1988 Donruss

I'm still here... again

2009-07-10T21:10:00.002-04:00

Ok... this work thing is really screwing with me, but it's better than the alternative I guess. I haven't touched a baseball card in about a week and I really want to get back into this box break, but I just can't find the time.

Don't give up on me, we're going to continue looking at every card from every pack of this box until we're finished, and eventually we'll do the same for 1988 Topps. I've just gotta get this work and sleep and life thing figured out.

Thanks again for your patience.

Pack Five

2009-07-06T18:32:00.000-04:00

Pack 5 +15

104 Scott Bailes - Atypical for this set is a very nice, crisp photograph. I like that you can see his grip on the ball.

94 Orel Hershiser - A pitcher batting? What is this demonry!

Hershiser knew how to handle himself with a bad and compiled a .201 average with 50 RBIs in 18 seasons. Not too bad.

If I pull a second copy of this card, I'll probably send it off for another autograph from Mr. Hershiser. The '88 Score and Topps he sent back are beautiful, and I found an extra '89 Topps that would look nice with an autograph.

84 Greg Mathews - Ah. Mr. Mathews. The man with a few unexplained votes for 1987 NL Rookie of the Year. Even after hearing from his girlfriend a few months ago, I still don't have an accurate ending to the story. Maybe an email to her could possibly get Greg himself to tell us what was going on.

This is a great looking card, again a nice view of his grip on the ball. And there's two guys out in the bullpen just relaxing before the phone rings.

Dodger stadium?

415 Brian Fisher - I really like the old Pirates logo with the new one on the shoulder of the guy next to Fisher.

He had a pretty good 1987 for a Pirates team that finished near the bottom of the division.

159 Mike Fitzgerald - As much as I love the old Expos jerseys and hats, this picture is too overexposed to like. It's overexposed AND shadowey... good work Donruss.

What do Mike Fitzgerald and Braves prospect Jordan Shafer have in common? They both hit a home run in their first Major League at bat and both did it against the Phillies. Fitzgerald did it three years before Shafer was born though.

4 Alan Trammell – Diamond King - Trammell looks like a King of the Hill character in this painting.

625 The Ripken Baseball Family - This is a horrible scan of a horrible picture. What could be a great card with my favorite player ever, turned into one of those "oh shit here comes Aunt Martha with a camera, pretend to like each other" pictures.

151 Bill Wegman - More typical of Donruss photography. Bad, bad.

626 Pat Perry - Another terrible photo.

502 Angel Salazar - I remember pulling this card years ago and thinking just because of the look on his face that I didn't like Angel Salazar. Twenty years later, I still don't like Angel Salazar.

Based on his numbers, there's not a lot to like. In 2008, Andruw Jones fared marginally better at the plate... that's saying something... something bad.

369 Eric Davis - This would be a pretty good looking picture if the colors weren't so washed out.

237 Marvell Wynne - This picture had to have been taken during spring training 1988 because in 1987, Marvell wore number 7. Keith Moreland wore 7 in 1988 and Wynne wore number 16.

Also the black line on the left side of the reverse is screwed up. I thought it was a scanner defect at first, but it's actually the card.

105 Mike Pagliarulo - Another bad picture.

95 Chros Bando - When you can see the bottom of the batter's front foot, and his back leg is that close to the ground he will never generate any power.

85 Jim Deshaies - I assume he's just delivered the pitch, but it looks strange. I do like the old Astros uniform though.

And there's pack five. No picture of the puzzle tonight because my camera is dead. Hopefully I'll remember to get new batteries tomorrow so we can see more puzzle.

I like the Hershiser card a lot, but the nicest looking photograph in this pack was probaby the Scott Bailes card.

I'm still here

2009-07-05T00:47:00.002-04:00

I haven't gone away, but the box break is on hold until Monday. This new job (Wal-Mart... yeah yeah, it's a job... and after three months I'll get a discount on things like baseball cards) has me working some crazy hours so far. It's 12:48am and I just got home, and I have to work 11am until 8pm tomorrow.

But I'm off on Monday, so the box break will resume them.

Until I get back, I'll leave you with this... it's either going to make you want to play Zelda (which I just started doing on the Wii's Virtual Console a few days ago), or beat me with a stick for making you sit through it.

Thanks for the patience.

Pack Four

2009-07-02T20:34:00.002-04:00

Pack 4 +12
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)

641 Stan Musial Puzzle - Here's what the puzzle of Stan the Man will eventually look like.

If I can complete the puzzle, I think I'll get it framed. I probably won't hang it on a wall anywhere, but it'll take up just as much space in a frame behind the TV as it would broken into pieces in a box.

It's not a bad looking painting though and may not look bad on a wall. We'll see.

If I had a baseball room like chemgod's hockey room, I'd certainly put it on the wall.

20 Mark Langston – Diamond King - Even though they didn't exist for another ten years, the background of this card would have looked better with an Arizona Diamondback... it's got that whole southwest theme going.

Langston had a pretty good career. But according to Wikipedia, was a voice actor on the atrocity of a cartoon Captain Planet.

508 Robbie Wine - I don't have anything to say about this card. But I'm interested in one of the stats on the back. More specifically, one of the career highlights.

"All Star at Columbus in '85 despite batting just .190 in 109 games..."

What?

Let's expand his stats a bit. He batted .190/.245/.398, 21 home runs and 55 RBIs. He was no where on the league leaders in any offensive category (though his 21 homers led the team). Behind the plate he made eight errors, so he certainly wasn't outstanding defensively.

On the team that year, only outfielder Curtis Burke had a lower batting average (.179), but he played in only 22 games.

Without a way to compare stats for other catchers in the league, I can only assume that the Southern League didn't have a lot of great catchers that year.

In the Majors, Wine played in 23 total games between 1986 and 1987.

In March 1988, he was traded to the Rangers for Mike Loynd (scroll about half way through that post... I can't wait to see what horrible things Donruss did to poor Mike Loynd in 1988). But by that point Wine was finished with Major League ball. He stayed in the minors until 1990 and these days he's a coach at Penn State.

495 Mark Knudson - There's not a lot to say about Knudson's career, and with a name like Knudson I'm sure I could come up with all kinds of fun things to say. But I'm going to take the high road here and point out that we can assume one of only two things from this photograph.

Either A.) He's wearing a hat that's a few sizes too small, or B.) He has a very oddly shaped head.

Knudson was the starter and winner of the Brewer's 1991 season opener against the Texas Rangers, but he soon fell ill and missed much of the season.

These days he's a writer and has worked with the Colorado Rockies in their community relations department.

362 Mike Aldrete - I've written about Mike Aldrete at least once.

This would be a great shot if his arms weren't covered the Giants name on his jersey since the word on his jersey is sitting at just about the same flat angle of the printed logo on the card.

228 Willie Randolph - I'm usually a fan of the full body action shot. But this is a great close cropped shot. I can't tell if it's a pose or not because Willie looks pretty focused on the pitcher. Most posed shots have the guy in a batting pose looking at the camera man.

With this card I have to say, well done Donruss.

93 Dave Righetti - This was a double out of the first pack, and I don't intend to repost doubles. But since the first pack was posted, sans full pack scans, on A Pack to be Named Later, I figured I'd show the card here.

575 Dennis Rasmussen - Here's a guy I don't know much about. But I was suprised to see that he won 18 games in 1986.

The last line of his highlights that includes some guys he had been traded for is interesting but ultimately a bit misleading. He was a player to be named later in the Tommy John deal, and was part of another player to be named later in the Nettles deal (though he wasn't the player to be named later... that turned out to be Darin Cloninger).

Here's the full text of the trades mention on the card:

November 24, 1982: Sent by the California Angels to the New York Yankees to complete an earlier deal made on August 31, 1982. The California Angels sent a player to be named later to the New York Yankees for a player to be named later and Tommy John. The California Angels sent Dennis Rasmussen (November 24, 1982) to the New York Yankees to complete the trade.

September 12, 1983: Sent by the New York Yankees to the San Diego Padres to complete an earlier deal made on August 26, 1983. The New York Yankees sent players to be named later and $200,000 to the San Diego Padres for players to be named later and John Montefusco. The New York Yankees sent Dennis Rasmussen (September 12, 1983) and Edwin Rodriguez (September 12, 1983) to the San Diego Padres to complete the trade.

March 30, 1984: Traded by the San Diego Padres with a player to be named later to the New York Yankees for a player to be named later and Graig Nettles. The San Diego Padres sent Darin Cloninger (minors) (April 26, 1984) to the New York Yankees to complete the trade.

568 Gene Larkin - If there were captions to these photographs, this one would read: How to sit in the dugout with a goofly look on your face.

Read the last line of his career highlights. That's one hell of a legacy to give yourself.

429 Ray Searage - Here's another guy that looks a little too happy to be in a completely empty stadium.

Does anyone else think that the little guy on the old White Sox logo looks like he's about to get hit in the nose with the baseball?

418 Mark Williamson - I like the old Orioles hat, but I think it looks more like a gorilla than a bird.

Williamson took part in the, to date, last no hitter thrown by the Baltimore Orioles. Williamson pitched a perfect eighth inning of this game on July 13, 1991. Bob Milacki started and lasted six innings, Mike Flanagan pitched the seventh, and Gregg Olson finished it out. Milacki walked three and Flanagan walked one, otherwise the Orioles were perfect. They were still in sixth place, 15.5 out, though.

39 Kirt Manwaring - Rated Rookie(pack 2)

200 Checklist - I've said many times before that I'm a fan of this style checklist. I know a lot of people don't like the checklists numbered as part of the set, and some are against having the checklists inserted through out the set. And I'm on the fence about where to put them. Part of me likes them inserted through out the set to break it into sections, as Donruss has here, every 100 cards. But I also like them at the end of the set, like the Fleer and Bowman sets we've looked at on this site.

BC-25 Alvin Davis - Alvin Davis didn't have a very long career, but he had a very good career. Because of his great 1987 season, Donruss chose him as the Mariners MVP.

If it weren't so shadowy, this would be a great looking card.

631 Tim Laudner - Pretty nice looking shot with old school powder blue away pants.

Best card of the pack... I'm gonna have to go with Willie Randolph on this one.

As to the puzzle, my string of border pieces has continued.

There are 63 pieces to this puzzle. So with luck, I should be able to complete the puzzle.

Just a note to everyone keeping score at home, I'm starting a new job tomorrow, so I'm not sure when tomorrow's pack will be up. If there's not a pack tomorrow, you'll know why, and there will be two on Saturday.

Pack Three

2009-07-01T19:11:00.003-04:00

Pack 3 +14
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)

615 Scott Lusader - I've never heard of this guy. But after some digging around, Scott is one of eight players to have committed three errors in the same inning in Major League history. It happened in the first inning of this game, on September 9, 1989 against the White Sox.

