1985 Donruss Tribute: Googley Eyes?

Don't you just love GOOGLEY EYES? They make everything cuter. The sticker book I had as a kid had a special page just for stickers with them. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, these are googley eyes:

Now what do googley eyes have to do with 1985 Donruss?

One day back in 1984, a strange man in dark slacks and a white shirt unleashed a swarm of those cute little eyes on Terry Francona and the unsuspecting Montreal Expos.

Did the googley eyes have any effect on the Expos or anyone else?
1. Francona went on to have the best season of his playing career, batting .346 in 58 games.
2. Gary Carter and Charlie Lea were the starting battery in the All-Star game.
4. Several Expos fans got a severe case of the googley bends, a rare side effect of staring directly into a googley eye. Kids can't get 'em, only lame adults with no inner child.
4. The Expos still finished in the cellar.
According to the back of this card, it's worth 10 cents. Here's some 10 cent Expo trivia:
The Expos only make the playoffs or finish first during strike shortened seaons. In 1981, the Expos finished first in the first half of the year thus making the playoffs in the wacky true birth of the wild card. They lost to the Dodgers in 5 games. In 1994, the Expos were well on their way to winning the East for the first time. The strike ended their run and management had to sell off all the young talent. I guess the current Expos, the Nationals, need a strike-shortened season rather than googley eyes if they ever hope to play in October.

1985 Donruss Tribute: The American Dream

I'm no wrestling aficionado, but doesn't Cap'n Bob look a whole lot like "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes?
In this picture, he didn't actually use his bat to hit the ball. He used his "bionic elbow.

Horner was the first pick in the 1978 draft, went directly to the majors and hit a home run off of Bert Blyleven in his very first game. 218 round-trippers in 10 seasons is a nice career. He hit 31 homers in Japan then left baseball after an injury at the age of 31.

Cap'n Bob lived the American Dream for 10 seasons and looked like the American Dream for just as many.

1985 Donruss Tribute: G-Rated Brave

Professional athletes these days don't seem too concerned about all those future fans out there, the KIDS. F-Bombs riddle the airwaves on and off the field. 1984 was a more civil time in sports. Gentlemen played the game. One of those gentler men, Rafael Ramirez! Here he is, doing his part to shield the eyes of children everywhere from the horrors of his unmentionables. This camera man tried to go tabloid with this one but Rafael would have none of it. Ramirez might as well be wearing a cape and touting the benefits of eating vegetables and getting 8 hours of sleep. While he will be be remembered by most as a light-hitting shortstop for some bad Atlanta teams, I will remember him as a light-hitting shortstop for some bad Atlanta teams who protected my innocence for one more year.
Ramirez wasn't great but his glove kept him in the league for 13 seasons. He made one All-Star team in 1984 and even received multiple MVP votes in 1983. According to Baseball Reference, Rafael is statistically most similar to my new favorite player from the 70's, TITO FUENTES.

If only Ramirez was quick enough to cover Billy Ripken's bat a few years later.

Next Up: Mets cards in my mailbox!

1985 Donruss Tribute: Bevacqua II

What is Kurt Bevacqua doing in this 1985 Donruss card? I have a few ideas!
1. Proclaiming himself to be #1. He did win the 1975 Bazooka bubble blowing contest!
2. The photographer has just asked, "Which one of you guys is Kurt Bevacqua?"
3. Finishing up his "white glove" inspection of the cleanliness of his bat. (That bat boy is in a heap of trouble.)
Whatever the reason, Kurt has managed to grace Stats-on-the-Back twice. Here is a list of 2-timers on the site (like you care):
1. Christy Mathewson (original HOFer)
2. Floyd Bannister (He cheated by appearing on Tom Seaver's card)
3. Tito Fuentes (I got my first Tito disc in the mail. I will share it later)
4. David Wright
5. Darryl Strawberry
7. Kenny Lofton
8. Mark Davis (not a HOFer)
9. Mike Piazza (future HOFer. I hope he goes in as a Met)
10. Pete Rose (HOFer???)
11. Hank Aaron (The extra A in his name is for AWESOME)
12. Gary Carter (HOF fro)

It's a little Mets-centric but that's the way I like it. One game up on the Phillies!

