5 Baseball Cards of Players Who Waited for Me

Bombo Rivera was gone, but his ballad played on

When I started collecting baseball cards in 1983, I was lucky to have sets like the 1983 Topps Baseball Foldouts to help me figure out who was who in the then-modern game.

That’s how I found out that Randy Moffitt was a name to remember, for example.

But the rest of my baseball cards in those early years also taught me just how dedicated baseball players were to their fans. I mean, there were guys like Jim Kaat who started playing in the 1950s but hung on until the ‘80s just so I could see them on a current baseball card.

True devotion.

Kaat, of course, also appeared in several of those star-maker sets, since he was among the career leaders in wins.

But there were other guys who didn’t show any outward, late-career signs of being true stars (so far as I could tell at the time, at least), but who stuck around for my sake anyway.

Here are a few of them, courtesy of the cards that impacted me…

1983 Topps Joe Rudi (#87)

Rudi, of course, was a standout on the Oakland A’s teams of the 1970s and a key member of the Oakland dynasty that won three straight World Series just as I was beginning my run on this rock.

By the time I started following baseball in 1983, Rudi was already done, having wrapped up with a 71-game homecoming tour with the Athletics in 1982 at the still-tender age of 35.

Even though he didn’t play in 1983, Topps did give him a career-capper that graced my wax packs all year, perhaps a courtesy hat tip to the home run he hit in his final career at-bat.

He hit that dinger off none other than Larry Gura, by the by.

1984 Topps Bert Campaneris (#139)

Even with a full year of rabid fandom under my belt heading into 1984, I had no idea who Bert Campaneris was. Never heard of him.

And when I caught my first glimpse of the “old” dude on this 1984 Topps baseball card, I thought for sure he was a Yankees hitting coach or something.

But then then I noticed the full alphabet to the right of his name: “3B-SS-2B.”

It would be another few years, when I started reading Bill James and the Baseball Encyclopedia, before I would realize that Campy had been another A’s star and one of the best shortstops in the game in the 1970s.

As with Rudi above, Campaneris was done by the time this card was issued, making it a final cardboard send-off after spending 1982 on the shelf and 1983 in the Bronx.

1984 Topps Steve Renko (#444)

Steve Renko is actually the guy who inspired this list — today is his 79th birthday!

I remember thinking that Renko looked kinda cool on this 1984 Topps baseball card, what with all the Royal and powder and sky blue, and the talk, dark, and handsome vibes.

Later on, I would catch a glimpse of Renko’s early career cards with the Expos, and I got a more, uh, dorky vibe (believe me, I know what a dorky vibe looks like, courtesy of the bathroom mirror):

It would be several years before I connected the baseline dots and realized both of these dudes were the same dude.

At any rate, Renko put together a 15-year major league career that netted 134 wins, 6 saves, and a legacy of hanging around for a fat kid in Indiana to collect his cards.

Hey, at least he got a career-capper out of the deal.

1985 Donruss John Lowenstein (#245)

The first real image of Lowenstein I remember is his 1983 Fleer card, where he struck me as a sort of Tom Selleck-Lionel Richie hybrid. I’d later add Sam Malone to that mental mix once I knew what Cheers was.

That fall, I got a more animated view of Lowenstein when he stunk it up against the White Sox but then homered against Charles Hudson of “my” Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series.

That blast tied the game in the bottom of the 5th, and the Orioles never really looked back en route to a five-game romp.

Lowenstein would stick around Baltimore, and MLB, until May of 1985 after 16 years in the bigs. By then, this Joe Cool card was already in the hands of kids who managed to find 1985 Donruss wax packs.

1985 Topps Tom Veryzer (#405)

If Pete Rose hadn’t come back to the Riverfront in August of 1984, the Reds might have lost me to the Cubs forever.

Not only did Chicago come out of nowhere to stage an improbable battle for National League East supremacy with Davey Johnson’s Mets, but my local independent TV station picked up dozens of WGN Cubs broadcasts that summer.

I was hooked on, if not bleeding, Cubbie Blue by midsummer, digging every Ryne Sandberg at-bat, every Rick Sutcliffe pitch, every Ron Cey waddle.

Tom Veryzer? I don’t remember much about his 1984 season, other than pulling his cards. Then, in 1985, this Veryzer card was an every-packer and one that I only recently realized is a career-capper.

Veryzer started his career with the Tigers back in 1973 and stuck around long enough to become a staple of my collection.

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So, which players stuck around long enough for you to get a glimpse of them, even if they were no longer prime time?

I’d love to hear your memories, as always. As long as you utter names like Reggie Sanders or Hal Morris or Brian Harper or anyone else whose presence on any kind of old-timers list might make me feel old(er).

Until next time, I’ll be over here behind the aluminum Christmas tree stuffing these Burger Chef gift certificates between a couple of Milt May and Mike Torrez cards.

Kids can’t get enough of them.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam