A few weeks ago I broke into some 1990 Pacific Senior League and I decided to set a few packs aside for another edition of Pack vs. Pack. But I think a lot like those Senior League games probably were, this one didn’t turn out exactly as you would hope.
While the league includes some once great players, including a Hall of Famer or two, it mostly includes some guys that had some solid careers in major league baseball but that’s about it. That was going to mean I’d have to take some liberties with some of the scoring I normally do. These are the areas that really came into play for this one:
- Favorite Team: I counted anyone who had ever played for the Mets. It didn’t matter how long, if they had a card, or what kind of contribution it was.
- Stars: I basically looked for at least an All-Star appearance and maybe some significant achievement. There are actually a few Rookies of the Year who played in the Senior League.
- All-Stars: The big thing here is that I was looking for three-plus All-Star appearances in MLB.
Those are all the areas that are really covered in the these packs. The other consideration though is that I didn’t take into account if they were a player or a coach in the Senior League.
Like the last post I did for the 1991 Fleer Ultra packs, I included two packs vs. two packs.
The First Packs
The first pack had two ends of the spectrum. It was the only pack of the four that included players that never played in the majors. There were for of them in the pack. All of the other packs had every player with at least a year in the majors.
The scorers for this pack were Dave Kingman and Tommy Moore who were Mets at one point in their careers and Craig Nettles and Dave Kingman who I considered All-Stars. That’s all this pack really had and the score came to a 6.
The second pack was steadier. Back McBride, Al Holland and Dave LaRoche I considered Star Level and Gene Clines is a former Met. That only resulted in a score of 4.
I included Lowell Palmer and Taylor Duncan on these cards to just give you an idea of the pure “softball league” that comes off with some of the players. I swear that Lowell Palmer played in a league with my Dad. And Taylor looks exactly like a guy in my league more recently. Who am I kidding… several guys. Probably a whole team.
The Second Packs
The third back tied for the highest score with Bobby Bonds and Vida Blue as All Stars, Pat Zachry as a former Met and I considered him a Star because of the Rookie of the Year accomplishment. My favorite part is U.L. Washington though, because yes, he does have a toothpick in his mouth. The total for this pack was a 6.
The last pack scored a 3. That was due to Steve Kemp, Al Bumbry, and Stan Bahnsen being Star level. But there were no former Mets or anything else in this pack. The Tom Underwood card had me a little interested in the uniforms though. The team he played for seemed to have a couple different pairings of uniforms and hats on their cards.
The Final Tally
Drum roll please…
First (10 pts)
- Favorite Team: 3 (3 pts)
- Stars: 3 (3 pts)
- All-Stars: 2 (4 pts)
Second (9 pts):
- Favorite Team: 1 (1 pts)
- Stars: 4 (4 pts)
- All-Stars: 2 (4 pts)
That ends up being a close game for this one. Part of me says that looking at this helps to show you the consistency of the packs or at least that the collation provides a little something in each pack. Unfortunately, it’s not telling you too much on these with these scores.
Pity there hadn’t been some savvy marketing by a toothpick company to sponsor U.L. Washington. Would be a great comedy spot where the team’s “lumber” shipment comes in, and while most of the team is sorting through their new Louisville Sluggers, Washington is checking out little boxes of new toothpicks.
Toothpicks made from bats… sounds like that could be somthing.