The end of a baseball season brings all sorts of emotions …
Sorrow, because another incarnation of the Boys of Summer are gone for good.
Excitement, because the postseason looms.
Regret, because you didn’t see enough games this year, and you won’t be able to see any more until next spring.
But most of all, the end of a baseball season brings joy and reflection. A time to think about all that’s come before and all that lies ahead, and how wonderful it is to wrap yourself in the nostalgia of our sweet soap opera.
And what better way to dig into those good feelings than with a cardboard trip down memory lane?
After all, baseball cards give us special endings, too, right? I mean, forever and a day, Topps has reserved prime real estate for prime movers in the game.
Those prime numbers include, of course, the first card in the set, and the century markers (#100, #200, etc.). But they also loop in the final pasteboard of each set, the one that sends us off into the oblivion of another winter.
Here, then, are the final Topps cards from each set of the 1980s, when our fields, and our hopes, were green and fresh.
Did they all merit their lofty last-card status? You can be the judge of that, but I’ll help you make the case …
1980 Topps Steve Yeager (#726)
If you look at just his lifetime stats, you might think Steve Yeager was just about the last guy you’d find on a prime baseball card property — .228 batting average, 102 home runs, 410 runs batted in, 14 stolen bases.
Doesn’t seem the stuff of legend, right?
But look deeper and you’ll see that Yeager was a key member of those great Los Angeles Dodgers teams of the 1970s, lining up as the regular catcher for a good hunk of his 15 years in the Major Leagues (the last of which he played for the Seattle Mariners in 1986).
During that time, Yeager logged plenty of post-season time, and he stepped up his game in October to .252 with five homers and 14 RBI in 38 NLCS and World Series appearances.
It didn’t hurt that Yeager was handling some tremendous Dodgers hurlers along the way, including 1979 NL Rookie of the Year Rick Sutcliffe and would fold in award-winners Steve Howe and Fernando Valenzuela in 1980 and 1981.
Those were heady times.
So, yeah, Yeager and his Dodger Blue look just fine on card #726 in 1980 Topps.
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1981 Topps Rick Monday (#726)
By 1981, Rick Monday‘s flag-saving All-Star days were well behind him, but he was still a well-loved figure for the fans of his various teams: Oakland A’s, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers.
Monday still had some pop left in his 35-year-old bat, too, and would smack 29 home runs over the final four seasons of his career.
Like Yeager, Monday also tasted post-season glory with the Dodgers (and A’s), though his October results were not all that spectacular — .210, one homer, two RBI in 30 games.
For his career, Monday wound up with 241 homers among his more than 1600 hits — and, of course, one set-capper in 1981 Topps.
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1982 Topps Frank Tanana (#792)
Once upon a time, a young Frank Tanana provided the left-handed smoke to complement Nolan Ryan‘s righty fire in the California Angels rotation.
Indeed, the future looked bright for the phenom in the mid-1970s when he reeled off a string of top-5 Cy Young finishes.
Then came injuries, off-field-problems, sinking performance, and bouncing from team to team.
Tanana eventually became an accomplished pitcher — not just a thrower — for the Detroit Tigers in the 1980s. Before he got there, though, he made a one-year stop with the Boston Red Sox.
His 4-10, 4.01 ERA mark was good enough to wear out his BoSox welcome after one season but also good enough to land him the last card in the 1982 Topps seet — somehow.
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1983 Topps Chris Chambliss (#792)
Chris Chambliss was one of the more understated members of the New York Yankees mini-dynasty of the late 1970s, but then, just about everyone seemed understated compared to Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin.
Chambliss was a rock at first base for those teams, though, and was always good for something along the lines of .280, 17 home runs, 80 RBI per year.
And, of course, he had a monster NLCS in 1976 to help the Yankees reach the World Series for the first time in over a decade.
By 1982, Chambliss was entering his third season for the fairly putrid Atlanta Braves. He’d continued his strong production, but the rest of the team had yet to take off.
That all changed in 1982 when Dale Murphy won the first of his two NL MVP awards and the Braves took the old National League West division crown.
For his part, Chambliss smacked 20 bombs, drove in 86, and hit .270.
The last card of the 1983 Topps set is a fine commemoration of that sweet season.
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1984 Topps Bill Russell (#792)
Bill Russell revolutionized the NBA with his wingspan and defensive …
Oh, sorry. Let me try again.
Bill Russell was the shortstop for the 1970s Dodgers teams that featured the longest-running intact infield to have a future ruined politician manning first base. Or something like that.
Russell was a light-hitting middle infielder, as was the style of the day, but he had some speed and a decent eye, so he got on base and scored some runs.
He was one of the better defenders of the era at short, too. And, well, Dodgers.
Considering that 1983 was Russell’s last year as a mostly regular SS and that LA won the NL West that summer, this last-card treatment in 1984 Topps seems just fine.
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