring.
But press on we must!
I obtained this pack as an unexpected free gift from an ebay seller that I bought a couple of Braves team sets from. It's sellers like this that would make ebay great, if only there were more of them. I even wrote his name down so I could buy from him again..... but I lost that damn piece of paper. *sigh*
A salute to you, Mr Anonymous ebay gift giver!

Peeking through the wrapper, it looks like I can see a familiar shape.........
It's a Kansas City Royals sticker! I miss stickers.... somebody need to start doing them again.

Anybody admitting to loving the Royals? This card could be yours....

Up next, Bruce Sutter - Braves! Yeah baby! Bruce had just recorded his 300th save in '88... although he was pretty much done by the time this picture was taken...

Felix Fermin - Pirates

Joe Magrane - Cardinals

Jody Reed - BoSox - going in the mail pile for Jackplumstead

Keith Brown - Reds

Fred Manrique - White Sox - wow. Look at those glasses. wow. It's no wonder Fred was on his 4th team in 4 years. Fred is going in the mail pile for Steve over at White Sox Cards

Andy McGafigan - Expos

Mike Moore - Mariners

Paul Gibson - Tigers

Steve Sax - Dodgers
Will Clark - Giants - Will kinda exploded on the scene, becoming one of those "must have" cards in the late '80's early '90's... then he fell of the face of the Earth.

Craig Worthington - Orioles

Rafael Ramirez - Astros - a former Brave, all glove, no hit.

Stan Javier - A's

and..............................................................

Ken Griffey Jr. !!!!

I never pulled one of these back in '89.... still kinda gave me a thrill pulling it out of this pack.

Come to think of it.... I not only miss those damn stickers.... I miss the thrill of pulling that elusive rookie or favourite player out of a pack. Base card, I mean, as I build the entire set and put them in pages... crossing out the new acquisitions off of my "need" list. No autos... no swatches... no short prints... no damn gimmick cards.... (except maybe a prank or two on Billy Ripken)

I miss those days.

1988 Topps Stickers

Another one of my YouTube fans/stalkers, Dave in Michigan, sent me another goodie-bag full of junkwax. First up, five packs of 1988 Topps Stickers.

Two Pints of Lager and Five Packets of Stickers

Like I mentioned before, The Hobby in Europe consists mainly of cheap base sets (which double as CCGs) and stickers. I loved the old Panini baseball stickers from the 80s and if there's one thing from the 80s I wish the powers that be would bring back, it's stickers.

It's been about 20 years since I've opened a pack of stickers, so imagine my excitement when John in the UK sent me five packets of 2007/08 Merlin EPL stickers.

The set consists of 648 stickers, and like the sticker sets of the 80s, it came with a matching album for you to paste the stickers in. Each packet comes with six stickers (one of which is oversized).

1978 Fleer Hi-Gloss Grand Slam Baseball Stickers

(Update: After reading through an updated post on Fler Sticker Project, I realized I had the 1978 version, not the '77. Dates have been changed in this post to reflect the correct year)

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I saw a post about these (here) on the Fleer Sticker Project blog, and knew I had to snag some of these stickers. A quick search on theBay, and I found two packs that I quickly snagged up. The pack is yellow with blue and red lettering with white "highlights" on it. There are "examples" of the Royals and Yankees stickers, plus the MLB logo. In the lower right corner, the pack proudly proclaims that there is "1 Stick Gum." (Evidently, the writers back then spent a lot of time watching The Lone Ranger...)

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Upon opening the pack, we find a THIRTY year old piece of gum that had attached itself to the sticker behind it. The gum is weirdly semi-moist and not in the least dried out that I can tell. After airing out a few moments, though, it's dry, yet surprisingly bendable. Or, well, it was... It bent pretty well before finally cracking, though never crumbling....

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Ah, the gum was attached to the Philadelphia Phillies sticker! I believe I could let the card air out and then use my thumbnail to scrape off the residue. The card contains the logo of the time for the Phillie taking up most of the real estate (2/3's or so), then the classic Phillies "script" occupies the lower third of the card. There are instructions as to where to peel the sticker (evidently, those of us that were kids when these were made were not the brightest lights in the sockets). There is also the Fleer "crown" logo. The back contains a puzzle piece. On this particular card, the piece is obviously a corner because the red and blue stripes make a 90-degree turn. There is a patch of Green with what appears to be light dirt in one corner of the piece. I am not going to describe the backs of all the stickers, just this one, so you can get an idea of what we have on each item.

