Happy Halloween! I will now subject you to every single 1988 Donruss Baseball's Best card I could find in my collection. The Secret Weapon is a great way to start things off if you ask me.It's my birthday and I'll post what I want to...
Of course, orange and black is the theme here and the reason why some have dubbed this underappreciated set the Halloween Set. It pretty much kicks the sorry old Blue Donruss base set design in the teeth and sprinkles glossy coating on top for good measure.
Here is a mustache that is very nearly heartbreaking.
Ken Dayley says, "Seriously? You're taking another picture of me, Donruss? I thought we already took care of that with that crappy blue set."
Todd Worrell can't really wrap his head around the idea of a glossy retail set that somewhat parallels the design of the regular base set.
Enough with the head shots. John Tudor is almost ready for an action pose. Almost.
Well. I like the Cardinals baseball hats. There, I said something positive. Am I a bad Cardinals fan for not knowing what the patch is for? Upon further examination of Greg's card, it appears to commemorate 50 years in St. Petersburg, their spring training home.
Hey, an action shot. Magrane is now a Bay Ray Announcer Man in case you didn't know.
I wasn't kidding when I said I'd show you every card I own from this set. This is one of the few I owned until I bought a gargantuan oddball Cardinals lot from eBay several weeks ago.
Fake action shot.
RSC? What does that stand for, Pirates fans?
Keith Atherton, truly one of "Baseball's Bestsses."
I finally had to dig into my extensive Ozzie Smith collection folder thing to find a truly "Baseball's Best" player from this set.
As you can see, these sets distance themselves from the regular Donruss base by going with the standard vertical stats-on-the-back instead of the classic Donruss horizontal design. Sadly, there's no facts-on-the-back with these cards.
Happy birthday. You and Fred McGriff, eh? ... Those baseball's best look so much better than the '88 Donruss base set.
ReplyDeleteYes, me and Fred McGriff... and Vanilla Ice.
ReplyDeleteRSC (as seen on '88 Pirate jerseys) stands for Richard S. Caliguiri, a popular democratic mayor of Pittsburgh who served from 1978-1988 and died while in office of a rare disease, amyloidosis. He is best known for his urban renewal programs which helped lead the city out of the dying steel industry and into technology development, shaping the area as it is known today, especially improving the air quality. Symbolically, by the end of his last term no active steel mill remained within city limits. He is honored by the Pirates for his last minute efforts to prevent the team from moving when the franchise was sold during the mid 80's due to poor performance and dwindling attendance in the wake of the 1985 cocaine trials. Caliguiri put together a consortium of local business owners to hold the team until a new buyer could be found who would keep the team in Pittsburgh. The effort was successful and after years of losing the Pirates finally produced NL East championships in '90, '91, '92.
ReplyDeleteI love this set. Have 2 of them. Actually 1 card short of 2 complete sets. I sent a Shawon Dunston off for an autograph and haven't gotten it back yet.
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