At the Trade Deadline 47: The Prowling Cat Cleans Out His Clutter, and I'm Reaping All the Benefits, Part 7

Here is the final item included in The Prowling Cat's recent closet-cleaning package. It's a set of 1984 Ralston Purina trading cards produced by Topps and distributed in cereal boxes. I remember Ralston Purina baseball cards, but this set is a bit early for me as I turned 3 years old right at the end of 1983. The slightly later airbrushed Post cards fit more into the years when I became aware of trading cards.

Dan Quisenberry is sporting quite the lip tickler in this photo, as well as a big healthy dip in his cheek. I've never liked chewing tobacco, but I've spent a lot of time with people who do during my time in the military and working in freight. There is one guy in particular who comes to mind because he had a small chin and a small mouth, so his wad of chew was always threatening to escape. He had this habit of slurping it back in while wiping his chin with his finger while he talked. It was disgusting, and I always thought it was kind of unprofessional to be a grown-ass man with a pretty constant line of drool running down your chin.

This is a pretty decent lineup of baseball card photos. Although there are exceptions, many of the players don't seem too pleased to be having their pictures taken. The set calls itself the 1st Annual Collectors' Edition, but the only other Ralston Purina set I can locate is a 1987 release. Those cards wisely dropped the word 'annual' from their tagline.

This grouping of cards features a few more smiles than the last batch, but there are still a few mean-muggers here, including Wade Boggs, who once glared so hard at a cinder-block wall that the wall moved several feet to the side to let him pass. It's nice to see Nolan Ryan in those Astros rainbow colors, but the shot is zoomed in so far that you don't get the full effect.

Here are some more nice shots. There is plenty of facial hair on display, with the standout for me being Bruce Sutter's magnificent beard. One thing that stood out to me about this set was how sweaty a lot of the players' faces are. It's like these photos were taken in the very hottest part of summer. A lot of the guys are sporting some pretty nice tans / sunburns, so maybe I'm not too far off.

Gary Carter is probably the most egregious example of face sweat in the set, as in-hand you can actually see it running down to the side of his nose. In that building behind Keith Hernandez you car barely make out the silhouette of the second spitter as he makes his way down to the bushes near the gravelly road.

There was a ton of cool cardboard in this package from The Prowling Cat. I had a lot of fun flipping through it and becoming a little more familiar with food issues from the time just before I discovered trading cards.

At the Trade Deadline 36: The Prowling Cat Cleans Out His Clutter, and I'm Reaping All the Benefits, Part 1

The Prowling Cat has recently been clearing out his clutter, placing excess items from his collection on the block for other collectors to claim before he sends them off to Goodwill. I have claimed a couple of items from the offerings available, and recently received a nice box of goodies in the mail. First up is this 1993 Hostess Baseballs set, which was distributed in 3-card packs paired with baseball-themed snack cakes. It seems that you would need to eat a whole lot of snack cakes to collect the full 32-card set, especially if you pulled doubles. John Kruk seems like a guy who knows his way around a snack cake, so I chose him to headline this post.

The checklist contains many of the big names of the day. I wasn't watching a lot of baseball in 1993, so I don't have many enduring memories of these guys outside of seeing them on the baseball cards I accumulated in my youth. Bobby Bonilla comes up in the news every year because of his annual $1.2 million buyout payments from the Mets, an amount that he will receive annually until 2035. Although that seems outlandish to the layperson, it actually might not be a bad deal for the Mets overall.

It's weird to see familiar names in unfamiliar uniforms. I always associate Gary Sheffield with the Marlins and Darryl Strawberry with the Mets, although both guys spent plenty of time on other teams.

Dennis Eckersley is probably my favorite from this bunch, but that probably has a lot to do with his big-head doppelganger, as featured in 2015 Topps Stadium Club:

The dude's got a serious hair and mustache game, although you can see the real Eckersley has a clean upper lip these days.

Frank Thomas always seemed larger than life. In my memory it seems like he showed up on more posters and magazine covers than most other baseball players of the era, up there in a group with Griffey, Ripken Jr., and Bo Jackson. There are probably other guys who were just as prolific, but those are the guys I remember as being everywhere. 

It's nice to see that colorful Astros uniform make an appearance, with Jeff Bagwell making an appearance on this checklist. He's been on the Hall of Fame ballot for a few years, but his percentage hasn't been climbing at a rate that suggests he'll make it in. I guess it's largely because he played in the steroid era and everyone from that time is under suspicion for PED usage.

This set is pretty heavy on hitters, but a handful of pitchers made it onto the checklist, with Tom Glavine being one of them. This is one of my favorite Rickey Henderson anecdotes:

"During a game in Seattle an on-deck batter overheard Rickey muttering to himself after he struck out. As the next batter was walking past him, he heard Henderson say, 'Don’t worry, Rickey, you’re still the best.'"

Positive self-talk and visualization is a great psychological tool. It seems like there is a line where it can become too much, though. Rickey probably spends a great deal of time on the far side of that line. 

This is probably the most star-studded scan in this post. Most of the others feature at least one guy who falls a bit short or only got hot for a year or two. The lowest guy in this group is Don Mattingly, and he still had an MVP award and six All-Star appearances.

I like all of the cards that used to be packaged with food and snacks. I don't have a lot of them in my collection, so it is nice to add them when I can. The Prowling Cat has been awfully generous with his closet-clearing and has offered up items to suit a variety of interests. I'm gonna have to come up with a good trade package in return for all this goodness.