By 1983, Donruss had two years of baseball card production under their belts and was looking to expand their product line. In addition to the jumbo sized Action All-Stars release, they also produced another product which as the name suggests, focused on some of the legends of baseball’s past.
All the player bios come from the Hall of Fame Yearbook.
Dick Perez created the artwork for the Diamond Kings Donruss subsets which first debuted in 1982. His handiwork was also used for this set in 1983. In fact, 43 of the 44 cards in the checklist feature his paintings, and the one that doesn’t use his art is actually the checklist. Mantle, Cy Young, Dizzy Dean, Ted WIlliams, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson, and Al Kaline are just a few of the names to track down.
The set came in 38 pack boxes with eight cards and one set of three puzzle pieces in each pack. I find that interesting. The Action All-Stars set had a 60 card checklist and only had six cards in each pack. This Hall of Fame Heroes set only had 44 cards on the checklist, but each pack had eight cards per pack. Collectors should be able to put several sets together with a single box. Like the Action All-Stars set, Donruss used a Mantle Puzzle in this product instead of the Ty Cobb puzzle used in the flagship release.
Sealed boxes and packs are not nearly as plentiful as the Action All-Stars packs. If you can find them, packs will run you a couple bucks each and boxes can be picked up for about $25 plus shipping. Complete sets can be had for about $10 delivered.
Overall, this set isn’t my favorite of the early Donruss releases. However, if you are a fan of oddball cards that are a bit outside the mainstream, then this is a set you might want to consider adding to your collection.
Checklist
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