5 Baseball Cards of All-Stars in Disguise
Or is this the way you remember their greatness?
Happy All-Star break!
Well, at least by the end of today.
And, of course “happy” sort of depends on where your team stands in the, uh, standings and how alarming/bumming this milestone is to you regarding the passage of time…in both a baseball-season sense and an overall life sense.
Personally, I love all the fanfare around the All-Star Game, but I’m also still sort of reeling from the baseball deaths over the last year or so. One from just a few weeks ago hit pretty hard.
And that passing keeps one guy popping up in my mind as Hall of Fame weekend rapidly approaches later this month. Said big dude also gave me the spark for this week’s theme. He’ll show up below, naturally.
For now, let’s jump into five baseball cards featuring All-Stars in disguise.
1968 Topps Joe Morgan (#364)
Joe Morgan wasn’t an actual All-Star in either 1967 or 1968, but he was one — for the first time — in 1966. That season, he hit .285 with five home runs and 11 stolen bases, though he didn’t play a single game in July. He was a reserve for the Midsummer Classic, though. Overall, Morgan played 122 games that summer, a smallish number that cut into the excellent production that landed him second place in 1965 National League Rookie of the Year voting.
Both of those performances came with the Astros, after he had also played a few games for the new Houston team in 1963 and 1964 when they were still the Colt .45s.
But back to 1968…
Topps and The Sporting News teamed up to pick their own lineup of All-Stars, which was a common occurrence in that era. Little Joe made the cut.
But his Astros didn’t.
Even his Colt .45s didn’t.
Because, as you can see on the card above, Morgan’s not-an-All-Star All-Star card pictures him with a blank cap, the Houston logo (whichever one) airbrushed out. For what it’s worth, Morgan was hatless on his base card, and most Astros received the same treatment in both 1968 and 1969, and even into the 1970s.
1976 Topps Jim Wynn (#395)
Jim Wynn was one of Morgan’s teammates on those early Astros teams, and he was the big bopper in Houston. One of the big boppers in the National League, in fact, as his 37 home runs landed him second in the big fly chase behind Hank Aaron in 1967.
That summer, Wynn made the All-Star team for the first time, and for his only time in 11 years with the Astros. The Toy Cannon likely deserved more nods, but playing in Houston for second-division teams didn’t help his visibility too much.
Traded to the Dodgers after the 1973 season, though, Wynn put together a couple more big seasons and was an All-Star in both 1974 and 1975. But then L.A. traded their masher to the Braves in November of 1975, which was (apparently) just early enough for Topps to include the laundry change in their 1976 set.
Thus, we get this card of Wynn as an All-Star, and as a Brave, though he never did make the Midsummer Classic in an Atlanta uniform…or any other uniform again, for that matter.
1983 Topps All-Star Fred Lynn (#392)
Fred Lynn and this card, in particular, are forever intertwined with my first and probably sweetest memories of the All-Star Game.
It all started in the spring of 1983 when I somehow caught the baseball and baseball card bug after eschewing everything diamond related for the first 11 years of my life. I largely blame Cesar Cedeño, but *something* had to have led me to the Reds’ smiling outfielder in the first place.
At any rate, by the All-Star break, I was fully immersed in baseball cards and box scores and figuring out who was who and what was what. I was already an avowed Reds fan by that point and, consequently, an avowed National League fan. As the Midsummer Classic approached, it didn’t take long to learn that my Senior Circuit hadn’t lost an All-Star Game in my lifetime.
So, as I settled in to watch my first ASG on that July 6th night, I was confident the good guys would conquer Comiskey Park, as they had conquered every other park.
I had my growing stacks of cards with me, had pulled out every All-Star I could find. It was surreal to watch the starting lineups for both teams flash on the screen, and look down to find the same mugs smiling up at me from the hunks of cardboard in my grubby little hand.
One of those mugs belonged to a suave looking mustachioed fellow named Fred Lynn…who wasn’t quite so suave looking on my TV screen, having shaved his caterpillar.
And then, in the bottom of the fourth inning, Lynn’s card took on a much darker feel when he took Atlee Hammaker deep for the first — and still only — grand slam in All-Star history.