Poor guy. In his entire five year career he made only six errors. But three in one game never looks good, much less three in one inning. Dan Uggla made three in last year's All Star game, but only two came in the same inning.

486 Rick Manning - The upper half of Rick's bat blends so well with the blurry fans in the background that on first glance it looks like it's not there.

Just because of the badass Brewers logo, this card will get some consideration in the best of the pack running.

476 Dan Petry - What is that white thing behind the outfield fence? Is it a fountain? Any ideas where it could be?

342 Mel Hall - Woo! A second child molester. I'm not going to let doubles bother me in this box because I know at the end enough people will want to get rid of their extra cards that I won't have trouble completing the set.

If I had any Co2 cartridges left, I'd take ol' Mel out back and shoot him. But... alas, there is no air.

207 Von Hays - I don't know a lot about Von Hayes. He was card number 666 in '87 Topps, that's the only thing I remember about him.

I do like the old Phillies logo though.

10 Julio Franco – Diamond King - Another Diamond King that fell just short of looking like who it's supposed to look like.

I know I say this every time Julio Franco comes up, but I think he deserves serious consideration for the Hall of Fame. He is a career .298 hitter over the course of 23 seasons (plus a few in Japan). He racked up nearly 2600 hits and close to 1200 RBIs, and 281 stolen bases on top of that.

On Baseball Reference's similarity scores, there's only one HoF'er in Franco's top 10, but a few of them (Larkin and Jeter) will most likely be in the Hall pretty soon.

I also think Julio will make a fine Major League manager some day.

554 Rocky Childress - "Hey Rocky, come stand in as much shadow as you possibly can, then I'll take your picture."

Is that the Astrodome? That's a home jersey, but it looks a little too sunny to be inside.

543 Jim Morrison - The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother...i want to...fuck you

Oh wait... wrong Jim Morrison. This Jim Morrison had a decently productive career and is currently the manager of the Single-A Charlotte Stone Crabs of the Florida State League.

533 Terry Puhl - There's something moderately unsettling about this card. I think it's because he looks so genuinely happy to be in a completely empty stadium.

No errors in 157 games in the outfield in 1979 is pretty impressive.

522 Pat Sheridan - Sheridan looks more like he just got punched in the stomach than hit a baseball.

He homered in his first ML at bat. No matter how your career goes from that point on, that's a great accomplishment and a wonderful story for the grandkids.

That homer came off of Milt Wilcox.

388 Dave Parker - Parker probably had the best career out of this pack, but could have had a much better photograph.

253 Bob Welch - This is probably the best looking card in the pack. There's a lot of movement with the pitching delivery and the nice Dodgers logo in the corner.

Bob Welch's 1990 was one of the great pitching performances of the past 50 years. These days a 20 game winner is getting hard to find. But 27 wins? 27-6, with a 2.95 ERA for an Oakland team that won 103 games... and then got swept in the Series by the Reds. D'oh.

408 Jerry Browne - The look on his face is one of absolute confusion. "You want me to do what now?"

18 Andy Van Slyke – Diamond King - It almost looks like Andy Van Slyke. I think without the name at the bottom most baseball fans would figure out that this was Andy Van Slyke. I don't know, but the lips just don't work on these paintings.

Also, good luck with that baseball prowess there Pittsburgh. You almost reasserted it in the early 90s, but it fell out somewhere along the way and no one noticed and you didn't go back to look for it.

Sorry, I think Cubs may have found it and they're still using it. Maybe they'll give it back if you ask nicely.

624 Greg Myers - Unlike Terry Puhl, Greg Myers seems to realize that he's in a completely vacant stadium and has expressed himself accordingly.

So the winner of best card in the pack here is Bob Welch. But again, I'm open to arguments.

Now the puzzle.

So far, I've gotten only border pieces, which is nice. And I apologize for the ass end of my cat, she was sleeping on the puzzle table and tried to bite me when I tried to push her off.

And there's pack 3.

Pack Two

2009-06-30T19:57:00.001-04:00

Pack 2 +15

342 Mel Hall - Child molester extraordinaire!

209 Craig Reynolds - Gordon.

75 Mike Moore - There's a typical late 80s, shoulder pad wearing, empowered woman sitting right behind Mike that makes him look like he has two puffs of blue hair coming out the back of his cap.

66 Kevin Mitchell - Alleged cat decapitator.

28 Mackey Sasser – Rated Rookie - I don't know if I've ever written about Mackey Sasser before or not.

Yes, I did. Here, about a year ago in pack 27 of my 1988 Score box.

Mackey stuck around until 1995, but did he really live up to that Rated Rookie name?

We see him here as a Pirate, but he played in only 12 games for Pittsburgh in 1987 before being traded to the Mets for Scott Henion and Randy Milligan in March of 1988.

Mackey never really got a chance to play much, only appearing in 100 games once in 1990. Offensively he was pretty average for a catcher and defensively he was at or just a bit below league average.

His numbers in the minors were pretty good, including a .338 average at High-A Fresno in 1985 and .313 combined between Phoenix and Vancouver of the PCL in '87.

In the minors he got regular playing time and did well. But in the Majors his role was one of backup behind Gary Carter and a young Todd Hundley with the Mets, and Dave Valle in Seattle.

Rated Rookie? Judging by his numbers in the minors alone, I'd say so. But as a Major Leaguer, no.

39 Kirt Manwaring – Rated Rookie - Giants catcher of the future? I don't know about that. He never really got a lot of playing time until 1993. But he did hang around with the Giants until the 1996 season when he was traded to Houston for Rick Wilkins and cash.

Rated Rookie? Not really. His offensive numbers in the minor leagues were poor, but he was an above average defensive catcher, winning the NL Gold Glove in 1993. In the end, any offensive production you get out of the catcher's position is an added bonus but Kirt really didn't produce much aside from his 1993 season (5 home runs, 49RBI).

398 Willie Hernandez - I think that's OJ Simpson on the left side of the card behind Willie.

389 Rick Mahler - There's old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium behind Rick. In all the years I've been a Braves fan, I never saw a Braves game a Fulton County. I did a young Kosuke Fukudome playing in a game against Nicaragua at the '96 Olympics. But all my Braves experience has been a Turner Field.

133 Gene Nelson - Wayland.

15 Jack Clark – Diamond King - The horror!

606 Jim Gott - Mr. Gott was traded from the Giants to the Pirates along with Mackey Sasser. I love it when two cards in a pack are related like this. As poorly made as these cards are, the little bits of information are a nice addition. They're not as in depth as Score, but Fleer didn't give us anything to work with. So it's a nice compromise.

475 Dave Anderson - Here's the Texas Rangers' third base coach. I have absolutely no recollection of this guy playing for the Dodgers in '88. Granted I was only seven years old, but I'm surprised how many of these names ring a bell. This one doesn't.

Anderson got one at bat in the '88 World Series and struck out.

343 Jim Eisenreich - I had planned on poking fun at Jim for having Tourette's, but that would be cruel. Instead I'll just point out Donruss' horrible photograph.

The photographer must have said something to the effect of "Jim, I want you to look as displeased as possible to be having your picture taken... no, a little more... little more... perfect!"

And here we have the end result.

210 Gary Pettis - There's a lot to like about this card... nice reflection in his helmet, you can see the entire front of his jersey, and he's clearly using Bill Buckner's bat.

76 Ron Darling - Darling majored in French and Southeast Asian history at Yale and was one of the top players in the history of the school. These days he's broadcasting for the Mets.

Now it's time to choose the best card from the bunch...

Clearly it comes down to a battle between Mel Hall and Gary Pettis. Despite being a convicted child molestor, I think Hall gets the slight nod here because the photo is a bit sharper and there's a little bit more action than the Gary Pettis. But I'm open to arguments either way, both are great looking cards.

And the puzzle. So far I'm lucky to have gotten border pieces from both packs, so let's see how the progress is going...

At this point I'm just guessing as to location... soooooo.

And there's pack two. I hope you enjoy scans of the full pack.

Pack One

2009-06-29T16:09:00.002-04:00

Pack one can be found here.

But here's the stats...

Pack 1 +13 (with 2 MVP inserts)
499 Tracy Woodson
367 Lloyd Moseby
235 Bill Doran
103 Mickey Tettleton
93 Dave Righetti
83 Shane Rawley
414 Damaso Garcia
158 Terry Steinbach
149 Frank Viola
BC-4 Mike Schmidt
498 Sam Horn
BC-6 Tony Gwynn
501 Ken Schrom
368 Kirby Puckett
236 Milt Thompson

Best Card

Here's the puzzle pieces for the first pack. Tomorrow I'm going to clean off a spot to lay out the puzzle so I can add to it every day.

***EDIT***

Is anyone interested in seeing every card from the pack? I'm thinking it would be nice to scan the entire pack, and if I do it every day, it woudln't take that much time.

I think starting tomorrow, and until I get tired of doing it, you'll get to see every card. I may not comment on all of them, but I'll post them all.

The time has come...

2009-06-29T14:18:00.000-04:00

to begin viewing one of the worst sets in the history of baseball cards.

We see Dale Murphy's smiling face. Little did he know that he and his Braves were on their way to losing 106 games in 1988.

Pack number one will be posted on A Pack to be Named Later pretty soon, but I've got a few format changes for this break.

In a comment Andy made a few days ago, he said he had tried to find nice photographs in this set and couldn't come up with anything. So what I'm going to do is choose and post what I think is the best looking card from each pack, and at the end of the box, we'll vote for the best card.

Also, I want to see how much of the puzzle I can put together from this one box. So at the end of every day's pack, there will be a photo of the puzzle progress.

This should be a fun one...

1988 Donruss Coming Soon...

2009-06-27T17:06:00.004-04:00

New banner is up, some different paint on the walls.

As I'm watching the Braves and Red Sox, I'll be digging out all the '88 Donruss I can find and decide how I want to go about this. I've got a pretty good sized stack of cards, maybe as much as a third of the set, so maybe I can get a complete set with the box. We'll see.

Even though I do have a substantial chunk of the set, I'm going to treat this box as starting from scratch and then fill in the holes with cards I already had.

Hopefully the box will show up Monday or Tuesday and we'll get started.

Maybe I'll even be able to put together the whole puzzle!

The break won't be a long one...

2009-06-24T20:06:00.005-04:00

Ok... so I said I was gonna take a month, but I really like having something to open every day. And being the lucky (contingent on a drug test that I can't possibly fail) recipient of a new job today, I figured I'd celebrate with a $5 box of 1988 Donruss.

I realize most people hate this set, but please, please keep reading. I'm sure it'll be an enjoyable break as I belittle every aspect of a horrible, horrible set.

Also, for anyone interested in 1988 Fleer, here's a list of doubles I have for trade:

9, 40, 50, 51, 88, 115, 128, 141, 148, 153, 158, 196, 208, 246, 251(x 2), 267, 278, 341, 363, 365, 375, 380, 394, 404, 433, 445, 448, 449, 468, 473, 487, 492, 515, 558, 590, 607, 612, 622

I've also done a small post on my wants list site about what I'm looking for in trades, so have a quick read over that.

