Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The Gems of Junk Wax, Pt. 15: 1988 Score #501 Reggie Jackson


I had a few packages waiting for me after I got home from school today.

One of them was from hiflew over at "Cards From the Quarry", one of my favorite blogs to read.

He sent me a few cards I needed for my player collections of Jim Abbott, Mark Grace, and Kenny Lofton. He was also generous enough to throw in some extras from his own personal favorite "Gems of Junk Wax".

There were a few that will definitely be used for later GOJW posts.

This Reggie Jackson card was one of the ones he added in for me. Although I already have it, it reminded me that this is a prime example of a great card from the overproduction era.

After I pulled it from the package, I thought to myself, "What's wrong with me? Why haven't I thought of using this card before?"

Forget just cards from the overproduction era. This is one of my favorite cards, period.

I have only one other card that pictures Reggie Jackson in an O's uniform. It's one of the ultimate features of my "Short Term Stops" collection.

People forget that Reggie spent the 1976 season with Baltimore, sandwiched in between his time with the A's and Yankees.

Even the card itself seems to forget that he was once an Oriole. Although the front of the card features him during his season in Baltimore, there's only one sentence in the six paragraphs of text on the back that mentions anything related to that 1976 season:

"Reggie never really fit in with the Orioles and opted for free agency after his one year with them."

That's it. The rest of the text focuses on his 1977 World Series performance as a Yankee.

This card comes from a five-card subset from the 1988 Score base set which features Jackson during his stints with each team he played on (including the A's twice).

It's true. Reggie Jackson just doesn't look right in an Orioles uniform.

But this card would definitely look good in anyone's collection.

3 comments:

The Diamond King said...

I was just admiring my copy of that card yesterday...

hiflew said...

I really think this would be a great subset or better yet insert set for Topps in the future. A look back at a couple of greats that retired that year. Example, 2012 could feature Jorge Posada, Ivan Rodriguez (possibly), and Vlad Guerrero (possibly). You could even number it continuously every year like Upper Deck did with Baseball Heroes back in the day.

Glad everything got there okay and thank you for the kind words about my blog.

Nick said...

That would be a good idea, it worked well with these Reggie Jackson cards. I've got all five and they're all great, although I'm not a huge fan of the rest of the '88 Score set.

I'd especially like to see a Vlad one as he's probably my favorite current player. But I'm hoping he can catch on somewhere for the 2012 season, even in a limited role.