Vida Blue: 110 Baseball Cards

 

A collage of some of the Vida Blue baseball cards I bought. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

A while ago, I decided I should collect more of Vida Blue’s baseball cards. So, I bought a lot of 110 cards from eBay. The oldest cards in the lot are from 1980, so there’s nothing covering his years with the Oakland A’s.

I just wrote an overview of Vida Blue’s career in baseball, and I was planning on writing about these baseball cards in the same post, but the overview became longer and longer, and it felt like too much to shoehorn the discussion of the baseball cards into it, so I decided to discuss Blue’s baseball cards in a separate post.

1981 Topps Scratch-off, 1982 and 1983 Fleer Stamps

There was nothing truly rare in this lot of cards, but there were some fun oddities included, like the 1981 Topps scratch-offs and the 1982 and 1983 Fleer stamps. These are the types of curiosities that I never encountered at the card stores back in the 1980’s and 1990’s, so it’s nice to add them to my collection.

Vida Blue's 1980 and 1981 Topps cards. Blue with a blue sky.

Blue’s 1980 and 1981 Topps cards are similar, as I guess the temptation to photograph Vida Blue against a blue sky was just too much. Both cards still look cool, though. I like the classic simplicity of the 1980 design, and I have a soft spot for the 1981's, with their ridiculous hat, because I was born in 1981.

1983 Donruss and 1983 Fleer, featuring those cool power blue uniforms.

Because of his name, it seems only fitting that Vida Blue got to play for the Kansas City Royals when they had those cool powder blue uniforms. One of my cool baseball card treasures is a Vida Blue 1983 Topps card of him with the Royals signed in blue sharpie. Blue on blue on blue. Unfortunately, Blue’s tenure with the Royals wasn’t that successful, and they ended up releasing him in August of 1983.

Shortly after the Royals released Blue, he pleaded guilty to cocaine possession and served about 3 months in jail. Blue was banned from baseball for the 1984 season. He went to spring training in 1985 with the Giants as a non-roster invitee and pitched well enough to be added to the roster.

1986 Topps and 1987 Fleer

Blue went 18-18 for the Giants over 1985 and 1986, and he picked up his 200^th win in April of 1986. After the 1986 season, Blue became a free agent. The photo on Blue's 1986 Topps card has the glossy look of a traded card.

1987 Topps and 1987 O-Pee-Chee. Blue retired just before spring training 1987 began, so he didn't get to finish his career with the team he started with.

Blue signed with the Oakland A’s in January of 1987. This is reflected in his 1987 O-Pee-Chee card, with the designation “Now with A’s.” A month later, Blue abruptly retired just before spring training began. It turned out that Blue had tested positive for drugs, and no doubt this was his impetus behind retiring. Blue's O-Pee-Chee card remains the only baseball card evidence of his short-lived second tenure with the A's.

SPBA cards featuring Blue with the Orlando Juice and St. Lucie Legends.

Vida Blue pitched again in 1989 for the St. Lucie Legends and the Orlando Juice of the Senior Professional Baseball Association. Blue was 2-7 with a 4.87 ERA for the Legends over 11 games, and 1-2 with a 7.20 ERA in 4 games for the Juice. He finished the 1989 season with a record of 3-9 with a 5.55 ERA over 15 games. In 1990, Blue pitched for the San Bernardino Pride and pitched in 3 games with no decisions and a 4.15 ERA when the league went under. The Senior Professional Baseball Association is fascinating to me, as I only heard about the league, made up of former MLB players, maybe 10 years ago.

Blue pitched in 3 games for the San Bernardino Pride in the winter of 1990 before the SPBA folded.

The fact that this lot included Blue’s cards with the SPBA helped me in deciding to buy it. The SPBA cards aren’t especially valuable, but you don’t see them very often, and they’re cool post-career mementos to have.