From My Collection: Ken Griffey, Sr.

Many people of my collecting generation were enamored with the 1989 Upper Deck set, and with the Ken Griffey, Jr. card in particular.  A good description of how meaningful the card was to some people can be found here, at the Commons 4 Kids website.  That does not describe me, though -- I thought Upper Deck was too expensive.  Maybe my family was having a rough time financially in 1989; there are a few odd gaps in my collection from that year.  Before I quit collecting in 1994, I only ever got a few packs of Upper Deck across the various years.   For me, and I think for my friends who collected at the same time, the 1987 Mark McGwire rookie card was more iconic.

I am interested in filling gaps in my collection, but really I am considering gaps from pre-1987 almost exclusively.  Ken Griffey, Sr. is more relevant than Junior, then.  I looked through my collection, and I can only find two pre-1987 cards of Senior. 

1982 Topps Cincinnati Reds 1981 Batting and Pitching Leaders.

One of these reflects Ken Griffey's 1981 batting average of .311, which led the Reds.  He placed 6th in the NL, with Bill Madlock leading with .341, with Pete Rose, Dusty Baker, and Mike Schmidt in places two through four, and with Bill Buckner of the Cubs also with an average of .311.  Buckner was in 5th and Griffey in 6th, though, if you go out to more decimal places.

1984 Fleer Ken Griffey (Sr.) card.

By 1982, Griffey was no longer playing in Cincinnati.  This 1984 Fleer shows him with his new club, the Yankees.  He kept performing, hitting .306 for them in 1983.

I've mentioned having a few vacancies in my binder, and I'm going to aim to fill at least one of those with a 1970s Griffey, probably his 1974 rookie card.