Four Topps, #246

Four Topps.  It's been a while.  Shall we?  Let's!

For those unfamiliar, the foundations of my youthful collecting days were built upon the Topps sets from 1987 through 1990.  So, I thought it'd be fun to compare a certain card number from each of the four sets, with Random.org providing us with the number du jour.

I get it: Blah, junk wax!  Just think of it as the cardboard equivalent of dressing up your vegetables in an effort to get your to eat them more often.  No matter, I still love these four sets today as much as I did back then.

As you can tell from the above image, we've been blessed with card No. 246, which is destined to provide us with four memorable pieces, right?

Here we go...

1987

An empty stadium; tight and possibly itchy baseball pants; and some random dude in plain clothes wandering about in the background.  These are the things of '87 Topps!  And all captured within the iconic wood-grain border.  Dwyer was nearly at the end of his big league journey here.  This is his next-to-last Topps card, as his swan song would come in the '88 set.  Hey, Stat Man: Powered eight home runs in 160 ABs for the O's in 1986.

1988

Does it get any better than a "Future Stars" card from 1987 or '88 Topps?  Others must agree since Topps resurrected the subset in this year's flagship set.  Good for them.  Strangely enough, back in June we stumbled upon Campbell's 1989 card as part of this very featurette.  Sadly, that card and this one complete Campbell's run of Topps cards for his brief major league career.  Hey, Stat Man: Threw a complete-game seven-hitter for his first big league victory, Sep. 21, 1987 vs. Kansas City.

1989

Back-to-back Mariners.  It must be a sign of something good for the M's, as they continue to battle for their first postseason appearance since 2001.  Anyhow, I don't know where the Mariners used to hold spring training, but it looks very remote and mountainous.  And, I'm not sure what those odd streaks are below Rey's right armpit. I'll have to go back and look at the card to see if it's a scanner phenomenon or what.  Hey, Stat Man:  Slugged 12 homers for the M's in 1988, equaling his total from the prior season.

1990

I first became aware of Jim Eisenreich in his days as a member of the '93 National League champion Phillies, since they were a quasi-local team for me growing up.  Here, we have Jim's third Topps card, though for some reason he was left out of the '89 flagship set and had to settle for inclusion in that year's the Traded release. Hey, Stat Man: Set career-highs across the board in 1989, including base hits (139), extra-base hits (49) and stolen bases (27).

And the Winner Is:  A less-than-inspiring quartet of cards, but I'll award the crown for card No. 246 to the '90 Eisenreich.  It was a close call between that and the '88 Future Stars card of Campbell, but call me a sucker for the Kansas City baby blues.

MK