Bruce Sutter Closes His Longest Game

Bruce Sutter is one of only a few Hall Of Famers that I collect out of 50+ baseball players.  So it's a definite must-post on the occasion of his passing.  Wrigley Wax posted all he had of Sutter, which were all Cubs, but there were several that I don't have.  (Jealous.)

Get ready, my binder had 16 pages, and then there are the odd size or shape and autos and gamers after that....

I'm pretty sure I upgraded my '77 rookie card at one point.  The first one I had was not the best condition.  

A couple notes on the arrangement of things to make it easier to identify certain cards.  Up through 1980, I put Topps first and O-Pee-Chee beside them and then put anything else next.  Hence Kellogg's and Hostess follow OPC.  After 1980, I put all sets in alphabetical order.

So there are the OPC, Topps and Burger King in the first row, then Kellogg's.  Love those '81 Fleer stickers.  How is that '81 Kellogg's so O/C??

Then we move into the Cardinals cards.  OPC in slot 1 (love it when they advance the team), then Perma-Graphics (credit) card, '81 regular, Coke and Traded...

Works out well to line up the '82 OPC & Topps and still have the Perma- in the right spot.

1983 ends with the Rub-Off.  I put any with my player guys on them with that player facing up.

These are a bit out of order now that I look at them.  The center slot is a Tiffany, so I might have been in the middle of deciding whether to line up the player cards and the Active Leaders or put all three player cards together.

Yeah, the glossy is out of sequence, as is the OPC, but grouping the pictures takes priority.  These are the OCD debates you have with collections in binders...sometimes it's just whatever looks better.

And now the Braves years.  I really don't remember him on the Braves.  Not sure how much baseball I watched in the late 80's as it was right after I graduated high school.  The two SportFlics have the same photo of Bruce among the three on each card.

Another Tiffany.  The spaces are just me making room in case there's something else from '88.

The Tiffany trifecta completed with the '89.  And with the Upper Deck, here endeth the active career cards.  Post-career section starts with the McDonalds.  Sorry Bo, I didn't have a second one for you.

Almost every great retired star set of the time here...

Still need the bronze Fleer Greats.  They sure like that Cubs pose of his.  The Tribute barely fits in the page slot, much like the Triple Threads below.

Now we get to some really pretty cards.  And some serial numbers.  The 2010 is a Topps Update legend variations.  The '77 reprint is from 2011 Topps 60 Years.  The cracked ice looking Coopy doesn't come through on the scan very well.

I only have one of the Wrigley Field giveaway cards (the '63 design).  I was there for one batch, but haven't found the others and didn't know there were stamped ones for the season ticket holders until I saw WWax's post.  That's a cool '73 flavor Archive, isn't it?

One from the Stan Musial set Heroes, a rather generic Panini, and a Cooperstown induction that I just randomly found somewhere.  Most of these recent parallels and rare ones I just find in dollar boxes etc. 
I don't aggressively seek out Sutter stuff as much as several of my other guys, but he's around second-tier as far as my priorities go.  (There are probably about five tiers - 1) the few guys I want EVERYTHING of, 2) players with good careers who have a decent number of offbrand and post-career cards, 3) guys with the basics and a few others, 4) guys with a minimum of cards that I still like, and 5) players I could take out of my PCs if I had to.)

That DK Heritage card looked really distorted when I scanned it.  Then I took it out of the page and figured out why...

That texture must have blown the scanner's mind a little bit...

Last page in my binder.  Top three are Archives.  Last two probably have six parallels, but I won't chase them too hard. (Not that I'll turn them down if they're cheap).

These are pulled from my binder of odd sized issues, which is arranged by size and not year, so these are all over the place.  The 7-11 coins are from '84 (1), '85 (2), and '86 (4).  There are two more that I haven't found yet.  He has a ton of them.  To figure out the scale, the Squirt card is regulation 2½" x 3½".  The white disc is a Colgan's Chip from 2013 Cooperstown, the little rectangular one is a 1981 All-Star Game Program insert - one of those wacky things that has a ton of my PC guys in it, but I'd never have fathomed that I'd ever actually have some.

Here's Bruce on the 7-11's since Quisenberry showed on the scan.

The backs of the coins plus an '89 LJN Baseball Talk record card thingy that can be put on a player like a phonograph.  (You young'uns look that up).  And a piece of a Fold-Out from the late 80's too.

'80 & '85 Supers

And finally, the coolest ones.  I'm lucky to have found most of these that are numbered so low. (at least to me).  That "...Lineage" one has the obligatory space for an auto that you didn't get, but it's nice anyway.  I wish they'd have swapped the photos on the dual Gagne piece and the Memorable Moments auto so the swatch would match the jersey.  But it was probably less than $10 or 15, so I'm not complaining.

I can't really go on for long about all the details of Sutter's career and say that I'm deeply affected by his passing.  I can say that watching his dominance for the Cardinals was the inspiration for this collection, so there is at least some nostalgic attachment.  I was a fan of the Cardinals when I was young, and he was one of my favorites.  I enjoyed watching when he and his new HOF friends got together on tv specials as well.

"I mean, he won all these awards and all this stuff and they weren't even hung out in the house because all he cared about was winning and being respected by the other players and being a good teammate. That was his whole motivation," [son] Chad Sutter told the AP....