The American League won that game, 13-3, and I began to realize that baseball can break your heart in a million different ways.
1985 Donruss Action All-Stars Dave Parker (#35)
Speaking of baseball breaking your heart…
Probably no surprise that Dave Parker is the All-Star who’s been on my mind the last couple of weeks, as I mentioned in the intro to this piece. I’ve written about Cobra many times, so let me just say here that he was foundational to my mid-1980s Reds fandom and pretty much ensured that I’d never stray too far from baseball, the team on the Riverfront, or baseball cards.
As much as I loved Parker as a player and Reds superstar, though, I was always on the fence regarding his Hall of Fame case. His stats were borderline for me, at best, but his stature in the game was huge, especially for Reds fans of a certain age. I was too close to the thing, and too biased, to make a good judgment (same with Gil Hodges, for slightly different reasons).
But…
I was tickled light Red when Parker got the call via whatever the Veterans Committee is calling themselves these days back in December 2024. I’ve had late July circled on my Google calendar in happy pixels ever since.
And then?
Well, and then Parker passed away in late June, a month before he was finally going to get his moment on the dais.
Damn you and your heartbreaks, baseball.
Back to the matter at hand, though…the 1985 Donruss Action All-Star card above is exactly how I remember Cobra at his best. He was turning the Reds around (along with Eric Davis, Tom Browning, Pete Rose, and the rest).
He was reclaiming his career and setting himself back on the path to Cooperstown.
He was the most valuable player in the game to my young eyes. And one of the most exciting.
But I know this probably looks completely wrong to a generation of Pirates and baseball fans.
Parker is in the wrong uniform. His face is smooth. There’s no bling. He’s too heavy.
He’s an All-Star disguised as a future Hall of Famer.
1986 Fleer All-Star Don Mattingly (#1)
By 1986, Don Mattingly was not only the hottest name in the hobby, he was a transcendent figure in the hobby. And if that sounds off or hyperbolic to you, I can only wish that you someday get to experience the same sort of game-changing run that began when 1984 Donruss met the 1984 American League batting race.
I’ve written about it all before, but without that cardboard nuclear reactor, rookie card mania would have been stunted and delayed, at best. There quite possibly would have been no 1986 Donruss The Rookies, no 1988 Score, no 1989 Upper Deck.
No airbrushed #1 UD Griffey RC that’s now “the greatest card ever” in many circles.
A much milder junk wax era. Maybe no pandemic boom.
And certainly at least a delay in the proliferation of chase cards.
Which brings us back to 1986, where Mattingly appears as card #1 in the 12-card Fleer All Star Team set. Inserted randomly in wax and cello packs that summer, these cards featured a retro design and a premium “feel” that included thicker-than-normal card stock.
“Random” wasn’t quite as rigorous as it is today, but these cards didn’t show up in every pack, which forced us to keep opening if we wanted to complete the set. This run, and the accompanying Future Hall of Famers, are often attributed as being the first chase cards.
As for how this Mattingly fits into our theme today, well, you can clearly see that the Hit Man is disguised as a Greek bust on his card. Tough to hit without arms, but a good look for posterity.
(Read more about the 1986 Fleer All Star Team right here.)
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Got any other All-Stars in disguise, wearing the wrong uniforms, or who otherwise seem unidentifiable? I’d love to hear your picks!
Until next week, enjoy the All-Star festivities, and good luck you team in the second half. Unless they’re the Cubs, Brewers, Cardinals, or any other club standing between the Reds and the playoffs.
Homers gotta homer.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
Did you know that Shohei Ohtani and Jarren Duran made All-Star history last year? Their home runs were the first ever hit at the Midsummer Classic played on July 16. That’s one of the little nuggets I uncovered hopping down a couple of rabbit holes last summer.
I wrote it all up in two quick eBooks (here and here), both free on Amazon during the All-Star break (July 14-17):
The early 80s was the peak time for the mustache---I recall seeing a stat that slightly over 50% of ballplayers had an upper-lip forestry unit circa 1982, so this would align roughly with Freddy's dabbling with the 'stached look.