Next up: Rafael keeps the kids safe?

1985 Donruss Tribute: Best Smile and Most Ignorant

Patricia and Lucy have made me notice the guys on cards who actually look like they enjoy playing the game we all wish we were good enough to play. Here is the smile of the the 1985 Donruss set:

John Montefusco had plenty of reasons to smile:

1. Cool nickname: The Count (as in Count of Montefusco)

2. ROY in 1975. His 15 wins beat out a young Gary Carter. (John was 4th in CY Young voting. Seaver won 22 that year.)

3. 2 scoreless innings in his only All-Star appearance in 1976.

4. No-Hitter vs. the Braves in 1976. (Did you know the Mets have never had a pitcher to throw a no-hitter?)

5. Back in the Bigs after a neck injury from a car crash.

Now for the biggest frowner and most ignorant of 1985 Donruss: Bob Knepper!

He looks a like Bunson's lab partner, Beaker!
Bob Knepper is an angry woman-hater. Check out these choice words from Knepper:

"I just don’t think a woman should be an umpire. There are certain things a
woman shouldn’t be and an umpire is one of them. It’s a physical thing. God
created women to be feminine. I don’t think they should be competing with men.
It has nothing to do with her ability. I don’t think women should be in any
position of leadership. I don’t think they should be presidents or politicians.
I think women were created not in an inferior position, but in a role of
submission to men. You can be a woman umpire if you want, but that doesn’t mean
it’s right. You can be a homosexual if you want, but that doesn’t mean that’s
right either."

Bob is not an enlightened guy. He pitched great the year he made these remarks. He made the All-Star team. That's too bad. Maybe he was frowning because nobody likes him.

Montefusco will be honored here with the display of his Stats on the Back.

Knepper will not be so honored. Boo Bob Knepper. Hooray Montefusco!!!

Apologies to Beaker for being compared to Knepper.

1985 Donruss Tribute: Fernando-mania!

Fernando Valenzuela was Dwight Gooden before Dr. K was himself. Fernando-mania swept the
nation in 1981. I was only 5 so I had to wait for Doc to go nutty over baseball. If I was a little older I might have become a Dodger fan.

Valenzuela was a phenom in 1981. He won the ROY and Cy Young and finished 5th in MVP voting. He had an advantage though. As this 1985 Donruss card proves, Fernando could move the ball with his eyes!

Eight shutouts! Wow. Nobody gets that many in a year. Brandon Webb led the league last year with 3. Dontrelle is the last pitcher to get 5 in a year. If D-Train could move the ball with his eyes in 2005, he certainly cannot do it anymore .

Valenzuela won the Silver Slugger award in 1981 and 1983. In '83, he only batted .183. Maybe he should not have batted with the silver bat he won in '81.

After starting his career with 6 straight All-Star game appearances, Valenzuela cooled off and became a pretty average pitcher for a lot of years. He did pitch a no-hitter in 1990 on the same day Dave Stewart threw one. Two no-hitters in the same day only happened one other day, April 22. 1898.

Fernando pitched and played some first base in the Mexican League in 2005 and 2006. He also coached Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic. I think he made the USA lose with his eyes!

Next Up: Double the Hats

1985 Donruss Tribute: The Brew Crew Hair Salon

Or lack thereof!!!

The 1984 Brewers were just 2 years removed from two straight playoff appearances including an AL Championship in 1982. I grew up with Milwaukee as an AL team but now its seems a little odd. The 84 team was terrible, winning just 67 games. Their pitching staff included 2 HOFers. They just happened to be near the end of their impressive careers. But this post is not about how bad the staff was at pitching, its about how bad they were at grooming themselves.

