Baseblol Cards: 1989 Donruss

As a child, I was an avid baseball card collector.  I did not discriminate against any brand, style, year or price.  Well, I did discriminate against price, typically opting for quantity over quality.  I collected during the years of crazy volume, when cards flooded the market, making them basically as valueless.  However, I didn't care.  I just loved opening up packs of cards.  I recently bought a pack of 2013 Topps, and wrote about my findings.  Read it here, if you dare.  This endeavor made me want to look through my old cards, just for kicks.

I decided to share my kicks with both of you.  I'll open up a random box from my collection every so often and see what treasures we find.  Today, I opened my box of 1989 Donruss.

I have a lot of 1989 Donruss:

My Grandfather was (is) a wholesaler.  Once, he got some baseball card boxes really cheap.  They were just sitting in his basement, taunting me.  I was not bold enough to ask if I could have one, and he likely wouldn't have given me one anyway.  After all, they were for his business.  However, I think he found the market for crappy cards wasn't great in the end, so he gave me a box for a birthday.  I didn't care that they were old and not worth money, they were in packs and I got to open them!  However, this does explain the eight large stacks you see here.

Here are the four styles for the base cards:

Basically, the design is the same for each card, the fun hypercolors just change.  How 90s!  Wait, these are from 1989.  How 80s!  Rick Cerone looks great.  Here is the back of the card:

I chose Kal Daniels card because I did not know that his full name is "Kalvoski" and I finally have a name for my future son.  This particular card was part of their MVP subset.  These cards depicted players who were MVPs?  I'm not really sure, and there is no clear explanation listed anywhere.  However, these cards were part of the subset, so it's cool with me:

It's hard to remember, but Wally Joyner was only 14-years-old.  Another subset was "Diamond Kings" which portrayed the best players in the game:

That Frank Viola card is fantastic.  It's sad that someone decided they had to deface Chris Sabo's card.  You can also find cards depicting each of the all-stars from the 1988 season:

I included the two best all-stars from each league, from my memory.  I always loved Orel Hershiser for some reason and Dwight Gooden was nasty.  You may scoff at Tim Laudner, but check out the back of his card:

Yeah, he hit 1.000/1.000/2.000 in the all-star game.  Who's scoffing now?  The final subset shows off the best rookies.  The "Rated Rookies" subset includes all the best rookies from the past season.  Check out their pinpoint accuracy:

Someone went to Glamour Shots:

When Gregg Olson gets to the Hall of Fame, I'm going to be pretty wealthy:

Here are some rookies who didn't make Donruss's cut:

Luckily, no one ever heard from any of those guys.  Here's a closeup of Curt Schilling, free of charge:

Here's a collage of all the Twins' cards:

Feel free to use this as your new desktop background.  Kirby Puckett is missing, because I have all his cards in a special book that I lost.  Which was exactly my plan when I was 8-years-old.

Now it's time for "Who wore it best" glasses edition:

Ron Kittle v. Tom Henke:

Please vote in the comments below.

Back in 1989, would you have thought that this man would become one of the greatest pitching coaches of all time?   <----

I have a guess as to where this guy is from --->

Ok, rapid fire time.  Let's look at a whole mess of cards:

• Darren Daulton looks insane
• I once had a dream that Craig Worthington shot me
• Ted Power is an 80 name
• Rob Dibble is probably plotting to freeze someone's clothes or give a swirlie
• Al Leiter forgot how to smile
• It's hard to remember, but prior to his 54 home run breakout, Jose Bautista was a pitcher in the late  80s with a jheri curl
• Danny Tartabull is having a bad hat day
• Luis de los Santos combines the best from the three previous cards

As usual, Ron Washington's photo does not disappoint.

Finally, here is a flower made of Rick Aguilera cards, to thank you for reading this:

Brad Swanson has baseball cards.  If you would like a specific set featured in the future, please go into his utility room and find some that you like.  Please don't do that actually.