1986 Sportflics Decade Greats: 1930s and 1940s

A week ago Sunday, I said that I would be posting a bunch of Sportflics coming up.  Here's the first batch, a few cards from the 1986 Sportflics Decades Great set.

1986 Sportflics Decade Greats.

Box bottom: ad for Rookies set.

Here we have the top, front, and bottom of the box.  This feels very 80s to me.  The bottom advertises another 1986 Sportflics set, their Rookies set.

Inside flaps: Mickey Mantle disc offer.

Hank Greenberg.

I posted before the 1986 Sportflics Dwight Gooden disc offer and the Don Mattingly disc offer.   There's also a Mickey Mantle that you could get through this form.  Searching COMC for these discs, I see that they're listed as 1986 Sportflics Jumbo discs, and in addition to Gooden, Mattingly, and Mantle, there are Wade Boggs, Wally Joyner, and Roger Clemens out there.  Maybe they came from offers in the Rookies set, or some other promotion.

As for the cards, I'm showing here a handful of the cards that the set identifies as the greats of the 1930s and 1940s.  Also, instead of scanning, I'm holding these in my hand and taking photos with my phone, trying to angle them so as to get clear shots of some of the card images.  So you'll see my thumb or hand in most of them.  Starting off we have Hank Greenberg, who I wish I had a Play Ball card of.  But instead I settle for nostalgia cards like this.

Joe DiMaggio.

Joe DiMaggio.

Joe DiMaggio is in the set as one of the Greats of the 1940s.  Who could possibly argue with that?  The card back (not pictured!) shows his stats for the 40s, with a .325 batting average and over 1000 hits.  This, of course, is despite not playing 1943-1945 for military service during World War II.

Lou Gehrig.

Lou Gehrig.

For each decade, Sportflics designated one player as the Player of the Decade.  For the 1930s, that was Lou Gehrig.  He had 1802 hits in the 30s, batting .343.  Not to mention the playing streak.

Jimmie Foxx.

Jimmie Foxx.

Jimmie Foxx is a personal favorite.  I said that I wished I had a Play Ball of Hank Greenberg, but since Foxx is more important to me, I did get one of him a while back.  Foxx was the longtime number 2 in career home runs, before the sluggers of the 60s came along (Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle).  I don't know exactly when one of them passed him.  But the old Philadelphia Athletic held on to be number 2 to Babe Ruth for a long time.

Babe Ruth.

Babe Ruth.

Speaking of Ruth, here he is.  After the 30s and 40s, the cards are in color for the 1950s onward.  This set is a wonderful representation of so much of the baseball history I love.  The Sportflics format is perfect for this purpose, too, showing a portrait and two action shots of each of these greats.  It may not come across perfectly in a blog post, but this set really captures something great about baseball.

I'll show a few cards from the set's remaining decades in a couple more posts.  Thanks for reading!