Rollie Fingers was one of the first great closers. He saved 37 games in 1978 with the Padres and saves weren't even cool back then. Fingers was still pretty great in 1984. He saved 23 games with a tidy 1.96 ERA. And his 'stache was even better. Look at the curve. The left side of his hair was getting out of hand but the handle-bars were perfect. Rollie can be seen every year hitting homeruns in the All-Star celebrity softball game.
Jaime Cocanower led the Brewers in loses with 16. He would only last 4 seasons even after a dominating debut in 1983. He sported the fro, tucked neatly into his Brewers hat. Can I just say that the Brewers have the coolest logo in all of baseball. It's an M and a B that go together to form a baseball glove. BRILLIANT!
Tom Tellmann 1-uped Cocanower by one in years in the Majors. He wasn't too bad. But that's all I got on Tellmann's career. He also 1-uped Cocanower by adding the 'stache to the afro. NICE!Pete Ladd pitched for 6 years. He only played 1 year in the NL and batted .000, going 0 for 1 in his career. But the winged locks and the red-tinted mustache make up for any defeciences at the plate. Peter was a fine looking man.
Willie Lozado wasn't a pitcher, but he had to represent the latino version of the fro/'stache combo made so famous by Cocanower and Ladd. Lozado had an average major league bat but didn't field well. 1984 was his only taste of that powder blue Brewer polyester.
Bob McClure stuck around the big leagues for 19 seasons. He almost didn't make it through the 84 season until he reluctantly agreed to grow that soul patch. No self respecting Brewer pitcher would be clean-cut and only have a regular mustache.
One might ask why the same rules didn't apply to Mike Caldwell. There are two reasons:
1. Caldwell is from my hometown, Tarboro. NC. Even though Tarboro has had several players make the NFL, there is still a sign that reads: Welcome to Tarboro. Home of Mike Caldwell.
2. Check out the chest hair and gold chain.
Caldwell was great in 1978, finishing 2nd behind Guidry in Cy Young voting. He also won 2 games in the 1982 World Series.

Don Sutton bookends this bunch with yet another HOFer. He is pictured here, expertly drawn by Dick Perez, with Princess Leia hair. Sutton won over 300 games and amassed over 3500 k's in his career. He did color commentary for TBS until 2006. Now you can see him do Nationals games if your cable company allows you to watch MASN.
Here are the Stats on the Back for all you nutty Brewers fans:
I hope you enjoyed this raggedy version of Milwaukee's best. The current Brew Crew has hit a snag as of late. They have lost 7 of 9 and Prince took a swipe at Parra in the dugout yesterday. It's too bad CC and Sheets can't pitch everyday. I have nothing against the Brewers, but if they fall off enough to help my Mets win a wildcard, that would be OK with me.

Next Up: Fernandomania!

1985 Donruss Tribute: Floyd Bannister x2

Floyd Bannister was better than Tom Seaver ...

... in 1982 ans 1983! They both played for the Chicago White Sox in 1984. Here's a look at the backs of their respective 1985 Donruss cards:


You might notice that they are both 6'1'', probably a common height for major league pitchers. Floyd is left-handed while Tom is arguably the best right-handed pitcher of the modern era. (There is this other guy named Clemens who could fit that description if only he didn't fit some other not-so-nice descriptions.) Floyd's highlights include leading the White Sox in K's while Tom's highlights include 3 CY Young Awards, a Rookie of the Year Award, and 8 All-Star selections. So obviously it was hard to tell the two apart:








That number 24, emblazoned on Bannister's pant legs wasn't enough to sway Donruss photographers away from thinking they had indeed caught a glimpse of the elusive Tom Seaver.

In his senior season of high school, Bannister went 15-0, allowing 0 earned runs in 112 innings. WOW. His three sons all play baseball, including Brian, who struggling with the KC Royals.

Seaver has 300 wins, 3000 K's, and later this year, a bottle of wine from his own vineyards, a cabernet named Seaver!

