1988 Star Co Kirby Puckett Set

 

The recent card show mentioned in my prior post wasn't a total disaster.  I did find this Star Co set of Kirby Puckett which I had never seen before.  The set itself is really nothing special other then it was issued when Puckett was in the prime of his career.  Nevertheless, I don't recall ever seeing this in the wild and you know the time to buy something is when you see it. 

  

This particular set was issued in 1988 and contains 11 cards of the Hall of Famer.

The second card contain his minor league stats.  It doesn't indicate what the asterisk is for, but I'm assuming that means he was a league leader in that category.

Up to this point his major league stats are impressive.  You can see he was starting to build a hall-of-fame resume.

Until 1987, Twins fans didn't have much to cheer about, but at least this gave Star Co an excuse to include a Post Season Stats card.  Hard to believe he has such a dismal batting record during the playoffs but at least he turned it on during the World Series.

Puckett's All-Star stats aren't all that impressive but you don't get into the Hall based on this game.

Two cards in this set have random fun facts.  In August of 1987 he caught fire and established an American League record for most hits in 2 consecutive 9-inning games.    

The second info card has more fun facts.

Though the Hit Machine fun facts are cool, this card annoys the heck out of me.  Why put a horizontal photo in the middle of this set?  Makes no sense.

Ahhh, the baby blues!  Though I didn't care for them back in the day as they reminded me of a softball uniform.  This is the only card in the set with a pre-1987 photo.

The last two cards of this set are there as filler.  Or maybe meant for autograph chasing.

This set isn't the greatest thing ever for us Puckett collectors.  There are some good action photos and I like the fun facts about Puckett.  What I don't like is the color gradient of the set.  Star could have matched the Twins team colors, then this would have stood out.  Also go back and look at all the photos.  See a pattern?  Puckett isn't smiling in any of these.  In fact, there are a couple of photos where he looks downright annoyed.  And I'm annoyed too, that as a Puckett collector I had to have this set.