A 1980s Card Part 37 - 1988 Smokey Bear John Tudor

I think that I have mentioned my love for the Cardinals Smokey Bear giveaway sets on these 1980s Cardinals posts before.  They were the baseball card set giveaway during the mid to late 1980s.  I know that I have done a few of these before, just not from the 1988 set.  I like all the Smokey Bear sets, but this is my absolute favorite. There are some great photographs in the set, plenty of action shots, and the simple design really works for me.  

John Tudor had a really good 1988, so I thought I would use his card from this set.  Plus, I like this action shot of him pitching.  

He started out 1988 with the Cardinals, only managed to win 6 games, but that was more about a lack of run support than the quality of his pitching.  The Cardinals did not have a great offense in 1988, in part because they decided to sign Bob Horner to play first base.  He did not hit.  So, the Cardinals traded John Tudor to the Dodgers for Pedro Guerrero.  

How did Tudor's year turn out?  

He started Game 3 of the World Series, and the Dodgers closed out the A's in 5 games.  Shout out to the A's for playing the Golden Girls theme in the background when the Dodgers win.  It starts at 0:23 on the video.  

Pedro had some good years with the Cardinals, and managed to get a Smokey Bear Cardinals card the following year.  So, that was a good thing.  

If you collect Cardinals cards, and do not own some of these Smokey Bear cards, the sets and the singles are both pretty cheap to buy on places like Ebay.  The 1988 is seriously incredible.  As I said before, so many great pictures.  Just picking out a random card to scan as an example......

A 1980s Card Part 13 - 1985 O-Pee-Chee John Tudor

Way back in 1985 I did not collect any O-Pee-Chee cards.  In fact, I think I might have had one or two of them in collection and had no idea what to do with them.  As an adult, I love the 1980s O-Pee-Chee cards.  Really, how many 1985 Topps sets do I need in my collection?  I think there are several copies, probably do not need any more, but these O-Pee-Chee cards keep things interesting.

They are like a hybrid of the regular Topps card and the Topps Traded cards.

I wish I could make some sort of cool graphic where the two cards merge together and form the O-Pee-Chee card.  I am not that talented.  I imagine it would like that episode of The Simpsons where the Japanese cleaning company is using a likeness of Homer, and he discovers they created it by merging together an image of a light bulb and a fish.  

Flip over to the back of the card......

John Tudor's stat line was not interesting until he got to the Cardinals.  I like the dual language labels in both French and English. Always fun 1980s cards to collect.