Anyhoo... I guess I'll start working on banners for 1988 Donruss and I'll post a few different possibilities.

Pack Thirty Six

2009-06-21T17:30:00.000-04:00

Pack 36 +14
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
193 Tim Raines
268 Bret Saberhagen
248 Kurt Stillwell
463 Steve Buechele
148 Jesse Orosco
507 Mike Witt
316 Rick Schu
102 Jesse Barfield
168 Rick Manning
217 Dan Pasqua
323 Bobby Bonilla
14 Gene Larkin
AS4 Roger Clemens
659 Checklist
113 Garth Iorg

Last pack.

Before we look at the cards today, I have a few words to say about this box and this set.

I know sometimes I point out the bad aspects of these cards, and the same with the Bowman set, but I really do love these cards. Sometimes it's hard to see the good in cards from this era when the older cards and the modern cards are so much nicer. But this set is pretty nice for the time.

None of them are up to the standards that Score set in 1988, but Fleer is a cut above both Topps and Donruss in terms of photography and cardstock quality.

There are some printing issues with these cards, especially the coloring of the backs and I'm sure from some of my scans you've noticed that. Some of the cards are pretty washed out and some a very vibrant.

As for this box itself, as I've said a few tiems over the course of the break that this was the most successful box I've opened. The collation here was vastly superior to the both Topps and Score, and a bit better than the Bowman box.

With what few cards I didn't replace and this box I've ended up with 509 of the 660 cards. Pretty good.

My want list should be up pretty soon, and then I'll put together a doubles list. One of the doubles is going in the mailbox to Jeff at Card Junkie in the morning.

I'm still debating taking a break or not. I'll probably get home tomorrow and want something to open... so knowing me I'll probably have a box of 88 Donruss pretty soon, then we'll move on to Topps.

Now that that's out of the way, here's some cards.

The blurry pitching hand looks strange. I think it's interesting that Fleer wrote about how Clemens held out until opening day of 1987 because of contract issues.

I like this shot of Ranies, not much is going on and it's very over-exposed, but it's still a nice looking shot. There's a very blurry person on the field behind Rock, It looks like the blurry person is wearing a yellow shirt and white pants, so it could be a Pirate. Because of the over-exposure it's almost hard to tell if Tim is wearing a home or away jersey. I'm pretty sure it's a blue away jersey because that's not Olympic Stadium.

Another good looking card.

The biggest mistakes the Pirates made were not holding onto Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla.

Bobby-Bo was the first go in 1991 followed by Bonds in '92, and the Pirates haven't had a winning season since.

There you have it.

Check in sometime later tonight for my want list, and I'll probably put a post up here in the next several days with a final run down of what I have and what I'm missing.

Thanks for reading, and look out of 1988 Donruss before too long.

Pack Thirty-Five

2009-06-20T13:50:00.002-04:00

Pack 35 +0
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
394 Ivan Calderon
515 Jeff Hamilton
622 Slugging Sophomores (Wally Joyner/Cory Snyder)
547 Gerald Perry
558 Jim Dwyer
445 Glenn Davis
380 Mike Morgan
647 Major League Prospects (Chris Gwynn/Peter Smith)
51 Doyle Alexander
492 Ruppert Jones
468 Greg Harris
88 Jeff Leonard
278 Storm Davis
590 Shane Mack
363 Kevin Romine

Poop.

Ok. I can accept this. Two packs of doubles out of the whole box (assuming the final pack isn't full of doubles). That's not so bad, really. Yes I've lost two full packs, which is annoying as hell, but that's only 30 cards.

Here's hoping the last pack isn't a big let down.

Pack Thirty-Four

2009-06-19T13:08:00.007-04:00

Pack 34 +14
215 Bobby Meacham
322 Barry Bonds
13 Kent Hrbek
AS11 Jack Clark
658 Checklist
126 Ernie Whitt
262 Ross Jones
45 Tony Pena
351 Dwight Evans
189 Bob McClure
616 Sammy Stewart
436 Manny Trillo
394 Ivan Calderon
515 Jeff Hamilton
622 Slugging Sophomores (Wally Joyner/Cory Snyder)

Where should we start...

Sammy's from my neck of the woods and now he's in prison.

The look on his face says "Hey baby, Sammy's gonna rock your world..."

Hey look! Barry Bonds doesn't look like an asshole.

I know it's the Pirates' logo, but Bonds' wristbands look kinda like the Triforce from Zelda.

Well after seeing three of these in the first nine packs, this is first one I've seen since. Now I'm not sure if I'll bother trying to complete this insert set. I'll throw them in my want list when the box is finished, but I don't think it'll be a priority.

This particular card looks really strange because of the way the bat is cut off.

They really could have done so much better with the All Star inserts. But you can't always get what you want.

Both Snyder of Joyner put up some great numbers in their rookie season and followed suit and did well in their second seasons.

Looking at him standing next to Cory Snyder, Wally really looks like a Wally. He looks like he's about 12 years old.

Two more. So far so good.

Pack Thirty-Three

2009-06-18T23:04:00.000-04:00

Pack 33 +15
294 Terry Steinbach
580 Joey Cora
358 Al Nipper
136 Keith Hernandez
222 Tim Stoddard
152 Tim Teufel
11 Greg Gagne
309 Mike Maddux
605 Joe Carter
239 Barry Larkin
636 Tried and True Sluggers (Mike Schmidt/Gary Carter)
453 Dave Meads
406 Fred Manrique
415 Andre Dawson
163 Rob Deer

Here's another pretty good pack nearing the end of the box.

Well well well... Gary Carter looks like he's taken too much ecstasy and Schmidt's face says "please get me away from him... he's touching me."

Even if it is an awkward, at best, card, it's always nice to see two Hall of Famers on one card.

And here's a guy that will be in the Hall:

Does anyone know if Larkin ever signs TTM? He's one that I'd really like to have an autograph of, and since he's working with MLB Network there should be a good address for me.

This is a great looking card with the red jersey and red in the border.

And here's one that probably should be in the Hall:

This is a great shot at Wrigley. Dawson is taking off out of the box and I really like how in focus the clumps of dirt are.

Three to go.

Pack Thirty Two

2009-06-17T19:50:00.000-04:00

Pack 32 +15
454 Craig Reynolds
381 John Moses
32 Curt Ford
63 Bill Madlock
495 Gary Lucas
479 Ruben Sierra
82 Scott Garrelts
276 Jose Canseco
576 Shawn Abner
366 Jeff Sellers
130 Gary Carter
218 Willie Randolph
332 Bob Kipper
16 Tim Laudner
297 Luis Aguayo

Here I am back after a few days off to finish the box. This pack gets us back on track after that pack full of doubles.

Gary looks disappointed about something that happened. Maybe he let the game tying run cross the plate.

Here's a nice looking shot of Ruben Sierra taking off from home. He looks like he's stepping on his bat though.

But the real reason I'm showing this picture is the wrist bands. Who is that on the bands? I ask because way back in pack number 1 we saw another pair of similar wrist bands.

Any ideas?

And finally, Jose Canseco. This would have been one of the big pulls of the box back in 1988, and it's a good looking card. But look at his bat. It looks like it's bent in half... a little curvature is always natural, but...

That's it for tonight. We're almost there.

Pack Thirty-One

2009-06-13T20:19:00.003-04:00

Pack 30 +0
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
141 Dave Magadan
487 DeWayne Buice
314 Juan Samuel
632 Pitching Magic (Mike Scott, Orel Hershiser)
40 Joe Magrane
208 Bill Gullickson
341 Andy Van Slyke
9 George Frazier
246 Dennis Rasmussen
115 Rick Leach
251 Steve Balboni
50 Todd Worrell
365 Calvin Schiraldi
196 Bryn Smith
607 Brian Dorsett

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I guess I can make a for trade section for '88 Fleer now.

Hopefully this is the only bad pack of the box.

Pack Thirty

2009-06-13T17:19:00.002-04:00

Pack 29 +14
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
547 Gerald Perry
558 Jim Dwyer
445 Glenn Davis
380 Mike Morgan
647 Major League Prospects (Chris Gwynn/Peter Smith)
51 Doyle Alexander
492 Ruppert Jones
468 Greg Harris
88 Jeff Leonard
278 Storm Davis
590 Shane Mack
363 Kevin Romine
128 Wally Backman
223 Wayne Tolleson
150 Doug Sisk

This is yesterday's pack. I didn't get a post up yesterday because I was cooking all day. Not to brag, but I make amazing barbequed grilled chicken.

Anyhoo... this wasn't a great pack, but it'll do.

I'm hoping a Red Sox fan can help me make some sense out of this. I'm thinking this is a spring training shot because it doesn't look like Fenway and there's what looks like an old Angels hat on a fan on the right side of the picture.

Any ideas?

Chris Gwynn wasn't quite the hitter his older brother was, but he did provide the game winning hit in a 1996 game against the Dodgers that clinched the division for the Padres. Chris was a much better defensive player than offensive though, and made only four errors in 383 total chances for his career.

Pete Smith is best known for his time in Atlanta, where he pitched mostly as a fifth starter. Though he only pitched for the Braves during the later half of 1992, he went 7-0 with a 2.05 ERA with two complete games, but that was his only winning season.

Pete Smith last pitched in 1999 with Memphis of the Pacific Coast League.

Do not stare directly into the Dwyer.

Come back later for pack 30...

Pack Twenty-Nine

2009-06-11T18:57:00.002-04:00

Pack 28 +13
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
539 Tom Glavine
389 Dave Valle
90 Eddie Milner
55 Kirk Gibson
591 Carmelo Martinez
567 Eddie Murray
509 Tim Belcher
283 Reggie Jackson
195 Bob Sebra
267 Dan Quisenberry
651 Major League Prospects (Kirt Manwaring, John Burkett)
465 Cecil Espy
153 Gene Walter
491 Jack Howell
310 Lance Parrish

Pack Ripping Music: Bush: Sixteen Stone (1994)

At some point it stopped being cool to like Bush, but this is a remarkable album. I gave up on them after Razorblade Suitcase sucked. But Sixteen Stone is a record I still listen to from time to time. There was a lot of crap in the early 90s, but there were a few gems to be found. This is one of them.

Now, to the task at hand. This was a very good pack, and could be considered for best pack of the box (though my nod still goes to pack three that had both Ripken and Gwynn). Several Hall of Famers, one that will be a Hall of Famer, and a few rookies.

Since this has been a year of... controversy in Atlanta, this is a good card to start with.

Tom Glavine got the shaft on his rookie cards. Only the Score card is nice. Poor guy:

I'm still not exactly sure what to think about the Glavine situation. In the end, the Braves did what they felt was best for the team. The outfield is in trouble, that's no secret and needed attention, now. The Braves have an important stretch of games coming up and they're just not scoring runs. Picking up Nate McLouth was a good move.

