Buyback Franken-set: Diving Back Into the Mega-Lot

Let's dive back into the recent mega-lot of 2017 Topps buybacks I picked up and evaluate another batch of ten here for my franken-set...

1977 Topps #553 - Jack Heidemann

With hundreds of these to get through I'm gonna speed things up a bit today.  Don't know the first thing about Jack Heidemann, but 553 is a new number for the project.  Off to a great start!

1988 Topps #462 - Don Slaught

Don Slaught enjoyed a 16-year career as a catcher at the MLB level.  What I remember most about Don from collecting as a kid is that any time I pulled one of his cards I was amused by the fact that his name reminds me of the word onslaught.  That's about all I've got.  Another new number though, this card is in!

1989 Topps #432 - Chad Kreuter

Second straight Rangers catcher here, with backstop Chad Kreuter.  A boring card if I'm being totally honest, and that is one ugly mesh jersey.  I was almost relieved to find a card already in the binder in slot 432:

Phew!

Off to the rejected box for Kreuter...

1987 Topps #215 - Mark Langston

Next up is strikeout specialist Mark Langston.  Mark was a 4x All-Star and 7x Gold Glove winner.  This is a pretty cool card too, as 1987 was the third time in a four-year span that Langston led the AL in strikeouts.  Mark piled up over 2,400 Ks over the course of his career.  This one's in as far as the franken-set goes.

1989 Topps #659 - Al Leiter

Here's a nice buyback of a young Al Leiter.  Al's no-hitter, All-Star selections and World Series championships would all come years after this card was printed up.  A nice high number card for the project at 659, this one is in!

1988 Topps #589 - Geno Petralli

The odds of this seem awfully slim, but here's the third Rangers catcher I plucked from the box within this grouping of ten.  Petralli was largely a backup catcher who bounced up and down between the minors and the bigs with the Blue Jays and Rangers over the course of about a dozen seasons.  A good enough place-holder for now for a number I was missing for my set.

1989 Topps #187 - Darren Daulton

Here's longtime Phillie Darren Daulton on an '89 Topps buyback.  I'd completely forgotten until writing up this post that Darren latched on with the Marlins in 1997 just in time to win a World Series.  I'm extremely intrigued by the person behind the mesh in the background of the photo, what is going on there?

This '78 Jerry Royster was occupying slot 187 previously...

...but he's out in order to make room for Daulton.

I've only completed one page so far at this stage of the project, and this Royster card was on it.  So...

...here's the before...

...and here's the after.  I'm sure I'll have more completed pages soon, I have a feeling they're going to come in bunches once they start occurring.

1988 Topps #689 - Tom Pagnozzi

Tom Pagnozzi played his entire career for the Cardinals, won three Gold Gloves and was named an All-Star in 1992.  He wasn't the biggest threat at the plate, but as the Gold Gloves indicate was known as a defensive specialist at a position where defense is damn important.  Happy to welcome Tom to the binder in slot 689!

1988 Topps #598 - Lee Lacy

Here's a nice "sunset" buyback of Lee Lacy, who appeared in his final MLB game in October of 1987.  Random bit of trivia, his daughter is a basketball player in the WNBA!  Lacy was a member of the 1979 World Series champion Pirates, and was involved with the drug scandal surrounding the team a few years later.  As my first #598 buyback this one makes the cut as well.

1989 Topps #394 - Orel Hershiser

Final card for today is an extremely blue Orel Hershiser from the '89 Topps All-Star subset.  1989 was actually the third and final time that Orel was selected as an All-Star.  Hershiser must have been on cloud nine here, having won a Cy Young Award and a World Series the season prior.  I could see this one making a stand in the binder for a long time, it's going to take quite a competing buyback to dislodge Orel from his place.

Out of ten buybacks I got eight new numbers here.  This is more along the lines of what I was hoping for when I grabbed this big lot.  If I can plod along at this rate for a few more posts I'll be crossing the 50% threshold soon here...

Franken-set Progress:  366/792 (46%)
"Rejected" Buybacks:  154
Total Buybacks in Collection: 520