For sometime in the baseball card collecting world there have been pre-war 1880-1939 era cards and then everything else.
For me, it’s now 1980’s through whenever anyone started watching out-of-market games on an MLB.TV subscription. The baseball fan in the 80’s and 90’s simply never saw certain players play on Saturday afternoons, the only time that out-of-market games were viewable.
For me Von Hayes was that guy. Later in life I was selling baseball cards on eBay and a buyer became quite interested in a Von Hayes card to my surprise. Come to find out, they were a big Von Hayes collector. Yep, Hayes was big in Philly.
For Donruss in 1990, he’s all over the set. He has three cards. His regular 278 card, the MVP card and then a Donruss Learning series card.
The MVP insert seems to stand out for the serious look on Hayes face and the bat over his right shoulder (he batted lefty, see card back below). Some might see a look of a ball player who would much rather be doing anything other than getting his photo taken by a sports card photographer. Others might see a ball player who had the weight of the Phillies offense on his shoulders. Either way, it appears Hayes took his baseball seriously.
Back to the MVP card, to an eight-year old wouldn’t it be just confusing that Von Hayes was named the MVP? ‘I’ve never heard of the guy, yet he’s the MVP’?
Then you find out there are lots of MVPs in Donruss baseball sets. MVP for Donruss is the MVP of that player’s team. Hayes received zero National League MVP votes in 1989. Kevin Mitchell of the San Francisco Giants was the real MVP of the National League. That’s not to say that Hayes didn’t have a phenomenal ’89 season, he hit a career-high 26 home runs that season and was selected for the All-Star game.
It felt like he played for the Phillies forever. Hayes actually played 12 years in the big leagues, winding his career with a final season in California with the Angels. A wrist injury in ’91 after getting plunked by the Reds’ Tom Browning hastened the end of his playing days.
As of 2022, after almost a 15-year managerial career, Hayes is a long-haul trucker.
