Player: Dwight Gooden
Set: 1984 Topps and Fleer Updates
Card Number: 42 and 43 respectively
Why is These Cards are Must Have?: Back in 1984 Doc came up through the Mets minor league system and just tore through batters one after another to the tune of 17-9/2.60/1.07,good for Rookie of the Year, 2 in Cy Young voting and 15th in MVP voting. For the first 8 years of his career, he was a world beater, averaging nearly 17 wins a season and completing 57 games. He was certainly on his way to the Hall of Fame. Then he fell in line with the Darryl Strawberrys of the world and got mixed up with drugs. He was able to clean himself up, but he never regained his form that led him to a Cy Young award in 1985. He did however throw a no hitter in 1996 against a Mariner lineup that included Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez. Although he didn’t have a regular issue card in 1984 both Fleer (their first update set) and Topps included his XRC in their update sets. That Fleer set is one of the major scores I hauled back in 1986, when the set was just beginning to run up in value. It remains one of my most prized sets.
On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Must Have Are These Cards?: A 7, he isn’t a Hall of Fame guy, but man he was just electrifying in the late 80s and early 90s. For that reason alone the card is on here, the fact it’sin one of the toughest update sets,just adds to the desirability. You can find the Fleer version for about $15 and the Topps version running about $10 on eBay (more if graded).
