1981 Donruss, Joe Strain

#73 Joe Strain

This card is one of my more recent additions to the set. Most of my '81 Donruss cards were acquired in 2007 when I picked up an unopened box on Ebay for about thirty bucks. By the beginning of this year, I had sent out most of those cards that I had to the guys that were the best signers. But, there are a lot of great signers out there that I did not have cards of, so I started looking at my options for getting the cards of those guys.

The first place I looked was Check Out My Cards (yes, I know it is called Collectibles now, but it is still Cards to me). There are a lot of cards from the set on there, but the cheapest you can pick one up for is about fifty cents. I might spend that on a Hall of Fame player from the set, but I am not going to do it for a common. Then, I finally checked out Sportslots and I was really pleased with my results. After playing around a bit and finding ways to minimize the shipping costs, I was able to pick up a healthy stack of cards from the set for eighteen cents a piece. This is one of the cards that I got from the lot. I sent it to Joe at the beginning of last month and I had it back eleven days later.

Joe is another Major League short-timer that is featured in the '81 Donruss set. His career lasted 169 games over three seasons with the Giants and Cubs. He is listed as a shortstop on this card, but Joe only played short in one Major League game. He mainly played second, though he did play a few times at third, too. Joe was a .250 hitter and he hit one home run. That one home run was hit in the top of the ninth of a tied game against the Expos in 1979. It could have been the game winner, but Gary Lavelle was unable to convert the save.

'81 Donruss Tracker: 98/100