Next up: A little A & G frivolity!

1985 Donruss Tribute: Syhcronized Baseball

Summer school is over and my 1985 Donruss tribute is wanting some attention.

To honor 85 Donruss and the upcoming summer Olympics, I give you synchronized swimming! You know, the sport where make-up clad women spin in unison under water in hopes of Olympic gold and immortality. Ed Sprague knows all about it:

His wife controversially won gold in the 1992 Olympics in Solo Synchronized Swimming. And the controversy had nothing to do with the fact that synchronized and solo do not go together. Some miscalculation in scores was the issue. Some other athlete was awarded gold later that year. Ed himself won gold in 1988 (in Baseball, not swimming).

Baseball seems to go in and out of the favor of the IOC so you never know if baseball will be a medal sport rather than just an exhibition. Former Oakland A first baseman, Bruce Bochte, (not to be confused with former player and manger, Bruce Bochy) decided to do something about it during the 1984 Major League season.

He teamed with an unnamed AL umpire to form the first and thankfully last Synchronized Baseball duo. Here they are, perfectly synchonized:This kind of precision takes years of practice. Surprisingly, Bochte was near the end of his baseball career AND at the very end of his synchronized baseball career. It is not currently known what came of the unnamed umpire.





Bochte was a slightly above average career player who peaked in 1979 when he hit .316 with 16 HRs, 100 rbi, and his only All-Star appearance.

Next Up: Some other 1985 Donruss nonsense and maybe a Mets update (I'd hate to jinx them!)

1985 Donruss Tribute: Dale Murphy's Neck

What if someone chopped off the top part of a tree, leaving the trunk, which they then painted a nice fleshy pink.

And then... (bare with me here. I am a pacifist and while I do have anger in me for the Braves, I would not do such a thing) someone also chops off Dale Murphy's head and sticks it on the aforementioned tree trunk.

Well, you would get this:
Look at that neck. Dale is smiling but his neck is not. It is saying, "I will destroy you." Obviously I translated that from the original tree trunk neck language.

Murphy was known as one of the nice guys in the league but I think he was over compensating for the ferocity of his neck.

Dale Murphy hit the first Major League home run I ever saw live. That was not enough to sway my fanship in the early 80's. The Braves sure were bad back then!

He had 7 undeniably awesome seasons, winning back-to-back MVP's in '82 and '83. He was a workhorse until injuries "Mattinglyed" him late in his career. His 30/30 season in 1983 was only the 7th in baseball history. Wow.

Murph is an almost HOFer. But if Jim Rice and Andre Dawson get in, then so should Murphy.

My 2 Cents

Its nice to admit that we are all pretty geeky when it comes to this baseball card thing. Pictures of grown men with lots and lots of Stats on the Back have pushed us to spend our money and take up our time sorting and resorting. (and even more resorting if we are talking about me.)

Since January, a growing number of us have found and taken up shop in this little corner of the interweb. A Pack a Day was the site that brought me here. I have opened a few packs on my site but then settled into MY style of commenting on this hobby. I check my RSS feeds (I have no idea what that means but they work) on a daily basis, ocassionally commenting, and soaking up the fun of collecting baseball cards.

My little page here tends to highlight cards that I like for whatever reason and the players on them. I'd like to think that I am, on occasion, mildly amusing and somewhat informative. (I love those meaningless under-zealous adjectives. They keep the expectations low.) I haven't had too much reason to complain about the current state of the hobby but I am happy some people do (assuming the card companies actually listen to them at some point.)

Whatever your reason for blogging, keep doing it. Here is my list of best reasons to blog about baseball cards:

Sheer Bliss

See Dinged Corners for all that is good and even a little holy about collecting. They do it the right way. The whole family takes part. They do have rules though!

Insanely Interesting Information

See Cardboard Junkie for the best information, especially on the old, old stuff and my least favorite Met killer, Larry Jones.

