The Earliest (but not Oldest) Keith Moreland Baseball Card

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1990 Little Big Leaguers Keith Moreland - Card of the Day

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If you were a collector in the 1980s, you might remember that Keith Moreland first began crashing our wax packs in 1981. (And if you weren’t a collector in the 1980s, well, welcome to the wax pack jungle.)

That was also the same year, of course, that Donruss and Fleer joined Topps in the hobby fray, setting the stage for the boom that would turn baseball cards into a nationwide phenomenon by the middle of the decade.

For his part, Moreland flirted with the big leagues in 1978 and 1979 before finally logging enough time on the Phillies roster to be a “real” rookie in 1980. That summer, he started 49 games as Philly’s catcher (relieving Bob Boone), and made 62 total appearances.

Along the way, the 26-year-old hit a healthy .314 with four home runs and 29 RBI while more or less holding his own behind the plate. That was enough to get Moreland a slot on Philly’s playoff roster, and he made it into two games in the National League Championship Series against the Astros before hitting .313 in three games in the World Series.

No wonder he snagged rookie cards across the board in 1981, huh?

Truth be told, though, Topps beat everyone — including themselves — to the punch, by including Moreland in their 1980 Burger King Phillies set. That issued featured 22 Phils (plus a checklist), including Moreland on card #3:

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That’s about as young-looking as you’ll ever find Moreland on a baseball card, unless you opt for his 1979 Oklahoma City 89ers minor league card (affiliate link).

Or unless, you know, you opt for his 1990 Little Big Leaguers card.

What’s that you say? You’ve never heard of a 1990 Little Big Leaguers card? Well, that’s understandable — it’s not an issue you read much about or see in the wild very often.

But take a gander at the Moreland card at the top of this post and you’ll start to get an idea of what this one is all about.

Get an eyeful?

OK, now the nuts and bolts.

The 1990 Little Big Leaguers set was issued inside of a book by the same name — Little Big Leaguers (Amazon affiliate link) — in 1990. Here is what the book looks like:

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Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo wrote this tome, relating the boyhood baseball stories of 45 then-current (in 1990) diamond stars. George Brett, Dale Murphy, Bo Jackson, and Gary Carter grace the book’s cover, each featured with then-and-now style photos.

And the book went one step further by capturing the “then” photos of each of the profiled players on a special baseball card. The cards were included as five sheets of nine cards with dashed “cut” lines inviting you to separate the cards.

Thus was born the youngest-ever Keith Moreland baseball card, ten years after his rookie season and nine years after his “official” rookie cards. Ironically, Moreland was done in the majors by the time this card — and the book — made it to collectors eager to learn more about “today’s” baseball stars.

Which just goes to show that, sometimes, today may mean yesterday.

But on this actual today, today actually means today. Because today, Keith Moreland turns 71 years old.

Dickie Noles for Dickie Noles

Moreland did most of his damage in the majors with the Cubs from 1982 through 1987. He got to Wrigley Field via a trade that sent him, Dan Larson, and Dickie Noles to the Cubs for Mike Krukow and cash in December of 1981.

Nearly six years later, Noles was involved in an ignominious deal — or two of them, depending on your accounting of such matters — between the Cubs and the Tigers. Read all about that (those) trade(s) and the baseball card conundrum(s) it (they) created right here.