As far as Tom Glavine is concerned, the McLouth move was poorly timed. The money that Glavine was guaranteed if and when he joined the 25-man roster would have been better spent somewhere else. But it does look bad to release a 22 year veteran, and a pretty popular player, and turn right around and spend that money somewhere else.

So I completely understand where Glavine's frustration comes from. But I still have to wonder if he would have been successful at the Major League level this year. Maybe so. We'll never know.

I do think that Tom Glavine could be a valuable addition somewhere. Especially for a struggling team with a young pitching staff. Glavine would be an excellent teacher for a young staff. So I wouldn't be surprised if he's picked up by a team like Baltimore or Oakland.

It's a pretty safe bet that Glavine will be the Hall of Fame, probably on his first ballot.

Speaking of first ballot Hall of Famers:

Eddie looks positively distressed by something that's happening off camera. I think he's about to throw that ball at whatever it is.

Another HoF'er. The back includes Reggie's full career statistics as 1987 was his final year.

A pitcher holding a bat on his baseball card!? What is this demonry!?

Tim Belcher did well enough for himself with a bat. Over all he hit .124 with two home runs and 25 RBIs.

I talked about Kirt Manwaring here, so we're going to talk about John Burkett today.

I know John Burkett had a pretty successful career, but I didn't realize just how good he really was.

He came up for a while in 1987, but went back to the minors until 1990. In 1993 he tied for the NL lead in wins, with the afore mentioned Tom Glavine, at 22. He placed fourth in Cy Young voting that year (behind Glavine, Bill Swift, and Greg Maddux). Burkett was also a two time All Star and finished fourth for the 1990 NL Rookie of the Year.

Over all he was 166-136 with a 4.31 and 1766 strikeouts in fifteen seasons.

Jack Howell is running for his life... from what?

Uh oh, it's back.

Pack Twenty-Eight

2009-06-10T19:18:00.001-04:00

Pack 28 +14
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
604 Tom Candiotti
247 Ron Robinson
103 George Bell
459 Robbie Wine
395 Jose DeLeon
426 Jamie Moyer
160 Mark Clear
552 Ozzie Virgil
376 Mike Kingery
83 Atlee Hammaker
57 Mike Henneman
592 Lance McCullers
557 Ken Dixon
511 Tim Crews
289 Steve Ontiveros

No music again today, I've got the Braves and Pirates on.

I've for three pitchers for you today.

With the Braves sudden release of Tom Glavine last week, and Maddux retiring at the end of last season, Jamie Moyer is right off the top of my head the last active player in this set.

Jamie Moyer reminds me a bit of John Smoltz. No matter how old they get, they always look the same. Take a rookie card of either player and compare it to one from 2008 or 2009 and they haven't changed a bit. It's unsettling.

Moyer's having a rough season so far. He's a Phillie, but I'd still like to see him have a good year.

I'm not sure if I like this card or not. It's nice that you can almost see his grip on the ball. But I just can't tell if this is a practice shot or an in game shot. At the angle that the picture is taken, you'd expect to see a middle infielder, umpire or at least an outfielder back there, but it's oddly vacant. But there's a very, very black wall back there, so maybe everyone else was airbrushed out?

It's got a lot going for it, but a few strikes against it.

This card I do like. Not much is going on, but I never could figure out pitching, and seeing the grip on a ball is nice. I can throw an acceptable curve ball, but fancy pants stuff like change ups and sliders and all that jazz don't work.

We're in the home stretch, eight packs left. My goal is still 75%, I should be able to do it, maybe a bit more.

Pack Twenty Seven

2009-06-09T22:33:00.000-04:00

Pack 27 +14
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
417 Bob Dernier
401 Bob James
416 Mickey Hatcher
159 Juan Castillo
549 Ted Simmons
553 Don Aase
455 Nolan Ryan
369 Phil Bradley
39 Jim Lindeman
53 Tom Brookens
497 Mark McLemore
480 Mike Stanley
78 Will Clark
286 Mark McGwire
577 Greg Booker

No music tonight, it's too hot. And it's also going to be a short one, again, it's too hot to sit at the computer.

I just realized that I haven't seen any of the All Star inserts for a while. My one in three pack assumption didn't pan out. Oh well.

Here's three 1980s superstars.

This looks a lot like a cardboard cutout of Nolan Ryan advertising Nike Air shoes.

He really looks like constipated. There's some great photography in this set, but they made some bizarre choices for some of these cards... surfboard, gloves on both hands, shoes under the arm.

And this card I really like. It's not very exciting, but it's something you don't see too often on a baseball card. He's not posed (or at least no obviously), he's not in action, but he's intently working on a piece of baseball equipment.

I also really like those old Giants uniforms, very simple and classic.

Another card I really like. And at my count, it's the fourth card with McGwire that I've pulled. That should be all of them, well, at least all of them that directly depict McGwire - I'm sure he shows up in the background of some others.

Maybe if it's not blisteringly hot tomorrow, I'll have more to say.

Pack Twenty-Six

2009-06-08T21:53:00.000-04:00

Pack 26 +14
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
21 Dan Schatzader
302 Greg Gross
610 Mel Hall
237 Tracy Jones
638 AL All Stars
446 Jim Deshaies
403 Bill Lindsey
433 Lee Smith
175 B.J. Surhoff
545 Ken Oberkfell
368 Scott Bankhead
77 Bob Brenly
64 Jack Morris
583 Goose Gossage
562 John Hayban

Pack Ripping Music: Braves vs. Pirates

After not scoring a single run for two and a half games, they've been scoring runs the last two days, but giving any leads they get right back. They came back to win last night, so let's hope they can do it again tonight.

I've only got two cards to show you tonight, this was another bland pack. But I am almost 400 cards into the set. I'd just like to say one more time, I am very pleased with how this box is going. After this box I think I'm gonna take a break frm box breaking for a month or so. I've seen so much late 80s baseball in the past year I need a break.

When I finish this box I'm going to concentrate on Topps Series 2, and when it's finished, I'll be back with 1988 Donruss. Yup, I'm going to do it... I'm going to devote a website to everyone's favorite set ever! The most wonderful beautiful set ever made.

Don't worry though, 1988 Topps'll be along sometime before too long to make it all better.

So here's tonight's cards.

I think Bob wants to fence with the opposing catcher. There's not really a lot to say about Bob Brenly. He wasn't an outstanding player, but he was an ok manager and an ok broadcaster.

Matt Nokes is terrifying. Don't look into his eyes too long.

Pack Twenty-Five

2009-06-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

Pack 25 +15
625 Classic Relief
41 Greg Mathews
202 Brad Arnsberg
336 Junior Ortiz
4 Bert Blyleven
643 Major League Prospects (Felix Fermin, Jessie Reid)
120 Rance Mulliniks
272 Gary Thurman
30 Ken Dayley
343 Marty Barrett
182 Mike Fitzgerald
601 Chris Bando
428 Paul Noce
412 Kenny Williams
508 Dave Anderson

Pack Ripping Music: Opeth: Watershed (2008)

This is without a doubt my favorite band in the world. Opeth transcends heavy metal and creates something very unique. It was written in one of the guitar magazines a few years back that if Opeth didn't exist "it would necessary to create them." This video is from some Sweedish (I assume) TV morning show. I've been a fan of these guys since the late 90s, but the first time I heard this album and, in particular, this song was like a religious experience.

Give it a listen, you'll like it.

Now, baseball cards.

Felix Fermin was a light hitting, but good defensive shortstop. Despite not hitting for much power, Fermin rarely struck out. In 480 at bats in 1993, he struck out on 14 times. In 2767 career at bats, he struck out a grand total of 147 times.

But, in the end he will probably be best remembered as being included in a package that sent Omar Vizquel to the Cleveland Indians.

Jessie Reid was drafted in 1980 by the Giants and made his Major League debut on September 9, 1987. In a career that lasted until April 11, 1988, Reid played in eight games and recorded 10 at bats with one hit. That one hit, however, was a home run.

Leading off the top of the second inning on September 27, 1987 against Padres pitcher Jimmy Jones, Reid went deep. It was the first run in an eventual Giants 5-3 victory over the last place Padres.

Reid played at Triple-A Tacoma in 1989 but was finished after that season.

Ok. I can accept Dave Righetti as Classic Relief, even if he had only been in the pen for four years at the time. I can't accept Dan Plesac as Classic Relief even if he was an All Star in '87 and saved 23 games. 1986 was his first season in the Major Leagues... you can't be a classic after two years. Sorry Dan. Come back in 1995 and then maybe you can be a classic reliever.

What? This isn't how it's supposed to work. At least it's not a surfboard. Silly Fleer.

Was Ken Dayley ambidexterous? Could he or did he pitch with both hands?

Pack Twenty Four

2009-06-07T19:19:00.000-04:00

Pack 24 +15
74 Alan Trammell
584 Mark Grant
573 Pete Stanicek
525 Mike Sharperson
284 Dennis Lamp
180 Tim Burke
274 Willie Wilson
649 Major League Prospects (Mario Diaz, Clay Parker)
482 Mitch Williams
129 Mark Carreon
505 Don Sutton
315 Mike Schmidt
623 Dominican Dynamite
34 David Green
211 Tommy John

This is yesterday's pack that I never got around to posting even though I opened it and entered them into the database. Pack 25 will come later tonight.

If you remember, pack 23 was pretty bland and didn't offer too much in the way of star players. This pack is different with a few rookies, a few stars and several great players nearing the ends of their Hall of Fame careers.

I think we'll start with the rookies.

Mario Diaz was signed by the Mariners as an amateur free agent in December 1978 and spent parts of nine seasons in the minors before making his Major League debut on September 12, 1987.

He seems to have been used as a defensive replacement and a backup infielder to give the primary starters a day off. He did start 195 of his 337 career games played, mostly at short. With a glove he was right around league average and his batting average, when given a chance to play, wasn't too bad: .264 in 182 at bats in 1991, and .273 in 205 at bats in '93. His low OBP and slugging kept his run production at a minimum which limited his playing time.

Diaz played his last professional games in 1999 for the Nashua Pride of the independant Atlantic League.

He seems to be wearing a mesh trucker style hat in the picture. Granted he only played 91 games for Seattle, but you think they'd have been nice enough to give him a real hat.

Clay Parker made his Major League debut on September 14, 1987 and pitched two and a third innings. He gave up five hits, four runs (three earned), struck out four and walked one. One of the hits was a home run to Indians shortstop Jay Bell.

He was traded to the Yankees after the 1987 season and spent 1988 in the minors. In 1989 he was used primarily as a starter by the Yankees and posted a 4-5 record. He was later traded to the Tigers in a deal for Matt Nokes, and finished his career back in Seattle in 1992.

Overall, he was 7-10 with a 4.42 ERA in 62 games.

