1981 Fleer Was Like Jessica From High School

I grew up in the original middle class suburbs of Long Island, where most of the neighborhoods were no more than 10-20 years old. “Lily white” would not be an unfair description of my high school’s student body. It was not a completely uniform group… We had a sizeable enough Jewish population that we had school holidays for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah… but whether Jewish, Catholic or Protestant, nearly everybody could trace their lineage back to Europe. The darkest kids were Italian. Asian kids? Yeah, we had one – ONE! – in a school of over 2,400 students.

It was during my sophomore year that Jessica came.

I don’t know where Jessica’s family was from… I’m guessing South Pacific, possibly the Philippines.  She wasn’t objectively beautiful, but she was pretty, had a nice smile, dark shoulder-length hair, was fairly tall and didn’t look like any other girl in the school. Every boy’s head turned when she walked by, because within our limited life experiences she was very exotic.

Our reaction to Jessica was kind of like my reaction to 1981 Fleer.

Prior to 1981 all I knew was Topps… Topps baseball, Topps football, Topps hockey, Topps Star Wars, Topps Wacky Packages… Topps was synonymous with trading cards and stickers.

Sure, there were other card companies, but they made stuff we didn’t pay much attention to. Those other companies made cheesy non-sports sets and “Football Action” cards which seemed to exist for the purpose of tricking kids into buying them (we didn’t know at the time that Fleer had a license with the teams but not with any of the players).

Into all of this came 1981 Fleer Baseball cards.

Fleer grabbed me from the start. Like Jessica, it may not have been the prettiest set out there, but man, it was different and that was exciting.

To my eyes, both then and now, 1981 Fleer’s design was on par with anything Topps had put out that year and in the couple of years beforehand (I’ve never been a huge fan of the 1979 design, and 1980 was regarded by me as a rehash of my beloved 1974 until much later in life).

The backs were noteworthy at the time.  WHITE CARDBOARD?  What madness is this???

Although Donruss also had the white cardboard, there was something kinda elegant and non-Topps-y about the 1981 Fleer card backs.

1979 and 1980 Topps were the first sets I didn’t complete within a year or two, but 1981’s competition also served to re-invigorate my collecting habits and I completed 1981 Fleer and Topps in fairly short order.  (1981 Donruss was another matter which I revisited in a recent post)

This Rod Carew card is possibly my favorite from the 1981 Fleer set. It gives him an almost mythological look by showing him from slightly below with the San Jacinto Mountains in the background (The Angels did spring training in Palm Springs at the time)

Another favorite is this card of Joel Youngblood, who is really happy to be on the field.

With the exception of 1978, Topps had had been relegating managers to inset photos since 1975, so giving at least some of them full cards was a smooth move by Fleer and Donruss.

Combo cards which were in the set “just because” were a new concept to me and my friends.  Topps hadn’t really done anything like it in the 1970s, with the exception of some subsets like 1977’s “Big League Brothers”.

1981 Fleer (and Donruss) also had more than one card of certain star players. This is Rickey Henderson’s regular card, but he also had a “MOST STOLEN BASES AL” card with a very similar photo.

I’m not sure what circumstances had Dick Tidrow hanging out near someone who appears to be a Reds coach.

I’m a sucker for batting cage shots. You could show Dennis Littlejohn in this exact pose during a game and I wouldn’t give it a second glance… but in a batting cage? Love it!

The batting cage love also goes for this Bert Campaneris card.  Any guesses to who’s actually batting?

Similarly, I like “Hanging out in the on-deck circle” shots.

Provide your own caption to Larry Herndon sitting alone on the bench.

And I’ll wrap up with a nice portrait of Willie Stargell.