1980 Topps....let's do it again, baby!

 

Baseball is back!

            Well…for me, it is.

            All-Star week is a pretty arid week for me. I don’t watch the red-carpet stuff. I don’t watch the Home Run Derby. And I don’t watch the game itself. I pretty much spend All-Star week going through a smaller version of the baseball withdrawal that I feel in late October (okay, early November now) when the last pitch in the final game of the World Series is thrown.

            I don’t hate the All-Star game.

            It’s just a nothing game to me.

            It didn’t used to be.

            Back when I was a kid (a little kid), and there was only NBC’s Game of the Week and Road (never, ever home games) Pirates games available to me, the All-Star game was usually the only way that I was going to see American League baseball players, players from the West Coast, until the World Series (provided I could even stay up for that…first World Series I remember watching actual games of was 1985 and I was 11). If I was going to collect Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr. cards, well, at least I was pretty well-assured I’d see them for a single night in July.

            Obviously, Cable changed that. Especially, ESPN playing midweek games, West Coast games and, of course, Sunday Night Baseball.

            For me, the All-Star Game lost its luster once those changes happened.

            Still, I can’t help but feel a little bit nostalgic when the All-Star Game comes around. The way me, my old man, and my brother gathered at one TV to watch the All-Star game. How special that felt. And every year I tell myself, come on, put it on for old time’s sake. But I usually don’t. Those uniform design have made it easier not to want to tune-in the last few years. This year I watched an old Brady Bunch episode, and a pretty funny one in Season 3 of Cheers.

            But…nostalgia.

            And, now, I’m thinking about it in terms of baseball cards and collecting here.

            For me, this is ground zero of baseball card nostalgia.

            I recently purchased a complete 1980 Topps set that I found for a reasonable price. Like the Willie Stargell rookie card, this purchase involves a union, a contract, and money owed. I’d been trying to build the 1980 Topps set since I got back into collecting in 2019. But I’ve been stalled at still needing some 500+ cards. The truth is, I’ve been back into collecting for four years now and there are still some aspects that I’m either inept at or have not one clue about. A big one for me is buying card lots. I don’t know where to go and who to go to. So, projects like building older sets have remained in the pipe-dream, pipeline.

            Buying a set outright isn’t as fun as building one on your own.

            But it has its perks.

            I’ve said it here before, but it bears repeating: 1980 Topps are the first packs of baseball cards that I remember opening. A five & dime store on Butler Street in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh, bought for me by my grandma when she stopped for a pack of smokes and a ubiquitous lottery ticket.

            In my first pack, I got my first Pittsburgh Pirate card.

            …And I was hooked.

*brief aside, I kind of want to do one of those collector things, and get a whole binder full of 1980 Ed Ott cards*

            1980 itself was a pretty foundational year for me and baseball. I opened my first pack of cards. I became a collector. Something I would do with verve from the age of 6 until the age of 18. I saw my first live baseball game in 1980. A fireworks night at Three Rivers Stadium. Nosebleed seats…but I was there all the same. Although I was too young and tired to make the end of the game. But the old man and I parked to watch the fireworks from a distance, on our way back home.

            Nostalgia.

            Memories.

            First packs, first games…and the All-Star game.

            But it’s not just nostalgia for me with 1980 Topps. I genuinely love the set. Along with 1983 and 1987, 1980 Topps is one of my favorites of the decade. It gets that vintage tag attached to it now. And I believe it’s warranted. Those big team banners. Those action shots. Those posed shots.

            Rickey!!!

            But, also, these guys.

            I’d put 1980 up there with a lot of those other classic Topps sets that came before it.

            I don’t buy those arguments that Topps could’ve done a better job, considering these two guys would be showing up the next year, and totally changing the game.

            I honestly think, with 1980, that Topps was showing collectors that this is what a baseball card should look like.

            That THIS

    …is the REAL ONE.

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!

NEXT SATURDAY: 1981 Donruss...a tale of sadness and woe.