Top 10 cards of a favorite player

Another blog post for a contest – Collecting Cutch is asking for posts on 10 favorite cards from a favorite player. I have covered a few different favorite players on the recent 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge posts but one whom I have not mentioned is the first player I considered a “favorite”. Even as a kid I was a contrarian and so I picked 13 as my lucky number. #13 on the Yankees at that time was Mike Pagliarulo so I immediately gravitated to him. It certainly didn’t hurt that he was hard-nosed and powerful – a favorite for a lot of Yankee fans. In personality and skill-set he was kind of like Mark Bavaro. I remember being quite upset as a 12-year-old when the Yankees traded him to San Diego – it was the only time I was really shocked by a trade. Below are 10 of my favorite Mike Pagliarulo cards. I own all these cards but the scans are taken from tradingcarddb. (Incidentally I was surprised to see how many Yankee-era cards of him I do not already have. Certainly interested in trading for any I don't have.)

1985 Topps

Here is Pags’s Topps rookie card. It’s weird seeing him without his mustache so this will be the only pre-1987 card shown here.

 

1987 Fleer League Leaders

The pinstriped design here looks great on a Yankee card.

 

1987 Sportflics

Always glad to throw in a Sportflics card.

 

1987 The Press Box

This was an unlicensed 7-card set I got around 1987 or 1988, I think in a blister pack of random Yankee cards I got in a stationary store.

 

1987 Topps

Good-looking card on that era’s classic baseball card design.

 

1987 Topps Glossy Send-Ins

These cards were a big deal at the time – nice to see Pagliarulo get one.

 

1988 Fleer

The red-white-and-blue design is one of my favorites from this era. Looks like a home run swing at Fenway Park.

 

1989 Donruss

I’m not much of a Donruss fan. This is probably my favorite Donruss design of the era, due to the colorful borders.

 

1989 Score

Overshadowed by Upper Deck, Score had some pretty good photography back in the late 1980s.

 

1989 Upper Deck

Upper Deck was coming up with shots that hadn’t been seen on cards before. Nice shot of Pagliarulo charging a ground ball, although his face is covered in shadow.