1985 White Sox Coke

The last few weeks, I've been taking trips down memory lane to my childhood. During 1985, it seemed like most weekends, when the Sox were in town, I would end up going to a game with someone. My dad would get free tickets through his work, my school would offer free tickets for good grades and my friends always seemed to have an extra ticket.

I probably went to Comiskey Park during the mid eighties more than any other time in my life. I've been trying to collect the oversize cards that the Sox would give out as promotions during some games. I think that they even gave them out with whatever version of the kids club that was around back then.

Either way, I had a lot of them between 1985 and 1988. I probably had at least two sets from each of those four years. What happens when you mix oversize cards and kids? You get disaster waiting to happen. It didn't help that I couldn't find anything to really protect them properly. All of my team issued eighties card were ultimately destroyed.

I've been looking out for all of these cards and the other team issued cards for the past couple of years. I've run across them, but usually the seller wants more than I'm willing to pay. So, I keep my eyes open for bargains. I'd love to get my hands on the 1990 White Sox Coke set, but that will be nearly impossible because of two rookies in that set. Sammy Sosa and Frank Thomas.

The 1985 set is almost as difficult to find in mint or near mint condition. That all changed this month when a reader named Anthony e-mailed me about trading for a near complete set. It wasn't in mint condition, but it was close enough.

While we were e-mailing back and forth deciding on a fair trade, a miraculous thing happened. One of my long time friends ran across a complete set for $6.00. He snapped it up for me and I was very grateful! A complete set in mint condition was one goal that I could cross off my list.

So, what happened to Anthony's trade? I still made the trade, but I only chose three cards. I chose a Harold Baines, an Ozzie Guillen and a Nancy Faust. He didn't have the Fisk card available. Why these particular cards? Easy. All three are still currently employed by the White Sox. My thinking is that they would be the easiest to possibly sign these cards. Anthony requested cards of Tony LaRussa, Jay Buhner and Yadier Molina. I did the best I could to find cards that he didn't have.

There are 30 cards in this 1985 White Sox Coke set.

0 - Oscar Gamble (Zeke Bonura)
1 - Scott Fletcher (Luke Appling)
3 - Harold Baines (Bill Melton)
5 - Luis Salazar (Chico Carrasquel)
7 - Marc Hill (Sherm Lollar)
8 - Daryl Boston (Jim Landis)
10 - Tony LaRussa (Al Lopez)
12 - Julio Cruz (Nellie Fox)
13 - Ozzie Guillen (Luis Aparicio)
17 - Jerry Hairston (Smoky Burgess)
20 - Joe DeSa (Carlos May)
22 - Joel Skinner (J.C. Martin)
23 - Rudy Law (Bill Skowron)
24 - Floyd Bannister (Red Faber)
29 - Greg Walker (Dick Allen)
30 - Gene Nelson (Early Wynn)
32 - Tim Hulett (Pete Ward)
34 - Richard Dotson (Ed Walsh)
37 - Dan Spillner (Thornton Lee)
40 - Britt Burns (Gary Peters)
41 - Tom Seaver (Ted Lyons)
42 - Ron Kittle (Minnie Minoso)
43 - Bob James (Hoyt Wilhelm)
44 - Tom Paciorek (Eddie Collins)
46 - Tim Lollar (Billy Pierce)
50 - Juan Agosto (Wilbur Wood)
72 - Carlton Fisk (Ray Schalk)
NNO - Comiskey Park
NNO - Nancy Faust
NNO - Ribbie & Roobarb

These cards are paper thin. They won't stay in pages. If anyone has a suggestion on how to store odd size cards that are paper thin in plastic pages, I'm all ears. I have the same trouble with the 1989 White Sox Coke set that I have. They are in 8 pocket pages, but they won't stay in. I'd love a solution where I can see both sides of the card clearly.

This is the set that turned me on to the history of the game. I had to know each and every player in the little oval on the bottom right hand side. For this year, the Sox paired up the regular players with iconic White Sox legends. The pair was usually the same position, but not always.

The cards are also numbered by uniform, with three cards not having a number. There were non-numbered cards of the park the Sox played in, the organist and the mascots. These are actually neat looking cards. They have great shots of the players, White Sox legends, and a nice design. This is probably my favorite set from 1985. The only downgrade of that opinion comes from the oddball size. These cards hold special memories from my childhood. Better memories than even Topps, Fleer and Donruss could provide.

Thank you to everyone who helped me obtain this set.