Woodgrain Wonders and Summer Sluggers: My 1987 Journey Through Topps Cards and Baseball Memories

For my 6th birthday, my uncle gave me 2 packs of 1986 Topps baseball cards. My birthday was in August as the season was winding down. It wasn't really until the beginning of the 1987 season that my addiction to baseball cards really began.

When I was a kid, my dad was a local umpire for Little League (the big kids from my perspective) and I would ALWAYS go with him to play around the ballpark as he umpired. In those days, the local Little League had an amazing policy: if you caught a foul ball and returned it to the concession stand, you could get a snowcone OR a pack of 1987 Topps baseball cards. 

There were not many foul balls hit that year that I didn't make an attempt at grabbing. After all, if I retrieved it, I got a pack of baseball cards. Here is an example of those glorious wax packs from 1987.

If my memory serves me correctly, these packs were 35 cents each if you couldn't wrangle a foul ball. They were my favorite part about life in the summer of 1987.

The next best thing was when my mother went to the grocery store. I would always promise to help carry the groceries in from the car in those brown paper sacks Safeway sent home. She would pull up, and I would unload the '80s Chevy Suburban and carry in bags so she could put them away. It was always a safe bet she would snag me a 1987 Topps Rack Pack or two ... I can remember running to my room after carrying the groceries in so I could rip into my rack packs. Did anyone else's mom not let them go to the grocery store? My mother would do pretty much anything to not have to take me....smart woman. 

The hobby was fun. It was simple. For those first few years, it wasn't even about whether or not the card was worth money. It was simply my favorite Houston Astros star, or a Pete Rose, Reggie Jackson, Fred Lynn....those aging stars that would make my dad go giddy with stories. 

Let's dive into the 1987 season and those amazing junk wax beauties: the 1987 Topps set of 792 magnificent baseball cards that I lived for and loved so much. 

If you rewind the clock just a little bit (or turn back the pages of time), you will remember a young slugger from Oakland that came up and lit the country on fire with homerun after homerun. In fact, he hit 49 that year. Mark McGwire soon became my absolute fascination. Here is a look back at his 41st homerun that year...I just love watching old clips of baseball. Take a look!

It was my first year of real collecting and I was old enough to know that McGwire card was going to be something special. I'm not sure if this was your experience, but I found it hard to land those McGwire cards. I seemed to get every other card in the deck, but it was hard to find the McGwire. I guess it made it that much more amazing when I did land it. Here is a pristine example of my absolute favorite gem from 1987. McGwire hit 49 home runs, setting a then-MLB record for rookies and helping the Oakland Athletics gain attention despite not making the postseason.

1987 Topps Mark McGwire #366

McGwire wasn't the only card of the 1987 deck I wanted. For as long as I can remember, I have had an obsession with Nolan Ryan. I was born and raised about 45 minutes south of where Nolan Ryan lived in Alvin, TX. He was a legend before I was born, and he was my hero before I even knew the rules of the game. For me, it was personal. I wanted to build the largest Nolan Ryan baseball card collection the world had ever seen. It started with as many copies of this one I could get my hands on:

1987 Topps Nolan Ryan #757

1987 was an amazing summer. It was an innocent time when school wasn't hard if you behaved and put some work into it, and baseball practice was the highlight of my day. My dad was my coach and we would ride to practice and talk baseball all the way there and all the way back. If it was a good practice, or he was thirsty, we would stop to get a Big Gulp from 7-Eleven. My dad would always joke around with me and call it a "Mr. Gulp." For whatever reason, I thought that was the funniest thing in the world. So, it was a "Mr. Gulp" and a pack of sunflower seeds.

I always enjoyed evenings in the car with my dad driving across town. Inevitably, he would tune in to the Astros game on 950 AM radio and we would listen to Milo Hamilton and his Hall of Fame voice blast the action that was taking place just up the road. I loved listening to baseball on AM radio. It gave me the ability to visualize the game in my head from a voice in a speaker. Milo was one of the very best at it, and he made my summer nights memorable. The man was definitely a legend in Houston and will always be an icon in Houston.

 Those 1987 baseball memories were certainly rooted in a love of baseball that my dad gave me. He brought the game to life and dedicated thousands of hours to teaching baseball to his sons and many hundreds of other young boys who were lucky enough to be on his teams. Without my dad, I would have no clue what the back of a baseball card meant. Those numbers? Those abbreviations? Yeah, that was my dad. He taught me about batting average, on-base-percentage, homeruns, triples, doubles, wins, losses, earned run averages, and saves. The back of a baseball card was a way to slip off into oblivion and study what those players had done before...

1987 Topps Reggie Jackson #300 (back)

I will forever believe the 1987 Topps set was a masterpiece. I will openly and willingly admit that I am biased and have an emotional connection to this set that runs deep. As I grew as a collector and learned to acquire the great vintage cards and rookies from the early 80s, those sets could never come to replace the 1987 Topps set in my heart and mind. 

Here are some of my favorites:

1987 Topps Barry Bonds #320

I had no idea at the time how special Barry Bonds would become and I have to admit I don't recall paying any special attention to this card when I acquired them. In fact, Bonds was a player I had to go back in the mid-1990s to look specifically for this card, to pull it out of the commons, sleeve it, and put it in a binder. Now, it is one of my absolute favorites and I am always on the lookout for good raw specimens.

