5 Texas Rangers Baseball Cards You're Required to Love

Hey, they're the champs, after all!

Wow! The Texas Rangers won the World Series!

Yay! It’s always fun to see something (good) happen for the first time, even if it doesn’t happen to “your” team.

But on October 30, the day the Rangers won Game 3 to go ahead in the Series for good, franchise icon FRank Howard passed away at the age of 87.

Boo! And RIP.

So, there’s really no way we couldn’t look at some Rangers cards this week.

Here are a few of my favorite hunks of Arlington cardboard from years gone by…

1972 Topps Frank Howard (#350)

The first time I remember hearing or seeing anything about Howard was when I pulled his 1984 Topps manager card from a wax pack:

It was hard to tell just how big he was, leaned forward on his knee like that. I don’t know how long it was before I flipped the card over and saw his towering height and huge numbers.

Years, probably.

But Howard was one of the few superstars of the second-look Washington Senators, leading the American League in home runs in 1968 and 1970.

He made the move when the team became the Rangers but only stayed there through August, when they sold his rights to the Tigers.

Still, Howard managed to hit nine homers in a Rangers uniform and land this psychedelic Topps number, not in a Rangers uniform but at least with the Rangers starburst above his head.

1982 Kmart Jeff Burroughs (#25)

Before the internet, cable TV, or even as many as four television stations, I relied on my baseball cards to tell me what was what and who was who.

And the 1982 Kmart set was one of my first diamond history books, teaching me who had won MVP awards since 1962, plus some record-breaker things.

So this is the first Rangers card that I can really remember, and it also taught me that Jeff Burroughs was the bomb, once upon a time, at least.

It was enough to keep me setting aside any Burroughs cards I pulled, waiting for his next big bounce-back. And it kept me rooting for Sean to do something even bigger.

That Kmart concoction also made the card it was based on, the 1974 Topps Jeff Burroughs (#223), feel like hobby royalty.

1982 Topps Jon Matlack (#239)

This card made me laugh right from the very beginning. Definitely had a Vinnie Barbarino feel — “Whut?!”.

It never loses its silly appeal, either, as evidenced by my devoting a lot of brain cells to fictitioning what Matlack might have been saying/doing here.

But this card also feels very patriotic, what with its Red, White, and Blue theme — a great card to pull out on the Fourth of July, for instance.

And Matlack, of course, was a super player in his own right — a Rookie of the Year, an All-Star, a Cy Young candidate, and a Mitch Albom separated-at-birther.

1982 Topps Rangers Leaders (#36)

Yep, another 1982 Topps card. I’m dated and somewhat timebound. We all have our issues.

But this issue is pretty spectacular all around, starting with the Stetson Rangers logo that you can never see often enough. Trust me, you need more of it.

But then, this thing also showcases George ‘Doc’ Medich, who, like Howard above, got his own hat-to-the-sky-frightening-aibrush treatment upon being traded to the Pirates a few years earlier.

For Medich, though, Topps added some cheese (which you have to respect):

And then there’s the star of the show (card), Al Oliver, who would win his only batting title that summer of 1982.

If Scoop had managed another 257 hits in his career, he’d probably be in the Hall of Fame today. If many thousands of fans across the land get their wish, the Eras Committee (or whatever they call themselves right now, today) might still christen a Al Oliver Cooperstown plaque some year down the road.

1986 Donruss The Rookies Ruben Sierra (#52)

This one was a tough choice, because the Rangers of the mid-to-late-80s were loaded with young talent that lit up the hobby for years.

Sierra was the most tantalizing of the group from my perspective because he debuted when he was like 12 or something, could hit for power and average, and he could run.

Who cares about defense when your right fielder can do all that, right, and was otherwise hailed as “the next Roberto Clemente.”

This card wasn’t quite as popular as the Wally Joyner that “The Rookies” was created for in the first place, or the Bo Jackson, but it wasn’t far behind.

And I distinctly remember this card smoldering back at me from the pulpy, black-and-white pages of Sports Collectors Digest, in ads, for years on end.

By 1987, we were all pulling cards of Sierra, Bobby Witt, Oddibe McDowell, and others from our wax packs and salting them away in plastic sheets for our retirement funds.

No card brings back those particular “feels” quite like the1987 Topp Pete Incaviglia (#550) that stood toe-to-toe with Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Cory Snyder, and so many others in the battle for toploader space.

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How about you? What are your favorite Rangers cards?

I’d love to hear your picks, even if you think “favorite Rangers” is an oxymoron, like “favorite Dodgers” is for me as a Reds fan.

And, yes, I’ve written about a lot of Dodgers cards. Cursed beautiful blue-and-white dreamy cloud palette that card makers turn into works of art!

Who could resist?

For now, though, I’ll be over here in the corner trying to fit that cowboy hat from the Dr. Oliver card above onto my melon.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam