The Thomas Weiner Card Company?

1981 is considered by many to be the year when baseball cards went from being a hobby to an industry. The main reason for this is that Topps' monopoly had come to an end thanks to the lankmark court case filed by Fleer. The end result was that collectors were given three options to collect in Topps, Fleer and Donruss. Heading into the 1981 baseball season, I had been anticipating Fleer's entry into the baseball card market for a few years as the court case was covered regularly in Sports Collectors Digest. Thanks to the heavy lifting done by the Fleer, a new and relatively unknown trading card manufacturer entered the baseball card market as well.

Donruss started out as a confectionary company in 1954 and was originally known as The Thomas Weiner Company. Somewhere along the way, I'm guessing the owners Donald and Russell Weiner probably figured that their last name was probably causing more harm than good since the products they were selling was targeting towards children. As a result, they changed the company's name to Donruss which was the combined short versions of their own names. Note: Looking back, it's a good thing that it happened. I don't see collectors dropping $50 - $100 in the 1980's for a 1984 Thomas Weiner Don Mattingy Rookie Card.

 

Below are images of all of Steve Garvey's cards from Donruss' base sets released during 1981-1987.

 



1981 Donruss #56 (front)

 
Here's my review of Donruss' initial effort in 1981

Bad

• Release comes off as rushed as almost the entire set was photographed in Chicago (Commiskey or Wrigley)
• Over half the cards in the set have one kind of error in it or another (Donruss arguably went out of their way to correct the errors in order to generate revenue)
• Card stock is poor
• Printing quality is bad
• The cutting of the cards is uneven
• Collation inside a pack is horrible. Often times, the 18 card packs consisted of just two or three teams worth of players.

Good

• The design was attractive
• The card backs were inivative and maximized space
• Multiple cards of star players
• Their gum tasted the best of the three manufacturers

I've always been curious on how Donruss' product development team produced their 1981 set. For a company that had been around since 1954 and had been producing popular non-sport trading cards (Kiss, Elvis, Monkees, Addams Family...etc) for twenty years, they really shouldn't have had as many mistakes with their initial set as they did. Was it a case where they got their baseball card license at the last minute?
 

1981 Donruss #56 (back)


The career highlights layout is now used by MLB.com on their player bios. For what it's worth, Donruss had a corrected (surpassed 21 HR) and error version (surpassed 25 HR) of the 1980 career highlight.


1981 Donruss #176 (front)



This is the second of two Steve Garvey cards in the 1981 Donruss set. It was actually taken in 1980 and at Dodger Stadium since Steve is wearing his home uniform and has the 1980 All-Star Game patch on the left shoulder of his jersey.

 

 

 

1981 Donruss #176 (back)

The back of the second Garvey card in the set is more of a highlight card. Unfortunately, multiple cards of the same player within a set wasn't received as well as Donruss liked and they nixed the idea. In it's place, they created the popular Diamond Kings subset.

 

 

1982 Donruss Diamond Kings #3 (front)


Steve was the third card in the inaugural Diamond Kings subset behind two of the most self absorbed players in baseball not named Reggie Jackson in Pete Rose and Gary Carter.

Diamond Kings were originally watercolor paintings created by Dick Perez.



1982 Donruss Diamond Kings #3 (back)



Donruss corrected the card stock issues from the year prior and produced a thicker card in 1982. 

 

 

1982 Donruss #84 (front)


The 1982 design was pretty forgetful (though that could be true for all three card companies). This appears to be a shot from Spring Training. I can't tell but I think that's a 1980 All-Star Game patch on his jersey.

1982 Donruss #84 (back)



Donruss revamped their backs in 1982 to include more statistics and condensed the highlights. This design must have been a hit in their corporate office as they chose to do very little updates to their card backs for close to a decade. Not to miss out on an idea, Fleer would do the same thing starting in 1983.

 

1983 Donruss #488 (front)

1983 Donruss in my opinion is an underrated set. While it looks a lot like their 1982 set, Donruss did a lot to clean up their set quality-wise by improving the quality of their photography as well as creating a second subset that would take the hobby by storm in 1984 in their Rated Rookies. Note: If you're not aware, Greg Brock and Al Chambers were Rated Rookies in 1983 and Donruss noted so on the back of their cards.


1983 Donruss #488 (back)

For much of his time with the Dodgers, Steve lived in Calabasas. It's a suburb in the southwest San Fernando Valley that's part of Los Angeles. Calabasas gets a lot of airplay today because the Kardashians live and film their TV show there (unfortunately, part of being married is watching shows like these which means that I guess I'm not going to be able to sue for $75K like some people). 

I didn't notice until this post that his contract status says, "Became a free agent after the 1982 season". I still remember the Dodgers excuse (in particular Al Campanis' excuse) for letting Steve go as a free agent. It was "It's better to let a player go one year to soon than one year too late". If I remember correctly, Steve actually was willing to take a hometown discount to re-sign with the Dodgers but Peter O'Malley/Al Campanis weren't really interested since future Hall of Famer (sic) Greg Brock had just hit 50 Homers in AAA Albuquerque in 1982 and was set to take over at first base.

Without going on too much of a tangent, I'm as much a fan of what the O'Malley's (especially Walter) did for the Dodgers as anyone. With that said, Peter O'Malley unfortunately had one major character flaw that resulted in my two all-time favorite players leaving the Dodgers when in both cases they didn't have to go.

That flaw was the inability to adapt to changes as the changes were happening. In the first case, the change was Free Agency. Instead of accepting it, he initially tried to low ball the system. It wasn't until he brought in an outside influence in Fred Claire that he was able to figure Free Agency out. In the second case, the change was cable television and the player was Mike Piazza. While sports was growing into a 24/7 industry, Peter O'Malley feel asleep at the wheel while Jerry Buss of the Lakers was starting a sports cable channel in Prime Ticket. The extra money and exposure from Prime Ticket helped the Lakers take over the Los Angeles market and dominate NBA in the 1980's (and arguably since then).

The Dodgers on the other hand were missing out on this opportunity and soon would be taken over by a corporate entity that would establish a local sports cable channel (see page 216) but result in Mike Piazza getting traded in order for it to happen.

That's enough reminiscing for one day.

 

1984 Donruss #63 (front)

1984 saw Donruss issue their landmark set that's arguably the most popular release of the entire decade (sorry 1989 Upper Deck, 1984 Fleer Update and 1983 Topps). For Steve, it meant a chance to model his self-proclaimed "Taco Bell' uniform.

1984 Donruss #63 (back)

Donruss started another ritual with their card backs in 1984 that continued on for the rest of the decade in numbering the major stars card backs right after the first two subsets (Diamond Kings and Rated Rookies). This was an attempt to replicate Topps' success of issuing cards ending in 5, 0, 50 and 00 for stars and superstars.


1985 Donruss # 307 (front)
  

Donruss recesistated black borders in 1985 and ended up doing a rather fine job of it. Two years later, they'd try it again but not be as successful. Fortunately for Steve, this is his last Donruss card in the Taco Bell uniforms.



1985 Donruss #307* (back)

* I guess you could say I pulled a Donruss (circa 1981). In my rush to scan the cards for this post, I ended up scanning the 1985 Leaf version instead (as evidenced by the French writing on the back of the card).

1986 Donruss #63 (front)



Judging by the look on Steve's face, reality has probably set in the he's a Padre. At least he can take comfort in the fact that the Padres changed their uniforms.

 

1986 Donruss #63 (back)

During his playing days as a Padre, Steve lived in La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya). It's known as the Beverly Hills of San Diego and has some of the richest real estate in the country.



1987 Donruss #114 (front)

Steve's shown here wearing the Padres' jersey he made famous during Pete Rose's 4192nd hit on 09/11/1985. It's interesting to see that some of his cards show him wearing one batting glove and others show him wearing two.