1987 Topps Bo Jackson #170

While I did not know Barry Bonds back in 1987, I did know Bo. Everyone knew Bo. Bo was as amazing then as he is now. He was talked about, watched on Sportscenter, and read about by every kid in the country. If you don't remember Bo bursting on the scene, here is an amazing catch from 1987.

Here is the last card I will share with you from 1987...one of my absolute favorite players of this era. I thought Pete Rose could do no wrong (that would be challenged about 2 years later for my young baseball heart) and I loved the Cincinnati Reds. I fell in love with Eric Davis and his beautiful swing, his high-top cleats, and that red hat with the italic "C." 

1987 Topps Eric Davis #412

As the 1987 came to a close and I prepared for the '87 World Series, it was the first Fall Classic I was old enough to truly know and understand what was happening. By the late summer in August 1987, I had turned 7 years old....just in time to fall in love with the St. Louis Cardinals. Vince Coleman, Ozzie Smith, Jack Clark, Willie McGee....man, I loved those guys.

As you know, they fell in 7 games to the evil Minnesota Twins!!! This loss stung and I learned early bad it could hurt when your team falls. (It was a good lesson as an Astros fan growing up - lol) The Twins were formidable that year with Jack Morris, Kent Hrbek, Greg Gagne, Gary Gaetti, and Kirby Puckett.

1987 Topps Kirby Puckett #450

World Series Champs - Minnesota Twins

Who else remembers the 1987 Topps set? 

Which were your favorite cards from the set?

Did you like the woodgrain borders of the cards?

What are your thoughts about 1987 Topps?

 

Cardboard Time Machine: The Magic of My First Pack

Do you remember your first wax pack?

It was August 25, 1986 and my family and friends had gathered at the local skating rink for my 6th birthday. Honestly, I don't remember a lot about the day, the party, or the people. But one thing stands out in my mind's eye more than anything else. It was a gift from my uncle. At the time, he was a college baseball player at Hardin-Simmons University (a small school in Abilene, TX) and I thought he was damn near Dale Murphy in my eyes. His gift was simple and might have cost less than any of the other gifts I received. He gave me two packs of 1986 Topps baseball cards.

From that moment, it was on.

1986 Topps Wax Pack

Today, I have no recollection of who was in that pack of 1986 Topps. Was there a Jim Gantner in there?

1986 Topps Jim Gantner #582

Or did I hit gold and just simply not remember it as a 6 year old birthday boy at the skating rink? Could I have pulled a Nolan Ryan? I'm sure the little boy from Texas would have remembered such a pull on his first pack, right? 

1986 Topps Nolan Ryan #100

There were many interesting things about that day that led to a lifetime love and addiction to baseball cards. If you will, there were certain elements to a storm that was building. The first is that by August 1986, the baseball season was coming to a close. A little boy can learn a lot from April to August. My knowledge of the game had grown and so too had my knowledge of MLB, teams, and players. 

Because it was the end of the season, those two packs of cards were my only cards from 1986. But the 1986 postseason was one for the ages! And at 6 years old, I had a front seat with my newspaper and box scores. 

It was a devastating year to be a Houston Astros fan, no matter what your age was. The 1986 season ended in a crushing loss to the New York Mets. Everyone knows the story of the ball through Buckner's legs in the '86 series....

However, in Houston. We remember 1986 a little differently. In the first game of the NLCS, Mike Scott jumped all over the New York Mets and threw a complete game shutout against Dwight Gooden!

1986 Topps Mike Scott #268

Then came a truly crushing blow in Game 2 when Nolan Ryan was defeated by Bob Ojeda. This evened the series at 2 and sent the teams back to New York City...

1986 Topps Traded Bob Ojeda 

With the Mets leading the series 3-2, the showdown came back to Houston. Game 6 was the longest playoff game in history (until 2005) and lasted 16 innings! I was too little, and I don't remember watching the actual game itself. 

This is the game where Keith Hernandez threatened to kick Jesse Orosco's ass in the 16th inning with a 7-6 lead if he threw Kevin Bass a fastball.  

Yeah...Orosco struck out Bass with all curveballs to end the Astros chances at the World Series and the dreams of a 6 year old boy. The Astros would not return to the NLCS again until 2005.

1986 Topps Jesse Orosco #465

From those two packs of 1986 Topps baseball cards, my uncle opened up a world of hobby, passion, love, excitement, investment, hopes, and dreams. He made my connection with baseball more real. Through the gift of these two packs of baseball cards, a boy was able to be close to his heroes. It also taught me valuable lessons in how to be organized, to take care of important things, and to clean up after myself in a house with four siblings. 

When the 1987 baseball season began, my real foray into the hobby of baseball card collecting began as well. At 35 cents a pack, I began to accrue nearly half a million 1987 Topps cards. But, the 1987 season and the 1987 Topps set are another blog for another day.

Join me for more history of baseball, baseball cards, and all things related to this amazing hobby!!! I am looking forward to interacting with you as we remember the good old junk wax era...

I hope you enjoyed my first blog here on Wax Pack Whispers. Do you remember your first pack of baseball cards? What year was it? What's your story?