Here's a pretty terrible picture of two big name sluggers of the late 80s. Fleer was going for the candid shot of all the players hanging out during the All Star workout, but it looks too posed and fake.

We'll have to wait for the Veteran's Committee to see this guy in the Hall of Fame, but I think he should be there. He lost a year in his prime to have surgery that just happened to have the same name he did and came pack and pitched another fifteen seasons. He probably would have pushed closer to 300 wins had he not had elbow surgery.

His willingness to have an experimental surgery and make such a comeback has helped a lot of pitchers, and more commonly position players, lengthen and in some cases save their careers.

Here's poofy haired Hall of Famer, Don Sutton. Even though I don't get to hear him very often (I get horrible radio reception), I'm really glad Sutton is back calling Braves games. Jon Sciambi has really grown on me, but I'd still love to hear Joe Simpson and Don Sutton call a game together.

The look on his face says "I just swung at a horrible pitch and I know it." Once again, great player with a horrible picture.

Check back later this evening for pack 25.

When things aren't always what they seem...

2009-06-06T00:20:00.004-04:00

Reader Hiflew just pointed out that this:

Is actually, this:

Probably at the same game.

And this is Keith Moreland:

I wonder if the corrected version will show up before the end of the box.

Thanks Hiflew. Always nice to learn something new.

Pack Twenty-Three

2009-06-05T23:23:00.002-04:00

Pack 23 +15
360 Jody Reed
142 Roger McDowell
216 Mike Pagliarulo
334 Jose Lind
6 Randy Bush
317 Jeff Stone
618 Pat Tabler
230 Kal Daniels
124 Willie Upshaw
442 Rocky Childress
396 Richard Dotson
425 Keith Moreland
166 Ted Higuera
537 Jeff Dedmon
382 Donnell Nixon

Pack Ripping Music: Bloodbath: Resurrection Through Carnage (2002)

This is an old school death metal supergroup fronted by Mikael Akerfeldt. Akerfeldt, when not covered with fake blood, is best known as the frontman of the prog-metal band Opeth. Opeth is without a doubt my favorite band in the world.

I'm having a lot of trouble finding some cards to post, this was a pretty bland pack. There are no great player, and no great or poor photography.

Soooooo... these four will have to do.

If this weren't so shadowy it would be a much better looking card. But, still, we can see that wonderful old Blue Jays uniform. I was so happy to see them wear the powder blue jersey again last year.

Wow. Look at Willie's 1983 season. I never knew he put up numbers like that.

You don't see a lot of cards of a player bunting.

In his career, Keith Moreland recorded 18 sacrifice bunts and one bunt single. Since this is actually Jody Davis... Jody Davis also had 18 sac bunts, but no bunt hits.

According to reader Hiflew, there is a corrected version of this card.

Richard Dotson has two arms sprouting from his ass, and one of them looks to be wearing a middle-infielder's glove. That couldn't have been comfortable on the way out.

How could I leave you without a posting a guy named Rocky.

That's it. Bland and uninspired. Maybe tomorrow will be more exciting.

Pack Twenty-Two

2009-06-04T21:52:00.002-04:00

Pack 22 +15
528 Fernando Valenzuela
280 Alfredo Griffin
190 Andy McGaffigan
269 Angel Salazar
650 Major League Prospects (Jack Savage, Todd Simmons)
477 Geno Petralli
141 Dave Magadan
487 DeWayne Buice
314 Juan Samuel
632 Pitching Magic (Mike Scott, Orel Hershiser)
40 Joe Magrane
208 Bill Gullickson
341 Andy Van Slyke
9 George Frazier
246 Dennis Rasmussen

Pack Ripping Music: Stone Temple Pilots: Purple (1994)

I love this record. It still sounds great after fifteen years.

50% completion with this pack. Still no doubles from the box.

I guess we'll start here.

Mike Scott, the starting pitcher at the '87 All Star Game, was coming off a 1986 season where he went 18-10 with a 2.22 ERA. He struck out 306 in 275.1 innings and recorded a 0.923 WHIP. His performance that year won him the Cy Young and a 10th place vote for the MVP.

In the All Star Game he pitched two innings, allowing one hit and struck out one.

Hershiser came in to pitch in the bottom of the fifth, gave up one hit, walked one but didn't allow a run.

A card with Orel Hershiser gives me one more opportunity to show these off:

Moving right along...

Here's a great shot of Juan Samuel chashing down a pop fly. But look at his glasses. They look like welder's goggles. I kinda want a pair.

And two guys I've never heard of.

Jack Savage made his Major League debut on September 14, 1987 and pitched reasonably well for the Dodgers in three games. He gave up four hits and one run in just over three innings of work.

After the 1987 season he was involved in a large trade:

December 11, 1987: Traded as part of a 3-team trade by the Los Angeles Dodgers to the New York Mets. The Los Angeles Dodgers sent Bob Welch and Matt Young to the Oakland Athletics. The Oakland Athletics sent Alfredo Griffin and Jay Howell to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Oakland Athletics sent Kevin Tapani and Wally Whitehurst to the New York Mets. The New York Mets sent Jesse Orosco to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He spent 1988 at the Triple-A level in the Mets system and was then involved in another large trade:

October 16, 1989: Sent by the New York Mets to the Minnesota Twins to complete an earlier deal made on July 31, 1989. The New York Mets sent a player to be named later, Rick Aguilera, Tim Drummond, Kevin Tapani and David West to the Minnesota Twins for a player to be named later and Frank Viola. The New York Mets sent Jack Savage (October 16, 1989) to the Minnesota Twins to complete the trade.

His 1990 season with the Twins wasn't particularly good. In 17 games he struckout 12 and walked 11 and allowed 26 runs (24 earned) in 26 innings. He pitched at the Double- and Triple-A level in 1991 and that was it for his career.

Todd Simmons pitched in the White Sox, Padres, Brewers and Rangers systems between 1984 and 1989 but never made it to the Major League level.

Welp, looks like the Braves won't be playing tonight... we'll have to wait one more night to see Nate McLouth's Braves debut.

Pack Twenty-One

2009-06-03T22:32:00.006-04:00

Pack 21 +14
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
172 Earnest Riles
543 Dion James
571 Dave Schmidt
458 Denny Walling
371 Mickey Brantley
37 Lance Johnson
56 Mike Heath
500 Donnie Moore
473 Oddibe McDowell
86 Mike LaCoss
282 Jay Howell
594 Randy Ready
346 Tom Bolton
151 Darryl Strawberry
209 Rickey Henderson

Pack Ripping Music: While Heaven Wept: Of Empires Forlorn (2002) - Epic doom from Virginia.

No video from these guys, they're pretty obscure.

Here's some cards.

This card should explain a lot.

Foul ball off the ankle. I think the photographer got him just the split second before the pain hit him.

So what does this explain?

It explains this. See the guy in the yellow? He's in the far left of Ready's card. So now we know, Jack Murphy Stadium.

Here's a good looking shot of Strawberry at Wrigley. I think Strawberry's just hit something up the middle, but he's not prepared to run, so maybe it was a caught line drive.

New Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson doing something on the basepaths.

Knowing what happened to this guy makes his cards hard to look at. He looks so haunted in every picture I've ever seen.

Y'all come back tomorrow.

Pack Twenty

2009-06-02T22:55:00.000-04:00

Pack 20 +15
330 Brett Gideon
5 Tom Brunansky
238 Bill Landrum
106 Jim Clancy
253 Thad Bosley
27 Vince Coleman
349 Roger Clemens
183 Tom Foley
613 Doug Jones
434 Jim Sundberg
398 Ozzie Guillen
526 John Shelby
165 Jim Gantner
531 Jim Acker
554 Jeff Ballard

Pack Ripping Music: Dark Tranquillity: Fiction (2007)

That is without a doubt one of the best music videos ever made, and I'm not a fan of the typical music video. The song is "Terminus (Where Death is Most Alive)."

Anyhoo, here are some cards...

Let's start with a guy I've never heard of. He was originally drafted by the Astros in 1983 but didn't sign. In 1985 he was drafted and signed with the Pirates. After working his way up through the Prates system he made his Major League debut on July 5, 1987. He pitched 36.2 innings in 1987 to a 1-5 record.

On March 28, 1989 he was traded to the Expos for pitcher Neal Heaton. Heaton would eventually become an All Star with the Pirates and Gideon pitched a total of 5.2 innings the rest of his Major League career. His numbers weren't terrible so I don't know why he didn't get more of a chance in the big leagues. He stuck around in the minors until 1992.

Here's a good shot of Vince Coleman at Wrigley. One thing that really stands out about this card is that the fans in the background are very much in focus.

Look at Coleman's stolen base numbers in the minors. 145 at Macon in '83.

Here's current ChiSox manager Ozzie Guillen as a young man.

Here's another one where the fans in the background are very in focus. I wonder if any baseball card collector has ever found himself in the background of a card?

That's second baseman Steve Lombardozzi in the background.

And there's pack 20.

Pack Nineteen

2009-06-01T21:38:00.003-04:00

Pack 19 +15
93 Jon Perlman
58 Willie Hernandez
596 Benito Santiago
564 Ray Knight
513 Mariano Duncan
287 Dwayne Murphy
187 Vance Law
264 Bill Pecota
229 Dave Concepcion
472 Mike Loynd
149 Rafael Santana
490 Willie Fraser
304 Von Hayes
118 Fred McGriff
164 Mike Felder

New feature for the second half of the box: Pack Ripping Music.

For this pack I've chosen Solitude Aeturnus' 1990 debut album "Into the Depths of Sorrow." This is epic doom metal at its finest.

There has been a running debate in my head for years which album I like better, this one or Candlemass' debut "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus." Both are spectacular, and while later Candlemass is far superior, I have to give the nod to "Into the Depths of Sorrow," it's a truly bleak, beautiful record.

But of course, next week I could be liking "Epicus" better. That's the way it goes.

This song is from their 1994 album "Through The Darkest Hour."

Ok, how 'bout we look at some baseball cards?

The one thing really sticks out about that Braves dynasty of the 1990's is that they made very few big trade deadline deals. The biggest pickup of that era was an off season acquisition of a free agent pitcher named Greg Maddux.

Fred McGriff is the only superstar caliber player I can think of that the Braves picked up near the trade deadline. These days a club picks up a superstar player for the pennant run and then dumps him at the end of the season (cough Mark Teixeira cough), but McGriff is one that stuck around for a while and made an impact.

He hit 25+ home runs and drove in 90+ in each of his three full years in Atlanta and was an All Star.

The Braves got the best end of that deal. Of the three players the Padres got in the deal, only Melvin Nieves played in more than 100 games for his new team. Donnie Elliott pitched to an 0-1 record in 35 innings pitched out of the pen, his 3.09 ERA was pretty good though. And Vince Moore never made it to the majors.

As much as I liked Fred McGriff, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of him is the fire in the Fulton Country Stadium press box the day Crime Dog joined the Braves.

