The only Donruss set that matters

When Donruss first came to my attention in 1981, it wasn't long before they were relegated to third-rate status. After six years of collecting nothing but Topps, no upstart company was going to come between me and my one true devotion. Besides, I had Fleer to deal with, too. And I had heard of Fleer. At least Fleer had a history in baseball cards.

It was like this for every collector I knew back then. We couldn't possibly collect cards from all three companies. We were going to try, but we knew we'd never be as successful as we were when only Topps was around.

After seeing what all three companies had to offer, I wasn't impressed with the new guys. Nobody I knew was impressed with Donruss.

I didn't like 1982 Donruss any better and by the mid-80s I had just stopped paying attention to collecting cards, especially anything that wasn't Topps. But I did buy 3 or 4 packs of 1984 Donruss, and I liked what I saw.

The photos were sharp, and they took up most of the card space. The cartoonish baseball bat from the last couple of years, was replaced with a simple colored bar at the bottom and an odd, but simple, "colored-wave" effect that included the team name.

It looked great. But I was busy starting college and just didn't have time for cards. I had bought the entire '84 Topps set and that was going to be it for me. I did the same in 1985, even though Donruss put out a pretty good set in '85, too.

After that, Donruss pretty much didn't exist for me. 1986 Donruss is putrid. Everyone loves 1987 Donruss, but '87 Donruss is about the rookies, and I don't care about rookies. After that, Donruss was a five-year joke, producers of some of the worst sets in history.

Donruss was dead to me in the '90s. After coming back to collecting, I've seen what it had to offer and only 1995, and maybe 1998, looks OK. Donruss this decade was all right (until it lost its MLB license), but, really, nothing the company has ever produced interested me even close to what they put out in 1984.

Here is what makes it one of my favorites, possibly my second-most favorite set of the '80s, behind 1983 Topps:

First, we have the sharp, close-ups of 1984 players in all of the weird get-ups of the '80s. Isn't that a fantastically nerdy card? Milt May doesn't look anything like David Byrne, but I can't help but hum Once in a Lifetime when I see that card.

Here is another thing that I like -- the sea green backs. Donruss' repetitive backs always annoyed me, but at least they mixed up the colors. After predictable blue in '82 and garish yellow in '83, the green looked great.

Some people will say they liked the Diamond Kings this year, with the bunting and the extra inset shot. I was never a fan of Diamond Kings and we were even more disappointed with the '84 DKs, because the image was much smaller than on the '82 and '83 cards.

But the Rated Rookie cards -- the very first Rated Rookie cards EVER -- were very cool. The little flag added to the card gave it an extra air of awesomeness. The logo bothered me after '84. Just didn't look right.

Some other cool things from '84 Donruss: a card of The Chicken, and a puzzle of Duke Snider (no, I don't have the puzzle).

When people talk about 1984 Donruss now, they mention two things. They mention the Don Mattingly rookie card, which some claim sparked the whole rookie aspect of collecting. And they mention the difficulty of collecting the set, as distribution issues were a problem and the set was released in fewer quantities.

But all that hasn't stopped me from wanting to complete the set someday. The magnanimous Max sent me nearly 400 cards from the set to boost my paltry '84 Donruss total to more than half completed! Wow! I guess I'm required to collect the set now.

And that means I get to show even more of what I like about the set. One thing that seems unique to the set, is the background on some of the action cards. I don't know photography terms, so I don't know what this is called, but there is a watercolor effect with the background:

It looks pretty cool when you look at the cards in person. But you can't look at them too close, or you might get creeped out ...

Look at the circled ghostly image on the right giving Ron Reed the demon eye.

You'll note that some of the action cards suffer from some shadow issues, which is a common problem with '70s and '80s cards, but it's really not too bad in '84 Donruss. That's because the thing that overwhelms you when you see the cards is how crisp most of the photos are.

That's just a wonderfully clear shot of the Cardinals' David Green (who was supposed to help the Cardinals replace the traded Keith Hernandez).

All of those are just great, sharp, BIG photos. I don't know why Donruss couldn't do a set like this on a consistent basis. Maybe it was just too hard to reach that level for more than a year.

One of the most notable aspects of '84 Donruss is the cropping of the photos. There are a ton of portrait shots in the set, and the photos are cropped very close to the face. I'm guessing we didn't love that when the set came out, but it is very cool now.

Those cards have the most personality of any of the cards in the set. And you get to see how wonderfully dorky everyone was in 1984. I'm going to show a bunch of those cards to end the post. But before I do, if you want to see a video of '84 Donruss, and you weren't reading the blogs last winter, check out the retired Fielder's Choice, and Dave's pack break of '84 Donruss. It's very cool.

OK, on with fantastic 84ish head shots:

And my personal favorite card ...

Absolutely fantastic! Wasn't that fun? Just remember, these guys could play ball better than you could. Much better.

So, all of that is why '84 is the only Donruss set that matters to me (plus, 1984 was a great year in my life, too). Many thanks, Max, for the cards and the memories. Maybe someday, I'll actually finish off this set.