Back to Base - DonRuss 1984

Today's lovely card was another one in the envelope from Tim.

Card Number 618: DonRuss, 1984; #324

Tony's DonRuss cards from the early 80s are strong contenders for best cards in the collection. There is so much to love about this, from the excellent portrait photo, through to the complementary design colours. The R in Padres is lost against the yellow uniform neckline - that's how well they go together!

Up until 1994 DonRuss included the year on the front of the card as well, which is really handy.

Their cardbacks were functional, but the Career Highlights were always relevant and offered more insight than Topps's factoids.

There's an intriguing item on that list - that Tony missed the beginning of his first full season because he had broken his wrist playing winter baseball. He was unlucky with wrist injuries. In August 1982 he broke his left wrist catching a fly ball and missed the end of the season - that's also mentioned in these career 'highlights'. Then a few months later he broke his right wrist playing in Puerto Rico. (Source on where he played winter baseball.) Sadly, Baseball Reference is blank for the Puerto Rican Winter League throughout the 80s so I can't see his stats.

On the plus side, it seems Tony recovered from those breaks quite quickly. However, if breaking his wrists is a career highlight in the eyes of DonRuss, it makes me wonder what the lowlights would be.

In terms of my collection, this means I now have Tony's DonRuss base cards from his rookie year 1983, through to 1995. All thanks to Tim!

Total: 618 cards