When I was flipping through the pack looking for a good looking card to scan I didn't pay much attention to the name. When I threw the cards on the scanner and sat down to put them together, I noticed who I had scanned and I thought "golly gee, some one was actually able to take a good picture of this guy."

Because let us not forget this beauty that Topps gave us the year before:

It's not the worst from '87 Topps, but it'll do. Let's see what Score did with ol' Mike...

Well... certainly it comes down to a battle between Score and Fleer. I'd estimate that in 95% of cases 1988 Score will win in the photography department, but I think I like the Fleer card better here.

Any idea where this picture was taken? Spring training? My first thought was Oakland because of the green fence, but Mariano shouldn't have played any games in Oakland in 1987. Did Dodger Stadium have green fences back then? It looks like he's wearing an away jersey. The guy to the left of the tubby guy in yellow looks to be wearing a Padres hat, but I can't tell for sure, it could also be a Giants hat. So Jack Murphy Stadium, maybe?

Looks like most Dodger cards that weren't taken in LA were taken in the same place as the Duncan card.

Wherever it was taken it looks like Duncan either hit a foul ball down the third base line or a line drive in that direction that was caught.

Hey hey, at least I can say for sure that this one was taken at old Comisky in Chicago.

I don't like to see batters bend that back leg so far on their swing. You can't generate much power when you knee bends that low. When Andruw Jones was struggling his last year in Atlanta, he'd take a lot of swings like that and either swing and miss or pop up somewhere on the infield.

What we see here is probably a swing and a miss judging by the upright position of the bat on the follow through, a very awkward swing and miss.

There you go. Come back tomorrow for pack 20 and see what kind of pack rippin' music I'm listening to.

Pack Eighteen

2009-05-29T23:57:00.004-04:00

Pack 18 +14
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
115 Rick Leach
251 Steve Balboni
50 Todd Worrell
365 Calvin Schiraldi
196 Bryn Smith
607 Brian Dorsett
432 Scott Sanderson
402 Dave Lapoint
523 Steve Sax
156 Chris Bosio
548 Charlie Puleo
569 Billy Ripken
447 Bill Doran
390 Bill Wilkinson
48 John Tudor

This is gonna be a short one because I just got home from an evening out, and there's really not much here to talk about.

I do want to say first that if any of you are ever in Waynesville, North Carolina, and if you like good pizza (ie. not Pizza Hut or Dominoes) and good beer, make it a point to stop by Nick & Nate's on main street. The pizza is all hand made and it's all incredible.

Anyhoo, I only have two cards to show tonight. The first is proof that Billy Ripken is an obscene, filth peddler:

Look at the knob of his bat. What do you see? Boobs. It's not a big leap to think that the next year he'd write Fuck Face on his bat.

And look what we have here... a gen-you-wiiiine error card.

Can you see it?

Ok folks, this is my last post for a few days. I'm going out of town for the weekend, I think I'll be back Monday or Tuesday. I intend to drive by a Target on my way home, so hopefully I'll come back with some 2009 Topps Series 2 to open.

Pack Seventeen

2009-05-28T22:46:00.006-04:00

Pack 17 +12
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
327 Doug Drabek
387 Jerry Reed
100 Mark Wasinger
54 Darrell Evans
597 Eric Show
7 Steve Carlton
306 Mike Jackson
600 Scorr Bailes
243 Dave Parker
104 Juan Beniquez
448 Ty Gainey
404 Bill Long
424 Dave Martinez
158 Greg Brock
534 Joe Boever

So yesterday I mentioned how I hadn't run across a lot of dead players, well, here's Eric Show.

This isn't a bad looking card and I really like the shadow under Show. It also gets some points for showing the grip on the ball.

Lefty looks confused. 1988 was his last year. He only pitched in 4 games, three of them out of the pen with a 16.76 ERA. But we can over look that last season, Carlton was a first ballot Hall of Famer, getting over 95% of the votes.

Look at the stats on the back. For most players Fleer included their entire Major League stats, but without using a smaller font, they weren't able to include all of Steve's stats.

And finally we have this. I'm not really sure what to think about this card. I can't really figure out what's happened here. Based on the position of his back hand, how soon the top hand came off the bat, and the look on his face, it looks like he's hurt himself on the swing. The top hand should never come off the bat that early in the swing.

I just have to question why pictures like this get through. Film is cheap, photo processing is cheap especially when your company owns the equipment. There is no reason to let poor photography slip through. When you send a photographer to a game, they've got a good three hours to get one usable shot. From some of these cards it looks like Fleer gave the photog a checklist and enough film for one picture of each player on that list.

In the end though, at least they're not airbrushing everything.

Pack Sixteen

2009-05-27T16:29:00.000-04:00

Pack 16 +13
(upgraded cards are indicated by bold blue text)
139 Terry Leach
224 Gary Ward
127 Rick Aguilera
23 Mike Smithson
303 Kevin Gross
612 Brook Jacoby
231 Eric Davis
629 Rookie Record Setter
441 Ken Caminiti
407 Jack McDowell
414 Jody Davis
178 Robin Yount
336 Vicente Palacios
378 Edgar Martinez
78 Chili Davis

Two more of the original twenty are replaced out of this pack.

This box of Fleer doesn't seem to be as obsessed with death as the box of '89 Bowman, but we do see the late Ken Caminiti here, and we've seen both Chris Brown and Frank Williams. There may be a few more players who are no longer with us, but I can't think of any right off the top of my head that have come out of this box.

We got an interesting mixture of some good photos and bad ones in this pack. Another Hall of Famer and the third card thus far featuring a fallen hero.

Bad photography:

It's a shame that such a great player got such a boring photo.

Hall of Fame? Admittedly, I'm not a fan of the DH rule, but Martinez put up some pretty impressive numbers. He's eligable next year and will probably get some votes, but I just don't think he's Hall of Fame material. If he had played at third base for fifteen years and then spent the last several years as a DH and still put up the numbers he did, then I think he would deserve consideration.

But of course, the same argument can be made against electing a closer to the Hall. I don't know the answer.

According to Baseball Reference, of those most similar to Edgar, only Orlando Cepeda is in the Hall of Fame. The list includes some of the great hitters of that generation though, and many of them are not yet eligable for Hall voting. So you can't read too much into it.

Here's a good shot of Eric Davis. Based on all the cameras in the background, I'll assume that this picture was taken during the 1987 All Star game in Oakland. Davis went 0-3 in the game with two groundouts and a strikeout.

I think, up to this point, this is the best looking card I've pulled. Davis is about to tag out a Reds baserunner at the plate.

Here's our Hall of Famer which also falls into the category of horrible picture. The Edgar Martinez picture is just boring, this one is downright horrible.

Look at the back of the card. Through 1987 Yount had 2,217 hits. He collected another 925 hits during the final six years of his career when players are supposed to start slowing down.

I'd have to look to make sure, but I think Yount was also the last player to retire who had been a teammate of Hank Aaron.

Here's that fallen hero...

Pack Fifteen

2009-05-26T19:48:00.001-04:00

Pack 15 +15
256 Steve Farr
26 Jack Clark
345 Wade Boggs
188 Dennis Martinez
621 Rich Yett
422 Ed Lynch
410 Bobby Thigpen
524 Mike Scioscia
624 Oakland’s Power Team
538 Ron Gant
561 Mike Griffin
460 Gerald Young
370 Scott Bradley
642 Major League Prospects (Damon Berryhill, Jeff Montgomery)
59 Larry Herndon

Let's hope I can get this one in before it starts storming again, and judging by the humidity and how fast my beer just got warm should be any second.

This wasn't a bad pack... several rookies, a Hall of Famer, two childhood heroes for many kids in the '80s and a foot note in the history books.

We'll start with the Hall of Famer:

I've always thought Wade Boggs resembled Roy Underhill of "The Woodright's Shop" fame.

At some point since my re-entry into the hobby, I mentioned that Wade Boggs pitched in two games, and I thought I talked about it over at '88 Score, but for the life of me I can't find it. Maybe it was in a comment on another blog, or maybe it was a draft post and I killed it.

ANYWAY...

When I pulled this card, other than the Roy Underhill comment, I thought I'd talk a little bit about his pitching performances (and I was going to use that old post as a lead in, but this'll have to do as a lead in).

It's pretty uncommon to see such a big name player take the mound, even in a blowout. I think it's just flirting with injury. We all remember what happened when Jose Canseco tried to pitch so I don't think it's worth the risk.

But twice in his career, for two different teams, Wade Boggs pitched.

The first time was August 19, 1997 against the Angels.

With the Yankees on the losing end of a 12-4 score in Anaheim, Joe Torre, instead of using his bullpen, called on 39 year old Wade Boggs to pitch the bottom of the 8th (David Wells had started and lasted only three innings, replaced by Graeme Lloyd who threw four innings).

Boggs started the inning by walking Luis Alicea. He then got Tim Salmon to hit a ground ball to the shortstop who forced Alicea out at second. Garret Anderson then grounded out moving Salmon to second. The inning ended when catcher Todd Greene struck out swinging.

Boggs' line for his first attempt at pitching: no runs, no hits, one walk. His second try at pitching didn't end as well.

On August 10, 1999, Boggs was brought in to pitch with two outs in the top of the 8th with the Orioles leading the Devil Rays 16-1. As an interesting aside, Boggs was inserted into the DH spot in the line up (he batted once) and had the game progressed past the 9th -which was very unlikely- the Devil Rays forfeited their right to use a DH.

Charles Johnson was the first to face Boggs, and he flew out to right ending the inning. First up in the ninth against Boggs was Delino DeShields who struckout looking. Not too surprising, Boggs won a few Gold Gloves in his career so he had a pretty accurate arm.

Up next was Ryan Minor who grounded out to short. Rich Amaral then doubled to center but advanced to third on an error. Mike Bordick singled driving Amaral in, making the score 17-1. Jeff Conine then singled and with two on and two out Albert Belle flew out to center.

Tampa Bay got one hit in the bottom half, but failed to score.

The line for his one and a third innings of work: one run on three hits, one strikeout. 6.75 ERA.

For his pitching career: 3.86, 2.1 IP, 3 hits, 1 run, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts. 123 ERA+, 1.714 WHIP.

And here's that footnote in the history books:

Until last season, Bobby Thigpen was the saves in a season leader. In 1990 Thigpen saved 57 games for the White Sox with a 1.83 ERA. But with Francisco Rodriguez saving 62 last season Thigpen's career will be soon forgotten.

We do get a nice full frontal look at the old numbers-on-the-pants ChiSox uniform.

Two rookies:

Damon Berryhill was a light hitting catcher who spent most of his career as a backup. He played most notably for the Cubs, who won the division in '89, and then for the Braves in the early years of their 1990's dynasty.

