A few food-issue cards from my binder

A little while ago, I featured a few food-issue cards; those were not from my binder, but instead were stored with a handful of other oddballs in a storage box.  These are some similar cards of players I like better, and so are in my main binder.

1982 Drake's Rod Carew.

Last time, I featured a 1982 Drake's John Mayberry.  I don't have anything against John Mayberry, but I really don't know much about him.  By contrast, here we have Rod Carew, who of course is one of the best hitters (for average) of all time. 

1987 Ralston Purina Nolan Ryan.

The previous post also featured Gary Carter from the 1987 Ralston Purina set.  I've said a few times on this blog that I didn't like Carter in the late 80s, but the only reason was that he played for the Mets, which were an NL East rival to my Pirates and Phillies.  I remember having a Slurpee cup of Nolan Ryan in the early 80s, and thinking, "who is this guy?"  Anytime I looked up his numbers, I wasn't too impressed -- I was judging by wins and losses, and in, say 1984 he went 12-11, in 1985 he was 10-12, in 1986 he was 12-8, and in 1987 he was 8-16.  I didn't know my history back then, and thus didn't know about the Miracle Mets or all his no-hitters.  In the mid-80s, the strikeout record wasn't as clear, as the lead changed several times.

1984 Topps Cereal Series Dale Murphy and Robin Yount.

Then we have Dale Murphy and Robin Yount.  Dale Murphy was a star in the NL, with his back-to-back MVP awards in 1982 and 1983, a streak of consecutive Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers around that time, and other various achievements.  He came to the Phillies to add some extra punch to the lineup in the early 90s, but he left before they won the pennant in 1993.  I was initially surprised he didn't make the Hall of Fame, but I guess his later production just doesn't compare to his peak years.  I virtually never heard of Robin Yount, being an NL fan on the east coast, until I started paying close attention to baseball around 1987.  But what I did hear of him was all good.  The creases on these cards are an unmistakable sign that I've had them since before I started taking care of my cards; that almost certainly means that I pulled these from a cereal box when I was eight years old in 1984.