Bad Wax Review – 1984 Topps Baseball

I reached into the magic box again and came up with a second 1984 baseball card pack. I’m a little giddy cause I guess I’m hoping for the Mattingly. Being a Yankees fan who grew up in the 80s I can tell you there was no card I coveted more than the 1984 Topps Mattingly. My last pack of 1984 Topps baseball that I reviewed can be found here. I’m looking at the pack and just like the last one, it looks pretty slim. Although the last one had a Gwynn in it so I know it wasn’t search or they would have taken the Gwynn. Just in case you forgot, here is what the pack looks like:

So with the possibility of getting 15 cards and poisonous gum, I venture to open the pack, say a prayer and hope for a good card. Here are the cards:

1. Jim Slaton – P – Brewers – 772 – I look at the back of the card and something stares back at me, Jim pitched every year of his 13 year career in Milwaukee except in 1978 he pitched for the Tigers. Actually he was traded, then following the season, granted free agency and went back to the Brew Crew. Just seemed a bit odd to me.

2. Ben Ogilvie – OF – Brewers – 190 – Now this is just baseball card karma (spooky even) Ben was the player the Brewers traded for when they traded Jim Slaton to the Tigers. This could be one of the oddest back to back cards I have ever gotten. To those who are wondering, there is no way I could set this up, before 2 minutes ago, I didn’t know who Jim Slaton was.

3. George Wright – OF – Rangers – 688 – George has on that Ranger uniform that was just weird, the one with the logo on the side of the stomache. The only thing nice I can say about George is his line score from his debut game was outstanding: vs. CLE 4 AB, 3 H, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 0 SB

4. Atlee Hammaker – P -Giants – 85 – Believe it or not, this is my 2nd Atlee card since starting this blog. Why could’nt I get 2 Mattinglys? Besides having a weird first name, he was just one of those mediocre pitchers.

5. Jose Cruz – OF – Astros – 422 – I always find it best to see who he compares with on baseball-refernce. So I typed in Cruz, now I know he had a nice long and fairly successful career but I was curious as to who he compares with, how about these names: J Damon, K Griffey Sr, K Hernandez, and E Slaughter. That is some very good company, not HOF good, but Hall of Very Good for sure.

6. Ron Davis – Twins – P – 519 – A total stiff for the Yankees in the early 80′s , he does has the distinction of going 14-2 with only 85 innings pitched. Kind of wild when you think about it. The most glaring item on this card though, the HUGE glasses he wore, aviator glasses with prescription lenses! Nice!

7. Mike Krukow – Giants – P – 633 – Unlike Cruz when you go to baseball-reference we get some not so hot comparisons: M. Gubicza, M Witt, E Whitson, M Bodicker. I guarentee you if you pull any of those guys in a baseball card, your going, “Oh . . . . Yeah . . . . . Him”. That’s how I feel about Krukow.

8. Darryl Strawberry – OF – Mets – 182 – I feel as though an alarm should be going off right now! This my friends is the best card I have pulled since I started this blog. I mean it’s only worth about 2 dollars, but in 1986 it was worth about 20, and all my Met’s loving friends were dying to get this card. He was such a fantastic player, you have to wonder how good would he have been if he laid off drugs. He basically fell off the table in 1991, but baseball-reference says that his stats were similar to Jose Canseco and Reggie Jackson at that age. I’m willing to say if he stayed clean he might have been going to the HOF.

and . . . . that’s it. 8 cards. That sucks, I don’t understand where the 7 other cards went. Maybe they just became part of the gum. Here are my ratings out of 5 stars.

Initial Cost of pack – 35 cents – 5.0 stars – cards weren’t real popular yet and the sets weren’t crazy mass produced (see 1986 Topps).

Cards in Pack – 8, should have been 15 – 0.0 stars – how can you give any stars when the pack is more than half empty?

Stars in Pack – 1 – 4.0 stars – The star was one of big ones, so I can’t complain.

Value of the pack – I’ll put it at 2 dollars. So I give it 3.5 stars, considering it’s considered a throw away pack by the Tri-star people, this is a nice pack to find in this box.

Design of card – 4.5 stars – This is one of my favorite all time designs and I think many of you can agree with me, it’s when Topps really cared about what the card would look like. I hope heritage does this design at some point! Note: this is not the card I got, but a picture of it I found online.

Overall the pack was 3.4 stars which is very good! I am still astounded that I pulled Strawberry’s rookie card, makes getting that Hunt for the 1952 pack blaster box worth it in my mind. If I got 15 cards in the pack it would have rated over 4 I’m sure. Maybe there is a slant here, bacause I loved this set but, I think many of you would agree that this was a great design and not too bad a set. Other than the Strawberry which I think I will keep, all the other cards are available if you want them. Just email me at superbadwax@yahoo.com.