When I was little, I'd take any baseball cards I could get my hands on.
A 500-count box of 1988 Topps for two bucks at a garage sale? Sure.
Packs of 1990 Donruss for a quarter a piece? Lay 'em on me.
I'm a little wiser now (or at least I like to think so). This summer, I had a vendor at the flea market offer me a 500-count box of 1990 Topps free of charge, and I had to tell him thanks for the offer, but I don't really need the cards. They would just collect dust.
As a result, almost all the overproduction era cards I currently have go back a-ways with me. I've had most of them since I was a kid. Can't you tell by the condition of that Tekulve card?
It's not that I hate the designs of the cards or anything. 1988 Topps is actually a decent set. It's just that they're everywhere. And you can't get away.
I think this is my favorite '88 Topps card. Topps perfectly captured Tekulve in the middle of his quirky side-winding delivery. I've liked Kent Tekulve for years now, and it amazes me that he actually made it all the way into the "junk wax" era.
It's just that he seems so out of place in 1988. Everything about him just screams 1970's. The shades. The colorful personality.
Everything.
The ONLY problem I have with this and all Phillies cards from 1988 is the color scheme. Green and purple? Really? Other than that this really captures a lot of great things from 1980s baseball. The powder blue road uniforms (worn by half the league), the strange throwing relief specialist, the cool glasses. The only thing missing is the mustache. A near perfect card if only Topps had used red and any other color.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even catch the green/purple colors. You're right, they really don't mix with the Phillies at all.
ReplyDelete1990 Topps Phillies cards have the green color scheme as well after looking at a few. What's with the green?