Best of 1980 Topps

[Beatles Guy]

Love that Rickey. I've got one in route from SGC. May be the best looking RC of all time.

[PM770]

Great idea for a thread brewing. I look forward to everyone elses contributions. Here are mine.

1980 was a great year, I turned 10 in the summer - the year baseball is probably most important to a young kid. The 1980 design wasn't one of my favorites but it did provide a lot of cool cards. Here are my 5 favorites:

1) Roy Smalley. Like you brewing, I was fascinated by the "All-Star" designation on the Topps issues of the late-70s, early 80s. If you remember, in 1979 Topps missed Freddie Patek as the AL SS (more on this when you do 1979). But just something very cool about that Smalley card to me.

2) Nolan Ryan. My favorite Ryan card. An action shot and the All-Star designation. Whats not to like. Plus his last Angels card - he was already in Houston.

3) Fred Lynn. This card was in one of the first two 1980 packs my dad brought home for me on a snowy late winter night when he saw they were out and had to go pick up bread or milk. My first All-Star of the year. Thanks Dad.

4) Darrell Porter. Another cool card. I remember thinking Darrell Porter was massively huge when I was a kid. All-Star designation - check.

5) Gary Carter. I was a big Gary Carter fan as a kid. Great action shot with him holding up the ball. I remember being very disappointed when Carter did not win the voting at catcher that year. Cheated out of the All-Star designation.

I would have added George Brett, but I have two other years in mind for him. I also add an honorable mention for Len Barker and his first Indians card.

[JollyElm]

1980.jpg

I've been away from this site for quite awhile now due to a couple of serious personal issues, but I can't resist posting in this type of thread.

Unfortunately, I think the 1980 set was one of the most boring sets in history. Although the design itself was top notch and extremely colorful, a very large percentage of the photos were portraits and the action shots were quite basic with almost none pushing the envelope. Contrast it to the 1974 thread of mine that somebody recently got going again and you'll see how absolutely boring the action shots are on the 1980 cards. Okay, that's neither here nor there, so here are my five 'favorites':

1. The Gary Carter card is without a doubt in my mind the best of the set. Look at the intensity in his eyes as he holds up the ball to the unseen umpire. And from a design standpoint, the way his arm is extended high forces the viewer's eyes to move from lower left to upper right and then back down to his face again and off the page to the left. Magnificent!

2. The Reggie is a relatively a tame action shot, but it shows what we loved about him as a player - that big swing!

3. Nelson Norman is obviously not going to make anybody else's list, but this shot is one you don't ever see - a ground level view of an attempted steal (Mickey Rivers? Willie Randolph?) of second. Pretty cool.

4. Not a 'favorite,' but definitely a memorable one for me. As a Mets fan, me and all of my friends were huge Tom Seaver fans...and then he was dealt to the Reds. I call this one the 'Fat Elvis' Seaver card.

5. Another memorable one. Not sure how it happened, as people around here are always talking about how baseball card packs were created at the Topps plant. They seem to talk about hard facts and what can and can't happen during production. Well, in 1980 I walked to the drugstore and bought a few wax packs. I forget if they contained 10 or 15 cards or whatever, but when I opened one pack, every single card in it was Dave Winfield. I kid you not. A full pack of Winfields. I'm sure I still have all or most of them around here somewhere. But all of that aside, I have one question. Why in heck did Topps give Dave a makeover on his card, adding mascara and eyeliner to his face???

[DaClyde]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

5. Another memorable one. Not sure how it happened, as people around here are always talking about how baseball card packs were created at the Topps plant. They seem to talk about hard facts and what can and can't happen during production. Well, in 1980 I walked to the drugstore and bought a few wax packs. I forget if they contained 10 or 15 cards or whatever, but when I opened one pack, every single card in it was Dave Winfield. I kid you not. A full pack of Winfields. I'm sure I still have all or most of them around here somewhere. But all of that aside, I have one question. Why in heck did Topps give Dave a makeover on his card, adding mascara and eyeliner to his face???

I've always wondered why Dave's eyes look so bad/fake on this card. 1989 Topps Wade Boggs is the same way.