When the pandemic started and sports went away, a lot of the dedicated sports channels played a lot of old games. In the beginning I was all in. They lost their luster a bit but I stopped in here and there to check out part of an old game. You know, during commercials while watching Shawshank Redemption for the billionth time.
When it comes to old Mets games though I will go so far as to put them on the DVR to watch them again later. I’m sure others have been doing that for games involving their favorite teams too. And while I go to it for the baseball, I stay for the style.
Several weeks ago I re-watched two games: a 1985 Cardinals @ Mets regular season game where Gary Carter won the game on a home run and then 1986 NLCS Game 5. In both cases it was amazing to see folks in the crowd. For the NLCS game, which was a day game by the way, they showed the player’s wives and seeing the style of glasses and sunglasses, haircuts, etc. was so great. And speaking of glasses, while I see them on cards all the time I just couldn’t believe what players would wear to play back then.
So when I finally opened this box of 1986 Topps I was brought right back to that. I found a game that was on around that time and I set out to opening. Let’s find out what was in there.
1986 Topps
1986 Topps for me was a far cry from what had happened before it. And really what would come after it. There really isn’t much too this design at all compared to say 1982-1985 and then 1987. But its the simplicity of the design that makes it great. A couple of weeks ago I opened 1991 Leaf and that was just boring. I think its the addition of some color as well as at least some kind of interesting text.
As far as the players I picked to highlight this box and set, can you see a Rod Carew card and not think of the Beastie Boys? (Side Note: I love the Angels old logo and text from back then.) But Gary Carter was an obvious choice, especially for 1986 and me being a Mets fan. As for Kirby, I think I listed to the BBBA Podcast that covered him in recent months and I also love the old Twins powder blues.
Big Moves
There were a few cards that stuck out as odd to me. First, Keith Hernandez is losing his hat on this “Record Breaker” card (more on “Record Breaker” cards later). This kind of goes along with my mantra to not put “bad” plays on cards. This doesn’t have to have been a bad play, but it sure doesn’t make Keith look good.
Dan Quisenberry and is delivery were an oddity… done. While I think a split second later would have been an even more tremendous picture, you have to love where they caught him in delivery. And Claudell, well, I think holding a 1″ section of rebar is pretty odd for a warmup.
Stylish
Rad glasses and sunglasses, warmup jackets, etc., these were some of my favorites. I think for Andre Thornton and Mike Brown it also was the pose they were making. It’s hard to tell for Luis Sanchez, but he has his name written across the front of his jacket over the Angels type logo. Is that like at camp when your Mom puts your initials on your the tags of your clothes?
Subsets Galore
One of my favorite things about 1986 Topps, and a lot of sets back then were the subsets. Some of these things still exist today in sets, but a lot of them are handled via an insert. I’d rather them be part of the set. I like the idea of a set being a chronicle of the time and season before.
This year had the Pete Rose cards, Turn Back the Clock, Record Breakers, All-stars and Team Leaders. They had some other side sets as well like Mini Leaders but I don’t think those came in these main set packs. I included the manager card (the dreaded manager card to @WaxAndGumStains) but they aren’t really a subset.
Back It Up
1986 Topps had a classic card back for the time. One thing that I don’t understand though is that they included checklists as cards in the set, but they also included checklists for the team on the back of the manager cards. I personally would rather see them on the back of a manager card instead of having a checklist card and wasting a place in a pack.
Baby Got Back
Topps was doing what they did with a lot of other sets and putting cards you could cut out on the bottom of a box. We’d see this replicated with other companies as well like what we saw for 1987 Donruss in the last box I opened. The difference that Topps made their Wax Box cards different with the red at the top. While you can always tell the cards that are cut out from a regular card, I like this idea better.
It’s The Size Of Yer Pile
This box of 1986 Topps generated a really good lot of TTM cards. I only needed one pack to fill out my unopened pack allotment for this set.
This was a good one to open. I think doing it while watching a replay from the era made it even better. I got to watch some of the players I might have forgotten about and it put me in the mood of the time at least a little bit.
For more about 1986 Topps, check out BaseballCardPedia.com.