Today's post will be featuring the Chuck Cunningham of Greg Maddux rookie cards.
In 1987, Sportflics was in their sophomore season and were still trying to find their own niche in the card collecting industry. That year, their first release was a special boxed set of Team Preview cards. Using their Triple Action Magic Motion technology, they previewed 12 players on each team before the start of the season.
And just like Chuck, the Team Previews disappeared after one season.
I'll go ahead and assume that these weren't very popular, which is why they didn't produce a 1988 set. These days, I'll see singles sitting in a dime box from time to time. But unless you're a big fan of oddball issues, I'm sure most collectors flip through these like they're 1988 Topps or 1990 Fleer base cards.
1987 Sportflics Team Preview #22
But there are a couple of cool cards within this set. The Atlanta Braves Team Preview card features Tom Glavine a full year before Donruss, Fleer, Topps, and Score issued their first cards of him. And Maddux appears on the Chicago Cubs Team Preview card.
Now I totally understand that most collectors don't consider these to be true rookie cards, because they weren't distributed in packs.
But some of us accept first appearance cards from the Donruss Rookies, Fleer Update, and Topps Traded sets of the 80's and 90's as rookie cards or XRC's.
Why can't we open our hearts and accept these too?
If you can, then consider this my Day #4 submission to Tony's 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge.
If not, here's one of his "official rookie cards"...
1987 Donruss #36
Well that's it for today.
As a bonus... here's a rookie year oddball issue to wrap up this post...
1987 David Berg Chicago Cubs #31
Happy Maddux Monday and sayonara!
Ha!I've got some oddball Cansecos coming up In my next post.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that it's a team card and not a player card is playing a role. For myself it has to be a single card, not shared with anyone else, or a team or league leaders card- those are cataloged as team cards, league leaders, multi-subject, etc., for it to count as a card of a player. That's why I can't use any list from any website to list what I have of each person in my collection, I have to manually create it myself.
ReplyDeleteAhh, Sportflics...brings back the memories! I remember collecting these things through packs. Never heard of this set before so pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYou learn something new every day - I had never heard of those team preview Sportflics cards before. I wouldnt consider it an RC but it's a neat card nonetheless. Funny that Maddux was mentioned in the same sentence with such pitching legends as Carl Hamilton and Drew Hall. One of these things is not like the other...
ReplyDeletecompletely forgot about those version of sportflics. i have a tough time calling it a rookie card as well since it has so many other players on them...don't forget about Raffy Palmeiro! His rookie year too!
ReplyDeleteLove the oddball Maddux card. The Cubs had a ton of team issued oddball sets in the 1980s, pretty cool cards to look at.
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