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The Cincy sticker is different that the Phillies, and if you take a trip over to the Fleer Sticker Project, you will get the low-down on all the variations that were made of these things. This one has that classic 70's red, orange, yellow "rainbow" effect seen often on sports shows (or the Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family or Match Game or the Michael Douglas Show, etc etc). Attached to that is the Reds logo. Once again, Fleer helps us idiots by showing us how to remove the sticker. Notice this sticker also says "Grand Slam Hi-Gloss Stickers" on it. Guess you have to fill up the space with SOMETHING...

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Next, we have the LOWERCASE "A" of the 70's Braves. Perhaps Dayf can provide for us the year when they changed over to the capital version of the letter... In any case, the 'scripted' text is done in Braves blue with red borders.

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The Cardinals sticker follows the pattern of the Phillies (and I suppose technically the Braves), though it appears the logo with the birds has been set crooked, or something... I don't quite get the canted look. It's not really 'off-center' like a printing mistake, but more like they weren't sure how to fit the logo in the allotted space. Strange.

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Finally, we have a Twins sticker. They opted to use a barely visible pink that graduates up to a magenta. I can't help but wonder if this card was originally RED. The Minnesota hand-shake logo takes up the bottom portion of the sticker. On the left, we're told there is a "World Series Photo Puzzle on back." Sure enough, I even got "Worl" and the top portion of the what I think is the word "Cham" - hmm, maybe we were idiots back then... :-)

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Being as I ordered two of these packs, I'll post the 2nd pack another time...

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1990 Topps Stickers

Here's one more sticker pack for you all before I go back to opening my box of Topps. Same deal as before, the best side of each card gets posted.

Sticker: 145 Ozzie Smith foil
Card: #7 Bobby Bonilla

Wizard of Oz for the win. Plus I was gonna scan the foil no matter who it was anyway.

Sticker: 53 Shawon Dunston & 194 Tony Fernandez? i think
Card: #67 Checklist

No one wants to see a checklist, right?

Sticker: 103 Bip Roberts & 212 Joey Belle
Card: #17 Kevin Mitchell

I wish someone would upload the Bip Roberts rookie card commercial to YouTube. Is this an Albert Belle rookie sticker?

Sticker: 140 Chris Sabo & 196 Tom Henke
Card: #46 George Bell

I'm happy that I actually recognize who the players on most of these little stickers are this time. Of course it's really, really hard to mistake Chris Sabo for anyone else.

Sticker: 138 Random Reds player & 292 A Twin that I really should know who it is
Card: # 15 Tony Gwynn

Thank goodness for Tony so I don't have to look foolish by not remembering who these guys are on the front.

Ok, tomorrow we're back to our regularly scheduled "cherry pick the best pack out of my 2008 Topps Box so I can show it off and say neener neener, you don't have this while doing my superior dance" program. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

1989 Topps Stickers

Ok, with all the teasing going on today, it's time to actually open an actual pack. I've got another pack of stickers, which is ok, because I'm sure Thorzul's pack is kinda sticky right about now anyway. Here's a pack of 1989 StickerCards. I'll go through it card by card and post a scan of the best side of the card.

Sticker: 157 Darryl Strawberry foil Card: #46 Barry Bonds

It's a choice between drugs up the nose or drugs in the ass. Allegedly. I'll take Strawberry, at least he would be fun at a party.

Sticker: 129 Random Pirate & 225 Random Mariner
Card: #53 Darryl Strawberry

Straw man wins again since I can't tell who the guys on the other side are.

Sticker: 205 Robin Yount
Card: #14 Joe Carter

Hall of Famer all the way. Plus I love the Glove logo.

Sticker: 183 Wally Joyner
Card: #10 Tony Fernandez

I like Wally better than Tony. Don't like it? open your own pack.

Sticker: 74 Dennis Martinez & 316 Some Yankee whose jersey # is 36
Card: # 11 Cal Ripken

Cal in a rout even though this is the only mini sticker where I recognize someone.

Looks like stickers beat cards in this matchup, let's see if cards can make a comeback in tomorrow's 1990 sticker pack.