1987 Donruss #81* (back)

* I dropped the ball again and scanned the 1987 Leaf version.

Sticky Situation

From 1981 to 1990, Topps produced a sticker set in addition to their base set of trading cards. One of the most interesting aspects of these sets is that they were produced in Italy. My guess is that Topps outsourced the production of these sets to the Italian-based company Panini as they were also producing NBA licensed stickers around this time under their own brand.

Below are the Topps stickers of Steve Garvey that I have in my collection. Note: I'm currently don't have Stickers #1 & 2 from 1985 as well as any of the O-Pee-Chee stickers. Once I get them, I'll add them to this blog.

1981 Topps Stickers #176 (front)

Pretty bare-bones design here. If you removed the number of the front, these would look exactly like the 1976 SSPC sets design.

1981 Topps Stickers #176 (back)

As a kid I only remember collecting these stickers in 1981 & 1982. I must have not been a big fan of them as I continued to collect Topps' base product for the rest of the decade but passed on the stickers.

1981 Topps Stickers foil #252 (front)

One thing I do remember about this product when they came out in the early 1980's is that the Foil Stickers were a big deal. This one is in serious need of an upgrade.

1981 Topps Stickers foil #252 (back)

I still have a few of the sticker albums from the 1981 & 1982 sets (though I never put the stickers in the actual albums).

1982 Topps Stickers #54 (front)

Topps again used a bare bones design with their 1982 set. An interesting aspect of the 1982 release is that Topps choose to seed the stickers in some of the packs of their 1982 base product as a way to get collectors interested in them.

1982 Topps Stickers #54 (back)

The backs of the 1982 stickers are almost exactly the same as the 1981 release.

1982 Topps Stickers 1981 World Series Game 4 #258 (front)

Topps made up for one of the mistakes that they made in their 1982 base set by producing stickers from the 1981 World Series. As far as photos on Steve's cards and stickers go, this might be one of the best. It's too bad that Topps didn't use this shot for Steve's 1982 Topps In Action card.

1982 Topps Stickers 1981 World Series Game 4 #258 (back)

1983 Topps Stickers #243 (front)

Another bare-bones design by Topps in 1983. It sort of looks like Topps paid homage to the white and blue borders of 1981 & 1982 by combining them on the 1983 sticker.

1983 Topps Stickers #243 (back)

Topps changed the backs of their 1983 set. For the first time, they noted that the stickers were made in Italy. It's also interesting to see that they're cross promoting their 1983 Topps base set.

1984 Topps Stickers #156 (front)

Once again, 1984 was another bare bones design for Topps.

1984 Topps Stickers #156 (back)

This has to be one of the coolest offers a manufacturer has ever made. I don't know who's included in the 1984 set but if it included Don Mattingly and Darryl Strawberry (1984 was when their Rookie Cards were released), I'm imagining many of the want lists Topps received had these two names.

1985 Topps Stickers 1984 N.L. Championships #13 (front)

Topps finally came up with a design (at least for their 1984 playoffs stickers). This is a great action photo though I don't think it would look good on a Topps' base card because you can't see Steve's face.

1985 Topps Stickers 1984 N.L. Championships #13 (back)

As I mentioned previously, I didn't collect 1985 Topps Stickers when they first came out. I'm guessing that "Baseball Symbols" were the (peeled) backs of the stickers.

1985 Topps Stickers N. L. Championships #14 (front)

The color coordination of the Padres' uniforms in 1984 (shown on the 1985 Sticker) resulted in Steve comparing them to Taco Bell uniforms.

1985 Topps Stickers N.L. Championships #14 (back)

Does anyone know what the team posters look like that were offered on the back of the stickers.

1985 Topps Stickers #149 (front)

The base sticker in Topps' 1985 is bare bones again. I do like how Topps gave collectors the option to peel only the player by outlining him on the sticker.

