1989 Bowman vs 2021 Bowman : a study in blandness

I like 1989 Bowman baseball cards.

            I don’t know if that’s such a controversial or taboo thing to say in the realm of sports card/baseball card collecting in 2021. I’ve gotten to know a lot of collectors since I’ve been back in the hobby and, other than the decades-long complaints about storage (for those who don’t know, 1989 Bowman cards are bigger than the standard 2 ½” X 3 ¾” card), a lot of the other collectors that I’ve met seem to have a soft spot in their hearts for the set. Maybe that’s the effect of time and age. Or maybe it’s that collectors have finally seen the aesthetic value in a plain, solid set of baseball cards in an era where frills, bells and whistles are all the rage.

            Or maybe it’s the chance of opening a pack of 1989 Bowman cards today, and getting this bad boy in perfect, gradable condition.

            If grading is your thing.

            To be honest, I don’t even remember any kids hating 1989 Bowman baseball cards back in 1989. From what I remember we were vacuums for whatever cards were coming out back then. Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Score, Upper Deck (to a small financial extent) and Bowman; it was all gravy to us. But opening a pack of Bowman cards in 1989 was like opening history. Bowman hadn’t been around since Topps bought them in the 1950s. Older Bowman cards were unattainable cards at card shows and at our local LCS. The ones we ripped open in 1989 had that instant vintage feel. Plain and straight to business. They looked like something we would be unattainable at a card show or a local LCS. But they were just as cheap and plentiful as the rest.

            Even if the card backs were a little confounding upon first look.

            Personally, I’ve always been more of a comprehensive statistics reader, so team-by-team performance breakdown on the backs of the early Bowman cards never really did it for me. Though I can see the appeal now, and actually quite enjoy reading a player’s statistics that way.

            But the stat layout didn’t stop me from buying a boatload of 1989 Bowman cards, or seeking out ways to store them; protect the ones that I thought were valuable. I’m a staunch leftist/modernist in some aspects, but in others, like trading cards, I’m a pretty big traditionalist. And 1989 Bowman was right in my wheelhouse. Each pack even included a replica of a vintage Bowman card from their heyday.

            Pretty cool, huh?

            I remained a Bowman fan even after 1989. 

            I bought a ton of 1990 Bowman 

            and a ton of 1991 Bowman as well. 

            I appreciated Bowman's simple, throwback designs, in an era of card collecting that was beginning to emphasize flash and premium value. But, by 1992, as with most of the other card brands (save Topps), I was out of the Bowman game. It was for the best too, as Bowman took steps and leaps in their brand that I would’ve found unappealing then, and am not a particular fan of now. That means, they modernized by 1992. Spruced up the designs. Got as modern as everyone else.

            Bowman found their niche by putting the focus on rookie cards.

            And that’s the thing with Bowman to this day. The emphasis on rookie cards. Or pre-rookie cards if you want to be exact. Yes, you can now have a card of a player before they have a so-called real card. I know…it confused me too at first. But basically, to look at modern Bowman cards is to look at cards as a way of doing player prospecting, hoping for a return on value some 3-5 years later. Although some of the cards of these kids catch a premium value right out of the pack, with collectors paying $10-$40 or more for base 1^st Bowman cards of some of the game’s top, yet unproven, prospects. And because of the speculation aspect of Bowman, hobby boxes and all others related to Bowman, can get quite expensive on the secondary market.

            That is to say, I don’t buy much Bowman.

            But I have, for the past two years, bought some Bowman cards of players that I like and/or collect. Here's a sampling:

            And modern Bowman cards are…okay? That is to say the releases are pretty standard. A white bordered front with a player photo, and a white bordered back with the player information. Just the facts. 

            Case in point. Here is a Pete Alonso card from 2020 Bowman.

            And here’s Pete Alonso from 2021 Bowman.

    

            

            Not much in the way of variation, right? 

            But where I found the older Bowman cards plainness to be endearing and nostalgic, I find modern Bowman design to by bland by way of simply being practical. You want an Austin Martin 1st Bowman card?

Here.

But no frills…unless you can find a chrome card or one of the parallel or autograph cards.

            Yes…modern Bowman card are caught up in the false scarcity game as well. The brand is a Topps product after all.

            Usually I intersplice some kind of personal reflection or story in these post…and I’ve been batting 1989 around in my head this whole week trying to come up with something. But truth be told, I was a pretty depressed kid by the summer of 1989. I was fifteen and had just finished my freshman year in high school. I was obesely overweight. That summer, I spent a week at some leadership camp (not sleep over) and remember really being into this girl named Jenny. I spent that week not ingesting any of the lessons that they tried to impart on us kids, but spent the week watching Jenny fall for this other guy.  All I wanted to do was leave that program, go home, and mess with my baseball cards. Or listen to my New Edition and Bobby Brown cassette tapes.

            I feel like 1989 was the last year that I was so heavily into baseball cards, even though I collected until 1992. The last year they were so all encompassing to my life. My family took a trip to Cooperstown that summer as well, and I think, more than the Baseball Hall of Fame, I was enamored with the number of baseball card dealers that were scattered throughout the town. Some of them had stuff that I never seen. Like Minor League team sets. I remember buying a Buffalo Bisons team set on that trip, as they were the Pirates AAA affiliate back then. And a signed photo of Bobby Bonilla for $5.

            Christ, imagine buying a signed anything for a, at the time, star player, for $5.

            Anyway….

           Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting.

If you’d like to know more about the 1989 Bowman set you can do so HERE.

Next Friday: Um…let’s go back to 1986. We’ll talk a little bit about some of my favorite 1986 cards, even though I’m no longer a big fan of the 1986 Topps set. Also, little league. I’m going to discuss little league and my history as a quitter.