The Thrill of 80's Wax

See Awesomely Bad Wax for the packs most of us endlessly opened, searching for Gregg Jeffries, Sam Horn, and Wally Joyner. He also shows off his ever growing Relic/Auto collection.

Obsession for Your Team

See White Sox Cards for detailed coverage of every Sox game and every Fisk and Baines card. See Cincy Reds Cards for the loudest display of all that is Red. And see Indians Cards Always for Tribemania, including Indians by the numbers and rubber duckies?

The Joy of a Trade

See Baseballcardman for remembering how fun it is to trade, even if the cards are of 1980's Royals. (Hey, they did win a World Series!)

To Rule the Blogging World

See Wax Heaven for unmatched volume and insight into the pulse of everything baseball cardy. (cardy IS a word, just don't look it up) His recent retirement was positively Favre!

There are plenty more reasons to blog and certainly more that I read everyday. See the list to the right to know what I am reading.

To end this post right with some actual cards!

An homage to A Pack A Day, Stats on the Back style:

A pack of 1992 Upper Deck. a mere 3 years from their epic first release of 1989. Might I pull a Ted Williams Auto? Or maybe just a Ted Williams Insert?

Nope!!! But I did get this Spike Owen:In 1991, Spike hit a mundane .255 with 3 home runs. But he probably made up for it with his speed, right? No, only 2 stolen bases. Spike was, in fact, a ringer, signed by the Expos for the annual, July 4th, MLB BARBECUE and WHEEL BARROW RACE event. The Upper Deck photographers impressively caught Owen practicing his technique. As you can see, he has just "barrowed" over some of his competition.

Next Up: 1985 Donruss: Dale Murphy's Neck

1985 Donruss Tribute: Sweet Mets Action

I had a blast sharing my favorite and most interesting cards from my oldest complete set, 1976 Topps. I thought I would continue with the very first set I ever completed, 1985 Donruss. I remember buying rack packs with cards I needed on the front. Early on in the life of Stats on the Back, I showcased the last card I bought to complete this set. The fact that it was Razor Shines made it all the more memorable. I have since obtained a replacement set for the one I collected but will never get rid of my original set, complete with white edges and creases.

1985 Donruss looked great. Nice black borders with classic red stripes, running horizontally through the card. And how about that team logo? I still say that the team logo should always appear on the front of cards. Big picture, simple border, and small Donruss logo with the year. This set had diamond kings, rated rookies, and a Lou Gehrig puzzle. Let's dig in!

Check out this sweet Mets action! Backman is laying down a perfect bunt. There is no way Dan Petry is getting to that one in time. (See Tigers in the Dugout) And Mookie is looking at Larry Herndon in left field, deciding whether or not to stretch it into a double. (Same dugout, same Tigers) Those blue pull-overs look nice with the pinstriped pants. The whole set isn't this action packed but these two shots are FANtastic for us Mets fans.

Walter Wayne or Wally was drafted by the Mets in the first round in 1977. He played 14 years, 9 with the Mets. Backman was an on-base guy with speed. Oddly, his OBP was above .350 every other year for his entire career. 1986 was one of the good years. Backman almost became the manager of the Diamondbacks until his financial and legal troubles caught up to him. He currently manages his son and the rest of the Independent Joliet Jackhammers.

William Hayward, nicknamed Mookie by his grandmother, was drafted in the 2nd round in the same year as Backman. The two of them had pretty equal careers. The fact that he hit the ball through Bill Buckner's legs and has a cool nickname has placed him firmly in the hearts of Mets fans and in the Mets Hall of Fame.

And how about those Tigers in the dugout? Morris won 19, Petry won 18, and Wilcox won 17. (yes, that's Milt Wilcox) Big Willie Hernandez led the team, winning the MVP and Cy Young awards. These Tigers went 7-1 in the playoffs, beating the Royals and Padres.

Remember when Trammell and Whitaker guest starred on Magnum PI?

The Mets were well on there way to being good too!

Next Up: My 2 cents, then back to 85 Donruss!