The kings of the '80s

  

More than five years ago, I wrote a post titled "The Kings of the '70s" in which I determined which players had their own Topps cards for every year of the 1970s -- 1970 through 1979.

 

I've wanted to do the same for the 1980s ever since I wrote that post. I realized doing the '70s post that while I adore that decade as the one in which I discovered baseball and I have great fondness for the players from that time, I don't know many of those players' earlier history. For instance, I never knew Woodie Fryman as a Tiger. He was an Expo! Lou Piniella was a Royal? No way, he was a nasty Yankee!

 

Diving into all the players with a Topps card for every year of the '80s would truly cover all the players I knew -- from the start of their career til the end of the 1980s. Guys who started mid-1970s -- think Keith Hernandez -- were there through the entire '80s.

 

Like when compiling the '70s list, I was surprised by the number of players who received a card every year of the '80s. The first guys who spring to mind are Rickey Henderson, George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Andre Dawson and the like.

 

 

But there are plenty of players who don't spring to mind or who are even lost to the passage of time who were there for every single year of the 1980s, guys like Jim Clancy, Steve Trout, Mark Clear, Dwayne Murphy, Mike LaCoss and Ron Hassey.

 

You might be interested to know whether any of the players who appeared on a card every year of the 1970s also appeared on every card of the 1980s.

 

I found three.

 

Tommy John

Pete Rose

Nolan Ryan 

 

Maybe some would eliminate Rose because he didn't appear as a player late in the 1980s but I count it.

 

In total I found 86 players who showed up every year in Topps. I disregarded prospect cards, they must have had a solo card each of those years. Like last time, I researched this very informally. I'm not writing a program to figure out this stuff. It's definitely possible I missed a few names. Last time I did this I came up with 87 names and it turned out there were 98 in total.

 

So if you see a missing name mention it in the comments.* I didn't miss it on purpose. There's a lot to this blogging -- like for instance a recent browser update caused me to have to save images two or three times per image before uploading. Sweet!

 

But enough crabbing. Here's the list:

 

Doyle Alexander 
Neil Allen 
Tony Armas 
Alan Ashby 

Floyd Bannister

Don Baylor
Buddy Bell 
Bert Blyleven
Bob Boone

Tom Brookens

George Brett 
John Candelaria 
Gary Carter
Rick Cerone 
Jim Clancy 
Jack Clark 
Mark Clear 
Danny Darwin 
Andre Dawson 
Rick Dempsey 

Bo Diaz 
Brian Downing 
Dennis Eckesley 
Dwight Evans 
Carlton Fisk
Mike Flanagan 
Bob Forsch 
Jim Gantner 
Rich Gossage 
Alfredo Griffin 
Greg Gross 
Ron Guidry
Ron Hassey
Mike Heath 
Rickey Henderson 
Keith Hernandez

  

 

Willie/Guillermo Hernandez
Rick Honeycutt 
Bob Horner 
Charlie Hough 
Tommy John 
Terry Kennedy 
Bob Knepper 
Mike Krukow 
Mike LaCoss 
Carney Lansford 
Chet Lemon 
Jeffrey Leonard 
Fred Lynn 
Denny Martinez 
Lee Mazzilli
Paul Molitor 

Jack Morris

Dwayne Murphy
Dale Murphy 
Eddie Murray 
 Ken Oberkfell
Dave Parker 

Lance Parrish

Larry Parrish 
 

 

Terry Puhl 
Willie Randolph 
Jerry Reuss 
Rick Rhoden 
Jim Rice 
Don Robinson

Pete Rose 
Nolan Ryan 
Scott Sanderson 
Mike Schmidt 
Ozzie Smith 
Chris Speier 
Bob Stanley 
Dave Stieb 
Jim Sundberg 

 

 

Rick Sutcliffe 
Bruce Sutter 
Frank Tanana 
Garry Templeton 
Alan Trammell 
Alex Trevino 
Manny Trillo 
Steve Trout 
Claudell Washington 
Lou Whitaker 
Frank White 
Willie Wilson 
Dave Winfield 
Joel Youngblood 
Robin Yount  

 

Those are my guys. Once the '90s started, my players started cycling out and by the middle of that decade, my interest was waning. Not a surprise. Nobody from when I started watching baseball was left.

 

The kings were gone. And nobody who has arrived since has meant as much. 

 

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*The list has been updated with the four names mentioned in the comments, so the total is now 90. (I'm nt including the box bottom guys). I'll update again as other names pop up.