Card #1: ’86 record breaker: Roger Clemens sets strikeout record
A much thinner than we remember (heh) Clemens cemented his arrival as the best pitcher in baseball by whiffing 20 Seattle Mariners in a 3-1 win at Fenway Park. As amazing as 20 strikeouts was, it’s even more mind-boggling that Clemens was allowed to throw an arm-killing 138 pitches. What? He ended up pitching two more decades? Never mind. Despite living in Connecticut, I watched exactly zero pitches of this game because I was listening to Game 7 of the Adams Division finals between the Hartford Whalers and Montreal Canadiens. I still hate you Claude Lemieux.
This also continued an uncanny run (ok, fine, it was only two years) of Topps leading off the set with Hall of Fame-caliber players who have been thus far doomed to reside outside of Cooperstown due to their own buffoonery. Pete Rose was card no. 1 in '86.
Card #2: ’86 record breaker: Jim Deshaies strikes out the first eight batters in a game
Deshaies enjoyed the finest moment of a solid rookie season when he struck out the first eight Los Angeles Dodgers he faced on Sept. 23. He broke the modern set earlier in the season by Joe Cowley, who whiffed the first seven New York Yankees on May 28. Deshaies fell one strikeout shy of the all-time record of nine straight strikeouts to open a game, set by Mickey Welch way back in 1884.
Deshaies’ record was tied Sept. 15, 2014, when New York Mets rookie Jacob deGrom whiffed the first eight Miami Marlins he faced before opposing pitcher Jarred Cosart (!!!) singled. I covered that game, we all thought deGrom was going to throw a no-hitter. Instead, he didn’t even get a decision in the Mets’ 6-5 loss.
Deshaies’ response to deGrom joining him in the record books was pretty amusing, and befitting for one of the most popular and funniest broadcasters in baseball.
Card #3: ’86 record breaker: Dwight Evans hits the earliest home run in history
Shouldn’t this have been the first card in the set? Topps gave leadoff duties to George Bell in 1989 in honor of his three-homer game in the 1988 season opener. Regardless, this card is confirmation Elias was finding awesomely funky stats long before the Internet was invented. I have no idea how this stat was confirmed, or that apparently nobody homered before the fourth pitch of a season prior to 1981.
Anyway, here’s to you Dwight Evans. You should probably be in the Hall of Fame, but you’ll have to be content with holding a record no one can ever break.
Card #4: ’86 record breaker: Davey Lopes steals more bases than any 40-year-old
Four cards in and Topps was already getting obscure. Perhaps they felt they owed Lopes a special honor card, since he stole 47 bases during his age-40 season in 1985 (his birthday is May 3) but forgot to mention it. It’s not a post-birthday thing, either: Lopes had “just” 23 steals after his birthday in 1986, which would have tied him with Honus Wagner and the unlisted Willie Mays.
Oh well. Check out the boxscore in which Lopes stole his 24th base of the season. How fantastic is that game? The starters were Nolan Ryan and Jamie Moyer and the losing pitcher, in his major league debut, was Greg Maddux. Where’s the card about that game?!
Also, to the surprise of no one, Lopes’ 25 steals as a 41-year-old were the most by a 40-something until Rickey Henderson turned 40 and swiped 39 bases for the New York Mets in 1999. Cause Rickey is Rickey.
Card #5: ’86 record breaker: Dave Righetti breaks single-season save record
Righetti’s fascinating career — he was one of the Yankees’ top starters and threw a no-hitter on July 4, 1983 before being moved to the bullpen in 1984 — took another cool turn when he got saves in both games of a doubleheader on the penultimate day of the season to break the record of 45 saves in a season previously shared by the late Dan Quisenberry and Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter.
Alas, what seemed otherwordly in 1986 is now downright boring thanks to the emphasis of bullpens and the devaluation of the save. Righetti’s 46 saves are tied for 40th-most all-time with luminaries such as Jose Mesa and Mike Williams. A pitcher has recorded at least 46 saves in a season a whopping 49 times since 1987. Only two of those pitchers, Dennis Eckersley and John Smoltz, have made the Hall of Fame, though Trevor Hoffman could be enshrined as soon as this year and Mariano Rivera is sure to be inducted when eligible in 2019.
Righetti fell off the ballot in his first year of eligibility in 2001. He’ll have to be content with earning three World Series rings as the pitching coach for the San Francisco Giants.
Card #6: ’86 record breaker: Ruben Sierra is youngest player to homer from both sides in a game
Sierra made his first career multi-homer game count by going deep from both sides of the plate. He achieved the feat at 20 years and 343 days old, which made him nearly six months younger than Eddie Murray when the future Hall of Famer homered from both sides of the plate on Aug. 3, 1977.
First Sierra homered from the left side against right-hander Bert Blyleven, who won 287 games and earned induction into the Hall of Fame in 2011. Then he homered from the right side against southpaw Bill Latham, who was making the 12th of his 14 big league appearances.
Those of us who collected baseball cards in 1987 thought Sierra was headed for the Hall of Fame, maybe even before he retired. He didn’t follow Murray into Cooperstown, but Sierra had a fascinating career in which he played for nine teams and detoured to an independent league in 1999 yet didn’t take his final big league at-bat until 2006.
Card #7: ’86 record breaker: Todd Worrell breaks rookie record for saves
Worrell came within one first-place vote of being a unanimous Rookie of the Year, which seems appropriate for someone who might have been the most experienced rookie in history. Worrell earned five saves in 17 games down the stretch in 1985 and notched a save in the World Series — and was robbed of a second, Series-clinching save by Don Denkinger’s blown call — but maintained his rookie eligibility for 1986, when he racked up a National League-leading 36 saves.
According to Topps, Worrell’s 24th save on Aug. 10 broke the previous rookie record set by Doug Corbett in 1980. But per Baseball-Reference, three pitchers — Dick Radatz, Wayne Granger and Terry Forster — all had more saves as rookies prior to Corbett. Either way, as with Righetti, the scope of Worrell’s mark has diminished somewhat thanks to the proliferation of the closer. Five rookies have exceeded Worrell’s total, led by Craig Kimbrel, who racked up 46 saves for the Atlanta Braves in 2011.
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