A 1980s Card Part 28 - 1984 Fleer Floyd Rayford

Two days later than normal, but the beginning of the week was busy.  I am going with one of the real cult favorite Cardinal players of the 1980s this week in the person of Floyd Rayford.  He played for the majority of the 1980s, mostly with the Orioles, but he was briefly traded to the Cardinals in 1983 for outfielder Tito Landrum. 

The Orioles were in a pennant run.  Landrum ended up hitting the series clinching home run in the American League Championship Series to beat Tony LaRussa's White Sox. 

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The Orioles ended up beating the Phillies to win the World Series. 

Rayford ended up getting a few baseball cards in a Cardinals uniform for his 56 games with the team.  All of them, from what I know, are in 1984 sets.  He has one card int he Fleer set, one in the Topps set.  The Topps card is an action shot, the Fleer card....... 

This card accurately portrays Floyd best in my opinion.  You at least get the vibe that he is a short round guy with a lot of hair.  Love the 1980s satin jacket, and if you look closely he is wearing some really sweet batting glove.  

Floyd has a lot of Rochester on the back of his card.  I know he worked there as a coach for awhile too, a legendary player for the die hards of that Minor League team.  Not really an impressive stat line there outside of those seasons at (elevation) El Paso and Salt Lake City.  

So, what happened to Floyd and the Cardinals?  

Oddly enough, Rayford was traded back to the Orioles towards the end of the Spring Training in 1984, which is where he spent the rest of his career.  A few days later the teams made another trade where Landrum ended up back with the Cardinals.  It was not a duplication of the Rayford for Landrum trade, but it sure felt that way.  

This is how they are supposed to look right?  Rayford did not do much once he got back in Baltimore.  Tito Landrum was a platoon player with Andy Van Slyke in right field, ended up playing a significant amount of games for the 1985 National League Championship team.  

2012 Topps Archives Set. My Favorite Thing.

I am putting together a set of the 2012 Topps Archives set.  I've had a really good time trading for lots of cards and opening packs.  The heavy lifting in putting together any set is finding all of the short prints and inserts without paying an arm and a leg in trade or cash.  It's always a bonus to get something special from each set too.  I got a cool autograph.  I got a cool relic card.  The base set of the 2012 Topps Archives set has really caught my eye this year.

In the past Archives sets, the cards all had different designs from different Topps sets throughout the years.   This year's set though features four different types of base set designs with the majority of the players coming from today and a few older players thrown in throughout.  There are cards with designs from the 1954 set, 1971, 1980, and 1984.  The 1984 design cards really caught my eyes and attention.

My first full year of collecting was 1984 and I vividly remember the cards like it was yesterday.  It's one of those old sets that I look through a few times a year.  The last two weeks I have probably looked back through the set twice and yesterday picked out a cool card to compare with a current Archives card.  My winner?  (My scanner is being snarky today)  This awesome Floyd "Sugar Bear" Rayford card.  Polyester uniform, bad puffy facial hair, powder blue unis.  Did I mention Floyd Rayford?

I've also gone through the Topps Archives set and spent a long time looking at the cards.  I love how Topps got a lot of little details into the 1984 design.  The backs are perfect and the color schemes on the front match the teams color schemes from the 84 set.  The Nationals even have the design from the Expos.  My favorite is Allen Craig.