Orioles Card "O" the Day

An intersection of two of my passions: baseball cards and the Baltimore Orioles. Updated daily?

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Keith Moreland, 1990 Upper Deck #401


Well, that box break went even more poorly than I had anticipated. The gory details:

Three packs of 1988 Topps

A pack each of 1987, 1989, 1990 Topps

Two packs of 1988 Donruss

A pack each of 1989 and 1990 Donruss

A pack of 1990 Upper Deck

A repack of junk wax (1984 and 1987 Topps, 1988 and 1990 Score, 1992 Upper Deck…you know the drill)

A pack of 1986 Donruss Jumbo All-Stars

A pack of 1989 Topps UK Mini

A pack of 1998 Team Best Minor League

A mangled pack of 2009 Obak

It goes without saying that I was part of the 3,999 out of 4,000 that received no throwback soo-prize. The one pack from the last fifteen years was bent to bejeezus, and I got six packs from sets I’ve already completed. In the Upper Deck pack, I was treated to Keith Moreland, the 35-year-old veteran who the "Why Not?" Orioles acquired down the stretch in 1989. He rewarded them with a .215/.243/.280 slash line and 5 extra-base hits in 33 games, and even as the team was fighting tooth and nail with the Blue Jays for the A.L. East title, he complained about his playing time. When the O's were officially eliminated on the second-to-last day of the season, Moreland left the club and went home before the final game. What I'm saying is that he is the perfect representation for this dud purchase. Let this be a lesson to you: junk purchases are all in good fun, but the cheaper the better.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I got suckered into one of these awful boxes as well. I was hoping that at worst they'd have more oddball vintage stuff like with the Topps UK Mini packs that they throw in there. Stuff that, while not at all valuable, you probably don't already have a hundred pounds of in your closet already.

Either way, I ended up pulling a pretty nifty Brady Anderson out of my pack of Topps UK Mini. Surprised the hell out of me that they'd even bother including him in what looked to be a vaguely exclusive set. He was a pretty lousy fifth outfielder in those days(fourth if you're feeling generous), so I didn't really expect to see him come out of there amidst the Von Hayes and Carney Landsfords that invariably lined sets of that period.

Something of an inconsequential comment, but someone out there in cyberspace feels your pain.

-gfrank