1988 Panini Stickers

Ok, enough newfangled crap, it's time for some twenty year old stickers from our favorite Italian manufacturer. I found a few of these recently and had to get them. Somewhere packed away is my '88 Sticker album and finishing off the set is on my list of "things I need to do before I die". No I'm not calling it that other thing. Let Jack Nicholson plug his own damn movies.

398 foil San Diego Padres uniform
230 What appears to be Cal Ripken and George Bell all stars
310 I don't know who the hell this is, some Dodger
331 Mitch Webster
214 Jimmy Key
370 Sid Bream

Ecxuse me a moment while I dig up my SCD and figure out who the unnamed stickers are. It's going to drive me nuts until I do. Until then, enjoy this foil stripey brown Padres uniform sticker.


I was right on the All stars. George Bell and Cal in front of the Oakland All Star game logo. The price guide says card 310 is one half of the Dodgers Action sticker and it's either Mariano Duncan or Junior Ortiz. Junior never played for the Dodgers so by process of elimination it's Duncan. I would have never guessed that in a million years. The rest of the stickers have names on them, thank God. After all those years of nondescript Topps stickers it was nice to see stickers with an actual design on them. Topps actually had Panini producing all those sticker sets from 1981-1987, but when Topps switched to producing their own sticker-cards in 1988, Panini struck back with this massive set. 480 stickers! In a 64-page album! And they actually looked good! This surely is the pinnacle of sticker sets. I want to know why with all the hand wringing about kids not collecting cards anymore why there isn't a sticker set and album in every grocery store in the nation. Kids love the hell out of stickers, they can't be that hard to produce and at 6 stickers for 25 cents (I guess 50 cents or a buck nowadays) you could make a killing. They'd screw it up though and try to put a piece of game used bat on a sticker and give some kid a splinter and get sued. Topps actually tried a sticker/album gimmick in a Bazooka set a few years ago, but they made the stickers an insert and screwed it all up. Put stickers in every pack! Make them cheap! Encourage us to stick them all over the place without hesitation that we are ruining a chase card! Bring back fun baseball cards, dammit! Mariano demands it!

1981 Topps Stickers

Stickers seem to be popular on this blog, so I'll contribute a pack of my own. I'm not sure where I got this pack, I think it may have been a throw in from an eBay auction. While I have a few of these stickers floating around my collection this is the first '81 sticker pack I've opened. The first sticker set I remember collecting was the '86 set with Pete Rose on the album cover.

The wrapper is actually more intriguing to me than the stickers inside. Fifteen cents netted 4 album stickers back in 1981. A nameless airbrushed Kansas City Royal is taking a mighty swing. The patriotic Red, White and Blue BASEBALL logo on the front is underscored Made in Italy. The back of the pack has alternating advertisements for the sticker album, one of which features a kid who is way too happy about these stickers. Whatever glue once held the pack together has long since given way to the ravages of time and the stickers literally fall out the bottom.

254 Mike Schmidt foil All Star
213 Bill Madlock
116 Tony Armas
46 Carlton Fisk
Spectacular pack. A foil sticker of the greatest third baseman of all time turns any pack into a winner. Bill Madlock is another solid player at the hot corner and makes a lasting contribution to mathematical theory on this sticker. Huge Fro + Flat Top Pirates cap = Abe Lincoln stovepipe hat. Hail to the Chief. Tony Armas was a good outfielder in his day, but unfortunately whenever I see his name now, I subconciously add "Junior" and "disabled list" to it. To cap things off, I pull another of my favorite players with the last sticker. Carlton's 81 Topps All Star card is a classic and now I have the sticker counterpart.

You can't ask for much more than two Hall of Famers in a four sticker pack. Now I just need to go find an album to put these in.

1986 Topps Stickers

This is the third in a series of sticker packs. The 1986 stickers were in all ways superior to the 1987 set, despite the presence of a National League All Star Team made up almost entirely of San Diego Padres. The best part had to be the stadium fats on each team page. Even though I was only seven years old at the time and had no real high number numerical concepts, my jaw hit the fucking floor each time I read about Cleveland Municipal Stadium and its roughly quarter-million capacity.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
28 Kevin Bass/189 Tom Henke
172 Dave Collins/313 Tom Browning Future Star
153 Ozzie Smith All Star
37 Bruce Sutter/198 Rollie Fingers
158 Eddie Murray All Star

Grade: A+ This might be the pack to end all packs. Let's review the contents. The pack starts slow, with relatively blah players, but presented with inspiring visual clarity. You've got Kevin Bass, who had what was possibly the best black guy moustache in baseball. Following him are two bespectacled American Leaguers. I've never realized it before, but it's plain to see now that Dave Collins and Tom Henke were separated at birth. Actually, it goes much deeper than that. They are the same person. I'm willing to bet that if you checked the Elias Sports Bureau, you'd find that Tom Henke never pitched against the Oakland A's.