Before seeing this card, I never realized that Jeff Montgomery began his career as a Red. In 1987 he pitched in 14 games (2-2, 6.52 ERA) for Cincinnati. In February 1988, the Reds traded him to Kansas City for Van Snider (oops). In KC, Montgomery went on to have a pretty good career, saving 304 games (19th all time) with a 3.27 ERA.

I'll let this card speak for itself. Try to think of yourself as a young baseball fan in 1988 and read the back of the card. Then take off the rose colored glasses and read the back of the card.

Pack Fourteen

2009-05-25T10:19:00.008-04:00

Pack 16 +15
52 Dave Bergman
498 Darrell Miller
461 Bob Brower
92 Kevin Mitchell
296 Curt Young
579 Keith Comstock
644 Todd Benzinger
140 Barry Lyons
214 Don Mattingly
325 John Cangelosi
1 Keith Atherton
308 Steve Jeltz
617 Greg Swindell
233 Nick Esasky
116 Manny Lee

Here I am after about a week away from baseball cards. I kept up with the blog world, reading posts and commenting here and there, but it was a nice break. I got some yard work done, put in (at last count) ten job applications, washed my car, made another trip to Atlanta. Now back to baseball cards.

I'm nearing the halfway point on this box, and so far it's only given me three cards that I already had and no doubles yet out of the box. If anyone else is looking to complete '88 Fleer, let me know and I'll add you to my checklist. It's first come first serve, so Jeff from Card Junkie will be the first to get any doubles that he needs. But if you're out there, send your wantlists my way and I'll help if I can.

This pack pushed me up over one third completion. So is it too early for a prediction? Nah. I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict 75% completion.

Now, let's look at some cards...

Keith Atherton's career was nothing remarkable. He pitched well enough out of the pen for seven seasons mostly in middle relief. Walks were a concern and he walked 3.4 per nine which is a little more than you'd like to see from a reliever.

But here he is as card number one. Thankfully for him, his mother to be married a guy named Atherton, and his team won the World Series in 1987. See, two things had to go right for Keith to end up as number one. If the Twins had traded him to the Indians two years earlier in 1987, he'd have been card number 600 and no one would have paid any attention to him at all.

Steve Jeltz is just one of eight Major League players born in France. Current Giants manager Bruce Bochy is another.

Jeltz is probably best remember for this game where he hit home runs from both sides of the plate after entering in the top of the second to replace Tom Herr. The game is remembered for a comment made by Pirates broadcaster Jim Rooker. After the Pirates scored ten runs in the top of the first, Rooker said, "If we lose this game, I'll walk home."

Jeltz's first home run, a two run shot, in the bottom of the fourth made the score 10-6. The Pirates scored again in the 5th making it 11-6. Jeltz's second homer, a three run affair, set the score at 11-9. Later in the inning, John Kruk scored on a Ricky Jordan single to center.

The score stood at 11-10 in favor of the Pirates until the bottom of the 8th when, unfortunately for Mr. Rooker, the Phillies scored five more runs to win the game 15-11.

True to his word, after the season was over, Rooker made the 300 mile walk from Philly back to Pitsburgh, and raised money for charity along the way.

The moral of the story? Don't consider a career in broadcasting if you don't like to walk.

Barry Lyons was obviously never a boy scout, otherwise he would have been prepared that fateful day in 1987:

Davey Johnson: "Barry, you're starting at short today."
Barry Lyons: "But skipper, I don't have the right glove."
Davey Johnson: "Well then, find one."
Barry Lyons: What do I do? What do I do? Hey, wait a minute. If'n I'm starting at short, that must mean Rafael doesn't need his glove today.
Barry Lyons: "Hey Raf... skip says I'm starting for you today, can uh... can I borrow your glove?"
Rafael Santana: "What! No, I don't want catcher cooties on my glove. Go away."
Barry Lyons: Aww gee, skipper's gonna be mad.
Barry Lyons: "Hey skipper, that meanie Rafael Santana said I'd get catcher cooties all over his glove and that I can't use it. What am I supposed to do?"
Davey Johnson: "Well, you'll just have to make do, now get out there."

NINE INNINGS LATER

Mets Announcer Guy #1: "And the Mets fall nineteen to three. Had it not been for the twelve errors committed by shortstop for the day Barry Lyons this would have been a much closer game.
Mets Announcer Guy #2: "But you have to wonder how many of those errors could have been avoided if he'd gone to the field wearing the proper glove."

Now the question must be asked, why did Fleer choose this particular day to take baseball card photographs? At least he looks determined to make the skipper proud.

I've never been one to shy away from expressing my dislike of the Yakees (or the Mets for that matter), but there are certain Yankees players that I admire. Most notably Ruth, DiMaggio and Gherig. But Don Mattingly is one that I feel bad for not liking more than I did during his playing days. I always respected his ability, but he was a Yankee. I guess I felt the same about Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neil, too. But that's ok, all is forgiven now that he's working for my other favorite team, the Dodgers (though I'm indifferent and leaning towards dislike of Joe Torre).

And there you have it, Pack Fourteen.

A few days off...

2009-05-22T11:55:00.001-04:00

I'm taking a few days away from baseball cards and writing here. I'll be back on Monday, hopefully well rested, with pack 14.

Pack Thirteen

2009-05-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

Pack 13 +13
(bold blue indicates upgraded card)
560 Rene Gonzales
512 Mike Devereaux
292 Luis Polonia
185 Neal Heaton
254 George Brett
240 Terry McGriff
483 Bobby Witt
145 John Mitchell
31 Doug DeCinces
319 Milt Thompson
107 Rob Ducey
162 Chuck Crim
205 Henry Cotto
329 Brian Fisher
10 Gary Gaetti

I upgraded two cards with this pack, making it thus far the least productive pack out of the box. But still, thirteen out of fifteen added is pretty good in my book.

If this card looks familiar:

It's becuase I scanned it and used the top of it as the banner for the site.

Here's our Hall of Famer, with more than enough pine tar on his bat.

I wonder why he looks so pissed off. Maybe Tim McClelland is calling balls and strikes and just made a remark about the pine tar on Brett's bat... again.

There's a lot going on in this card. First, he has the field cap under the batting helmet look going on which I always like to see. It also looks like he's just hit a bullet down the third base line.

But what I'm most curious about, is who is that other player in the background. The skin tone isn't correct for either Tony Bernazard or Mike Davis, both commonly batted after Polonia in the lineup. It almost looks like a young Tony LaRussa, which would explain why he's wearing a field cap.

Any ideas?

If tomorrow's pack goes well, I'll be one third of the way through the set.

Pack Twelve

2009-05-18T23:25:00.001-04:00

Pack 12 +15
75 Mike Aldrete
288 Gene Nelson
578 Chris Brown
362 Ed Romero
133 Len Dykstra
226 Dave Winfield
321 Rafael Belliard
24 Les Straker
312 Wally Ritchie
619 Ed Vande Berk
234 John Franco
122 Jose Nunez
452 Rob Mallicoat
392 Floyd Bannister
427 Jerry Mumphrey

This should get us caught up.

I've replaced one card so far out of the box, but there have been no actual doubles, which makes this box the winner. Of the three online box breaks I've done, 1988 Score started giving doubles in pack 4 and 1989 Bowman in pack 11. Way back in May of 2008, doubles started showing up in pack four of my first box of '87 Topps.

By far the worst for doubles was '87 Topps, but '88 Score wasn't far behind. I learned my lesson though, never buy two boxes of the same set. It's nothing but a frustration to open 36 packs and come out with less than 150 needed cards.

But anyway...

This pack wasn't a whole lot better than the last one, but I did pull a Hall of Famer and an all around nice guy:

This is another good photograph. Is that old Comisky in the background?

I just noticed that in the "At Their Best" section, Fleer used the term batting average, but otherwise used .pct. Any idea why? I know that a batting average is a percentage, but it's a strange choice. Trying to be different I guess.

Next up, another of my all time favorite players, a true underdog:

As you can see, the stats on the back document Raffy's first big league home run. It came on May 5, 1987 at Jack Murphy Stadium off Padres picture Eric Show. In the top of the second inning, another future Braves hero, Sid Bream doubled to right. He scored on a Jim Morrison double to left. Show then walked R.J. Reynolds. Morrison then scored on a Mike LaValliere single up the middle which set the scene for Belliard to hit his first home run, driving in both Spanky and Reynolds.

The Pirates scored five runs in the inning and went on to win the game 10-8. The loss sent the Padres record to 7-21, and put them 12 games back in the young season.

Ten years and four months later, on September 26, 1997, this time at Shea Stadium, Raffy did it again. With the Braves down 4-6 after six innings of play, Brian Bohanon started the 7th facing Tony Graffanino who singled down the third base line. Jovy Lopez was brought into pinch hit for pitcher Chris Brock and struck out. Danny Bautista followed with a flyout to left.

Belliard was next and took Bohanon deep to left to tie the game at six. The Braves eventually won on a Danny Bautista RBI single in the top of the 11th. That win was their 101st and final win of the season as they dropped the last two heading into the playoffs.

I've still got my fingers crossed for a successful TTM return from Raffy.

And finally, what kind of host would I be if I didn't end this post with a terrible picture?

Looks like Mr. Mallicoat ate something very sour just before the picture was taken and tried his absolute best not to show it on his face. He failed miserably.

Pack Eleven

2009-05-18T16:45:00.001-04:00

Pack 11 +15
484 Tony Armas
466 Scott Fletcher
98 Robby Thompson
281 Rick Honeycutt
593 Eric Nolte
354 Mike Greenwell
143 Kevin McReynolds
203 Rick Cerone
146 Randy Myers
18 Joe Neikro
301 Todd Frohwirth
615 Cory Snyder
227 Buddy Bell
637 Crunch Time (Darryl Strawberry, Eric Davis)
457 Dave Smith

I know I'm a day late with this one, but I just decided yesterday that I wasn't going to do any writing, I don't even know if I turned the computer on or not. It's good to get away for a day.

There's going to be two packs today. Pack 12 will come later this afternoon or evening.

Here we go with number 11.

This is not a spectacular pack. I can't think of a single card in this pack that would have excited me had I opened it 20 years ago. Maybe, maybe, I'd have been pleased with the Strawberry/Davis card and maybe the Mike Greenwell, but I doubt it.

Today, the only card that really does much for me is the Joe Niekro (and I'd still rather it have been his brother, but I'll take either one of them).

This is a great picture that really lets you see the grip for the knuckleball. I wonder if there's a nail file in his back pocket.

Look at the "At Their Best" stat breakdowns. Joe really didn't fare well in day games in 1987. 2-4 with an 8.40 ERA.

And here's the afore mentioned Strawberry/Davis card. Unlike the other '87 All Star game cards we've seen, this one was taken right off the first base side of home plate.

"It is a tribute to their ... strength as men that they both have been able to thrive under such pressure." I guess cocaine helps with pressure (at least in Strawberry's case).

And now I present two cards that could have been better...