1985 Topps Stickers #149 (back)

1985 Topps Stickers Foil #176 (front)

Another of those Popular Foil Stickers.

1985 Topps Stickers Foil #176 (back)

1986 Topps Stickers #104 (front)

1986 had an odd design. At least they gave collectors the option of peeling the player portion of the sticker off.

1986 Topps Stickers #104 (back)

The cards in the Spring Fever baseball set offer appear to be the same as the ones that Topps offered in their 1986 Topps Base set.

1986 Topps Stickers Foil #148 (front)

This is my favorite design of the Topps Stickers Foil subsets.

1986 Topps Stickers Foil #148 (back)

1987 Topps Stickers #115 (front)

Finally new uniforms. Perfect for lunges.

1987 Topps Stickers #115 (back)

As with the 1986 Spring Fever offer, the 1987 Offer is the same as what was offered with the 1987 base set.

Finally, I'd note that I received some cards from my want list (as well as a few others as a bonus) from a fellow blogger. I'll show them on my next post.

Fleer Oddballs

Looking back at the 1980's, it's interesting to note how many oddball sets Fleer produced. It's interesting that collectors during the 1990's & 2000's commonly complained about the manufacturers putting too many products on the market but during the 1980's this was rarely brought up.

Shown below is what Fleer Oddball releases I have in my collection. As I acquire more, I'll add them to this post.

1981 Fleer Star Sticker #1 (front)

This is a concept that I liked alot as a kid (stickers the size of trading cards). Through the years, Fleer strayed from it a bit as they stopped using photos from their base set as well as shrinked the size of the set in future releases.

1981 Fleer Star Sticker #1 (back)

Except for the Card #, the back is exactly the same as 1981 Fleer.

1983 Fleer Stamps (front)

They were made available on panels. The other ones they produced I don't have in my collection yet. Note: I also don't have any of the Fleer Stickers that are the same size as Topps' 1980's stickers.

1986 Fleer League Leaders # 15 (front)

This card came out of one the slew of box sets that Fleer produced exclusively for big box, drug, toy and/or grocery stores in the mid-late 1980's.

1986 Fleer League Leaders # 15 (back)

1986 Fleer Mini #67 (front)

This image is similar to the one Fleer used for Steve's 1987 Fleer base card.

During the Hobby's growth years of the 1980's, 1975 Topps Mini's were going through a renaissance because of the perceived scarcity, cool design and high number of desirable rookie cards in the set. As a result, Fleer and Topps released Mini Sets (starting in 1986).

Unfortunately, neither company completely got the concept down perfectly. Here are what I see as their flaws, Fleer: the image wasn't the same as the base set card, they weren't available in packs and the set size was too small. Topps: The design and image weren't the same as the base set; the size of the set was way too small.

1986 Fleer Mini #67 (back)

1986 Fleer Star Sticker #43 (front)

In retrospect, it interesting how Fleer's base set designs were rather conservation in the 1980's (at least until 1988), yet the Fleer Star Sticker designs had a little more flair (sic).

1986 Fleer Star Sticker #43 (back)

1986 Fleer Star Sticker Box Bottom #S-3 (front)

Donruss started a trend with their 1985 product when they included cards on their box bottoms (I believe that Dwight Gooden was one of the cards). By 1986, all the manufacturers were including cards on the bottom of their boxes. This lasted for a few years.

1986 Fleer Star Sticker Box Bottom #S-3 (back)

These were somewhat difficult to find in good condition because the front would often get scuffed.

1987 Fleer Limited Edition #16 (front)

Another box set Fleer produced for a retailer.

1987 Fleer Limited Edition #16 (back)

1987 Fleer Mini #43 (front)

The front of the 1987 Fleer Mini contained the finish that was used on the 1987 Fleer Glossy sets.

1987 Fleer Mini #43 (back)

1987 Fleer Star Sticker #46 (front)

I'm not a big fan of this design or green border.

1987 Fleer Star Sticker #46 (back)