1984 Tony Peña Was Nestled in, Ready for 'Crunch' Time
He wasn't much of a breakfast guy, though
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1984 Nestlé Dream Team Tony Peña (#19) - Card of the Day
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You can often tell a collector’s childhood era by the bits of food he still has lodged in whatever teeth he has left as an adult. You know the ones, jammed in place decades earlier and all with a familiar cardboard essence.
If you still dislodge chunks of Red Heart dog food during your nightly brushing routine, for example, you’re likely a child of the 1950s.
Does your breath occasionally breeze a mixture of Salada tea and Junket pudding across an open room? You were a collector in 1962, no doubt.
And if your mercury-amalgam fillings still hold the remnants of cornflakes, Whoppers, Fun Meals, and Twinkies? Welcome to the room, you disco dandy!
But if your chompers are coated with Cookie Crisp dust held in place by a protective coating of Nestlé chocolate, it’s time to party like it’s 1984!
Indeed, just about any summer in the 1980s was reason enough to party for a young baseball nut, thanks to endless days on your bike and playing backyard/sideyard/down-the-street baseball, followed by long nights sorting baseball cards, reading about baseball, watching baseball, listening to baseball.
Heck, even a trip to the store with mom was a potential hobby adventure.
Because, beyond the search for the normal wax packs and rack packs and cello packs in the toy aisle at the grocery store or the candy rack at the drugstore, there was always a chance baseball cards would turn up someplace exotic.
You know, like on Mac & Cheese boxes.
Or jutting out of cartons of Squirt soda.
Or maybe packaged with potato chips, cupcakes, or cookies, depending on when and where you shopped.
In the summer of 1984, though, while the world was getting warmed up for the Los Angeles Olympics and the U.S. presidential election, young collectors had to finagle our way through two sets of grocery-store negotiations.
First was the little matter of convincing mom, dad, or whoever held the purse strings that day that Cookie Crisp (or sometimes another related option) was suitable breakfast fare, so we could get our hands on a three-pack (plus a checklist!) of Ralston Purina cards that waited inside each (or some) of the boxes.
That set contained 33 numbered player cards, plus the unnumbered checklist, so you had to eat a lot of cereal — and have some luck — to complete the run. It was all the tougher to really complete the run, since there were two variations of each card:
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The prevailing wisdom is that the “Ralston Purina Company” cards were issued in marked boxes of cereal, while the “CEREAL SERIES” cards were issued in unmarked boxes. Surprise!
Either way, you can clearly see from the back of the “CEREAL SERIES” cards who actually made these babies:
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But while Topps was busy packing cereal boxes with these thin, cream-stocked specimens, they were also busy stuffing cool stuff inside six packs (not sure on the size) of Nestlé candy bars.
Issued as four cards (three players and a checklist) inside cellophane packs, the Nestlé Dream Team checklist was even more exclusive than the Ralston run, featuring just 22 players. That broke down to 11 big names from the American League and 11 from the National League.
In effect, these were All-Star teams, with each league’s lineup featuring one player at each position, plus left- and right-handed starters, plus a reliever. Here are the two “teams”…
American League:
4 Cal Ripken, Jr.
5 Jim Rice
10 Ron Guidry
National League:
12 Steve Garvey
13 Johnny Ray
14 Mike Schmidt
15 Ozzie Smith
16 Andre Dawson
17 Tim Raines
18 Dale Murphy
19 Tony Pena
20 John Denny
22 Al Holland
As you can see from the Tony Peña card at the top of this post, the front design doesn’t necessarily scream “1984 Topps!”. But mushy brown cardstock at least whispers it, and the card back gets downright vocal about it…
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For comparison purposes, here is Peña’s 1984 Topps base-card back:
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And, what the heck, here’s the front of the Topps card, since it’s pretty neat looking:
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So, of all the players on the Nestlé checklist, why feature Peña here? Well, there are at least a couple of reasons.
For one thing, he sort of takes the place of Gary Carter, who was in the Ralston set(s), as you see above, but who wasn’t on the Dream Team.
For another, the yellow Nestlé borders work great with Peña’s Pirates uniform, especially with the tropical themes playing out in the background of the photo.
But mostly, Tony Peña doesn’t really get enough love these days, not for a five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner whose work (and stance) behind the plate still influences catchers — and by extension, pitchers — today.
To say nothing of his Manager of the Year award (2003).
And today seems like as good a day as any, and better than most, to dust off an oddball (but beautiful) Peña baseball card and spend a few minutes with one of the greatest catchers of his generation. Because today, Tony Peña turns 68 years old.