The second half of the pack really brings the heat with four consecutive Hall of Famers. Even the wacky numbering system which paired some Brewers with Braves and some with Astros managed to put two HOFers on the same sticker. Sure, Rollie looks like he's freezing and can't wait until October 2nd so he can leave Milwaukee for somewhere with more hospitable temperatures, but you can't beat the combo. And what's not to like about Ozzie and Eddie?

1987 Topps Stickers

Yes, Virginia, here's another sticker post. In my basement sit about 9 boxes of 1987 Topps stickers. I received the album as an Easter present in 1987, and early last year I finished the set. I will reserve comment on this product because another more antiquated set is coming up on Pack-A-Day soon. All I need to say is that this is a vastly inferior line compared to the 1987 card set, one of the greatest of all time, and a set that pops up from time to time on my personal card blog Thorzul Will Rule if you look hard enough.

Keith Hernandez, although he was unable to impress Elaine Benes on their first date, appears on the front of this 20-year-old pack.

Let's tear in.

Top to bottom:
129 Tony Pena/291 Greg Walker

33 Denny Walling/196 Robin Yount (Great pull! Robin Yount is the only player I collect extensively, so I already have this in all its forms, including hardback, but it's always great to pull a #19.)

38 Ken Oberkfel/200 Paul Molitor ("The Ignitor" right after Yount. If I were eight years old, I would have gone apeshit over this.)
108 Terry Kennedy/269 Lance Parrish (Too bad Kennedy isn't yelling at anybody in this one.)
140 Bill Gullickson/302 Willie Randolph

Grade: A- Based on personal interest alone, this pack is a winner. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a foil All Star. At least I didn't get one of the two Bruce Ruffin stickers available in this set (Base, Future Star) or a Jim Deshaies Record Breaker. As an added bonus, I got my all-tme worst-named baseball player, Ken Oberkfel. My best friend when I was little teased me mercilessly after hearing my butchered pronunciation of his name, which came out of my mouth like "Overfunkel," which, when you consider it, is a much cooler name.

Tonight, I'd like to unveil the first ever Pack-A-Day contest. The first reader who can identify the player on the cover of the 1987 Topps Sticker Album and post it in the comments section can win the contents of this pack of cards. Leave a way for me to contact you, and I'll have you send me a SASE and I'll send you the stickers. Good luck!

1989 Panini Football Stickers

Through my recent purchase of a 100 ct. box of this product, I was able to complete this set. Many of the boys in my 5th grade class owned the book into which these stickers were placed. One of the greatest collecting choices which I have made in my life was the decision to not jump further onto the bandwagon and begin a collection of Panini Hockey stickers that same year. Sure, there would have been great sticks featuring bearded Calgary Flames players, but not much else.

Now, my album is torn to shreds and is being held together by several strips of mailing tape. The Super Bowl insert poster is somewhere else in my basement, along with several more unopened packs.

Let's tear in.


71 Mark Lee - Packers (Mark is obviously congratulating an opponent on their well-earned victory, which is basically what happened following every Packer game played in the 1970s and 1980s.

K Super Bowl XV Foil Insert (Unfortunately not bearing any likeness of Dick Vermeil, although he hadn't yet begun his work as America's preeminent crier.)

257 Frank Minnifield - Browns

366 Erik McMillan - Jets

414 Super Bowl XXIII Highlight (John Taylor's TD catch with 34 seconds left: The decisive play in one of the greatest Super Bowl games of all time.)

189 Doug Williams (Super bowl XXII MVP; also used as ammunition by Ice Cube's character in the film Three Kings to dispute Spike Jonze's character's assertion that white quarterbacks are better than black quarterbacks.)

Pack Grade: B
I got a Packer, a decent foil sticker, a meaningful action shot, and a Super Bowl MVP. Not bad for an Italian company whose bread and butter is European football, not American football. And what's not to like about a design which incorporates the shape of the goalposts?