1987 Topps Still Make Winter Bearable

Classic woody fuel for the hot stove

Nov 07, 2021

This week on the main website, we unleashed a gargantuan post celebrating the best of the best among 1987 Topps baseball cards.

At something like 5000 words, it’s — maybe — a bit excessive.

But maybe not, considering how important the 1987 Topps set is and has been to the hobby.

And … well, how important it’s been to me over my years in the hobby. And its monster-box size feels fitting, somehow.

If you’re up for the ride, you can read that piece right here.

You can also watch the video version right here.

And if you’re not yet convinced about the greatness of the 1987s, well, let me regale you with my own impressions of the monumental woodies from my youth.

Here goes …

Cold — and early — comfort

The hobby was really percolating by 1987, and the card companies were always trying to one-up each other however they could.

One of those ways was by starting buzz about their new cards earlier and earlier each year, to the point that you could usually get a glimpse of the new designs in Sports Collectors Digest late in the fall.

And then, in December of 1986, the unthinkable happened — the first 1987 Topps cards began appearing at baseball card shows. Just a few here and there, but enough to make us gasp.

I’m still not sure how it happened, but …

At one show in Indianapolis, there was a dealer who had already ripped a bunch of wax and had a monster box full of commons sitting off to the side. I pawed through the thing and fell in love with the new woodies at first glance.

The dealer wasn’t selling the cards at that point, but I was salivating at the mere touch and sight of the things.

About a week later, my grandfather died unexpectedly, and it sent the family into a tailspin that wrecked us through the rest of the month — planning for the funeral, planning what my grandmother was going to do, dealing with the thousands of personalities converging on her house as generations of family piled in.

But we still had Christmas, and under the tree that morning, I spied a big rectangular box … when I picked it up, the heft made my heart race.

You might guess what was inside — thanks, Mom and Dad.

And, thanks, 1987 Topps, for making a cold, cold December just a little more bearable.

Woody Reboot

Truth be told, I was excited for the new cards the very first time I spied their likeness — in black-and-white, no less — in SCD because they so obviously were a takeoff on the classic 1962 Topps design.

As I sorted my new bounty in the stolen moments when we’d come home from the funeral home, or from my grandmother’s house, each night, that excitement was more than justified, and these became *my* design, my set.

Even though there were nothing but commons as far as the eye could see in my monster box, the images carved themselves into my mind — Henry Cotto, Neil Allen, Mark Eichhorn, Cliff Johnson, and the rest never looked so good.

Of course, there were some names I’d never even heard of, and some of those turned out to be …

Rookies … Rookies Everywhere!

By 1987, the hobby was awash in Rookie Card Mania, and every collector was well-versed enough in the phenomenon to keep an eye out for first-year cards as we opened our wax packs that spring and summer.

Once I finally got my hands on some real, live product, and once the baseball season began, it didn’t take long to realize that 1987 Topps was loaded with rookie cards that had the potential to drive the hobby for decades to come.

Bo Jackson, Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin, the first Topps baseball card of Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Wally Joyner, John Kruk, Ruben Sierra … uh … Mike Loynd.

All of them, and many more, have had their run as hobby darlings over the years, and it’s still a thrill to stumble across one all these years later.

In the moment, and as a kid, opening a pack of 1987 Topps wasn’t so much like playing the lottery — it was more like diving into the next layer of a treasure chest.

You knew there were goodies inside — all you had to wonder about was which one(s) were yours.

More! More! More!

And speaking of Topps and wax packs, both were everywhere in 1987, same as always.

What was different that spring was that Donruss and Fleer were tough to find — impossible in some areas.

But when you couldn’t get your hands on black borders or blue fades, you could still find the woodies.

And more of them than ever — Topps increased their per-pack price to 40 cents (from 35 the year before), but also kicked in two more cards … 17 per pack.

If the ubiquity that would come to define Junk Wax cards didn’t exist before, 1987 Topps helped set a new bar.

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How about you?

What are your memories of 1987 Topps?

And what sets were game-changers for YOU?

As always, I’d love to hear your stories.

Until next time …

Thanks for reading, and take a little time to get your Hot Stove in proper working order. Pitchers and catchers report in about 100 days, after all.

Adam