Pop up, foul down the first base line? Has to be a fouled out of play because he doesn't really look prepard to run. But it looks like the picture was taken during the day, and if you look at his stat breakdowns, you'll see that he hit poorly during the day.

There are two very small children just behind the wall. You can see most of one's face, but just the top of the other's head (who's wearing a hood for some reason).

Finally, this isn't really a terrible photo, but he looks very uninterested in being there. I'm sure baseball card picture day is just a hassle and annoyance for some players, but it's not hard to smile or at least look like you car for five seconds.

Or is it?

Check back later for pack 12.

Pack Ten

2009-05-16T22:20:00.000-04:00

Pack 10 +15
75 Lou Whitaker
97 Harry Spilman
173 Bill Schroeder
198 Tim Wallach
250 Frank Williams
260 Bo Jackson
295 Dave Stewart
384 Ken Phelps
405 Steve Lyons
435 Rick Sutcliffe
451 Bob Knepper
519 Brad Havens
535 Marty Clary
565 Lee Lacy
595 Luis Salazar

First I need to point out that this isn't the order the cards came out of the pack. Power went out before I saved my Word document and for some reason auto-save didn't catch it. So I have no idea what the original order was.

Swing and a miss. This card falls into the realms nice old Expos uniform and couldn't they have come up with a better photo.

Bo knows how to make a good card.

Here's Dave Stewart after his breakout year in 1987 when he won 20 games.

Steward reminds me of Mike Tyson (the boxer) because he's a very intimidating looking man with a squeaky little voice.

I'm posting this more for my own curiosity than anything else. What's that little baseball field next to the stadium?

Pack Nine

2009-05-15T20:49:00.001-04:00

Pack 9 +14
656 Checklist
123 Dave Stieb
261 Danny Jackson
35 Tom Herr
356 Bruce Hurst
200 Herm Winningham
AS5 George Bell
620 Eddie Williams
419 Shawon Dunston
397 Carlton Fisk
519 Shawn Hillegas
633 Big Bats at First (Mark McGwire, Pat Tabler)
550 Zane Smith
574 Mark Williamson
439 Alan Ashby

This is my third attempt at writing this post. I actually started it at 11:45am, but was interrupted by a power outage. Then around 1:30pm a violent thunderstorm scared me away from the computer. It's starting to storm again, so hopefully I can get this finished this time

Looks like my assumed rate of insertion for the All Star cards is holding true. Here's pack nine, and I've pulled three of them. I've read every word written on the box and on the pack and there's no given rate. The pack says:

So randomly could mean one in three packs, or it could just be coincidence that I'm pulling one in three packs. I assume that the 3-Pack they're talking about are the three section rack packs, but why mention it here? How many of us read what was printed on the packs when we were kids?

The only thing the display box says is to look at the bottom for the box bottom cards. But you'll have to stick around until pack number 36 to see those, nudge nudge wink wink.

Anyhoo, I've strayed off topic... back to the All Stars.

Like the Topps All Stars, not every member of the 1988 Fleer All Star Team was an All Star in 1987. Three of the twelve weren't. Here's one that was, though:

Like I said a few days ago, I do intend to complete this sebset, but I don't really like it. A lot of what I think is wrong with this subset is what I think is wrong with a lot of modern high end cards. FOr the most part I don't particularly like a card where the player is cut out and pasted onto some generic background. A lot of Upper Deck's inserts seem to follow this pattern. There are exceptions and I've run across a few background-less cards that I like, but those examples are pretty few and far between.

Since that Kent Tekulve left a bad taste in my mouth and my eyes burning from sheer badness, I give you a very nice looking shot of Carlton Fisk. It could be better. A play at the plate would have been nice, but this one will do. Something has just happened though because you can see some dust in the air in the bottom right corner.

I wonder what's going on. There's a Red Sox player right behind Fisk who is bent over like he's trying to motion for a runner to slide, but his arms are down by his side. Strange. Who is that in the on deck circle?

Fisk is also the Hall of Famer out of this pack.

Best uniform ever.

Pat Tabler looks like he's about 14 years old in that picture. And you can also see what Mark McGwire looked like before he ate a professional wrestler (where else would the steroids have come from? Free range wrestlers are so much more healthy and free of potentially harmful or performance enhancing chemicals).

So far it looks like all of these All Star cards were taken in pretty much the same place. Somewhere along the first base side of homeplate. Probably in the first row or two of seats or on top of the dugout.

I haven't posted stickers lately because you can see them all over at the Fleer Sticker Project, but I chose to show this one becuase 1988 was the final full season for the Blue Jays at ~~the Mistake by the Lake~~ Exhibition Stadium. Has a more unsuitable location for baseball ever been built? The Blue Jays moved into the Skydome early in the 1989 season.

And there you have it. Thanks to the weather, only nine hours after I started it.

Pack Eight

2009-05-14T23:34:00.003-04:00

Pack 8 +15
176 Dale Sveum
544 Dale Murphy
375 Dave Hengel
96 Chris Speier
61 Chet Lemon
599 Ed Whitson
559 Ken Gerhart
510 Ralph Bryant
290 Tony Phillips
179 Hubie Brooks
270 Kevin Seitzer
228 Tom Browning
467 Jose Guzman
154 Mookie Wilson
493 Wally Joyner

This is a lot later than I intended. I got back from Atlanta around 11am (took a lot longer than I intended... Atlanta's only 150 miles away and it took five hours round trip) and managed to stay awake until 2pm or so, then I crashed.

I've been taking melatonin for help sleeping and it's been working. Of course, I've only taken it twice so far. But I decided against taking it last night since I needed to be alert for driving, and of course I didn't sleep.

Well, here I am after an uneventful trip with an uneventful pack. This is gonna be a short one tonight with no pictures just because I'm too tired to scan anything.

Nothing great here. No Hall of Famers. One old Expo, but he's wearing a red batting practice jersey. And I think Tom Brown was the answer to a trivia question I saw recently on one of the blogs or on TV, can't remember which.

That's all. Come back tomorrow after I've had a full night's sleep for more excitement.

Pack Seven

2009-05-13T11:23:00.000-04:00

Pack 7 +15
131 David Cone
499 Greg Minton
318 Kent Tekulve
628 Masters of the Double Play
44 Jose Oquendo
221 Jerry Royster
324 Sid Bream
19 Kirby Puckett
235 Guy Hoffman
125 Duane Ward
258 Jerry Gleaton
47 Ozzie Smith
364 Joe Sambito
192 Pascual Perez
608 John Farrell

We've got a lot to talk about today so let's get right into it.

Lots of Hall of Famers here, but first:

Jerry Don Gleaton is, right off the top of my head, the only Major Leaguer I can think of that uses both his first and middle name. Why then did Fleer decide to call him Jerry Gleaton? Every other card of his that I've ever seen has listed him as "Jerry Don."

When I saw this card I thought "ok, maybe there was a second Jerry Gleaton." There isn't. So I guess Topps isn't the only company to shorten names. Bob Clemente and Benny Santiago would be proud.

Can anyone come up with other ML players who use both their first and middle names? Or how about any other Jerry Don Gleaton cards that drop the Don?

Oh, and one more before we get to the Hall of Famers.

This has to be a front runner for the worst non-airbrused picture on a baseball card ever. Is this really the best picture they could get? "dur... lukit, there's a gluv on mah han'." Bad Fleer. Bad. No! The photographer deserves to get beaten with a rolled up newspaper for that.

Scroll down a few days and look at that great Carney Lansford shot, and then the good Greg Maddux. They could, and did, do a lot better than poor Kent.

Ok, now that that's over with, here's those Hall of Famers.

Ozzie looks very unhappy. Somewhat akin to his 1989 Bowman card, where he looks very uncomfortable, bordering on confused.

Again, is this the best they could come up with?

But wait, here's a better picture.

Here we get a two for one deal. Two Hall of Famers for the price of one card. And this time, Ozzie looks happy. However, neither Ozzie or Ryne appear to be looking at the correct camera. Which reminds me of the All Star Righties card we saw back in pack two. I guess there's so much going on at an All Star game it's hard to look in the right direction all the time.

ANd finally, the late Kirby Puckett.

Pretty good pack.

Pack SIx

2009-05-12T22:39:00.001-04:00

Pack 6 +15
462 Jerry Browne
137 Gregg Jefferies
506 Devon White
307 Chris James
117 Nelson Liriano
174 Steve Stanicek
210 Charles Hudson
333 Mike LaValliere
25 Frank Viola
AS8 Wade Boggs
657 Checklist
121 Jeff Musselman
252 Bud Black
42 Willie McGee
355 Sam Horn

This post is later than I wanted it to be. But I had to fight with my scanner to get the scans to come out straight, and by that time it was dinner time. Then I just plain forgot about this post and said I'd do it after the game. As good as things have been going, it didn't end up so well tonight. Walks hurt. Bad. Yes, there was a horrible call in the 9th, Beltran was out. But still, walks hurt... and the Braves are back under .500.

Whatever. Here's the post.

Without checking, I would imagine that the Gregg Jefferies card pictures above was, in the late 80s, one of the more valuable cards in the set. I wrote a bit about Jefferies over at 1988 Score about a year ago, so I won't repeat mtself.

A lot of people expected a lot of things out of Gregg Jefferies, and he had a few good years. A lot of people will say he never lived up to their expectations, but he was a two time All Star, and finished his career at .289/.344/.421 with 126 home runs and 663 RBIs. He didn't strike out a lot either. Pretty good numbers over all, and a good career.

Curiosity got the better of me, so I went to my trusty and never, ever incorrect Beckett, only to discover that the section containing 1988 Fleer is missing. I knew the section with 1988 Score fell out, but I didn't know Fleer was in that section to. It's gotta be around here somewhere... But my 1995 Confident Collector price guide lists the Jefferies card at $4. So I'm sure it booked higher than that in my Beckett from 1990.

If I can unearth that section, it may be a interesting addition to this site. As far as I'm concerned those price guides are only good for their checklists (especially when online checklists are rarely correct), but it would be fun to see who was considered a hot prospect back in the day.

The only other card I need to talk about tonight is this one:

The Hall of Famer in the pack. I haven't decided if I want to go out of my way to put together this insert set or not. I know it's only 12 cards, but to be perfectly honest, I'd rather those cards be tweleve base cards to add to the set instead. But since I'm more than likely going to pull a few of them, I might as well try to finish it.

I've pulled two of out six packs, so if they were inserted at a rate of one every three packs, I should get 12 of them in this box. Assuming there are no doubles and that there even was a set rate of insertion (that sounds... dirty).

And so now I'm going to end this before the sleeping pills take effect. Come back tomorrow for pack seven.

Pack Five

2009-05-11T15:52:00.001-04:00

Pack 5 +15
385 Jim Presley
645 Major League Prospects (Jim Eppard, Joey Meyer)
60 Eric King
501 Gus Polidor
476 Larry Parrish
87 Craig Lefferts
285 Carney Lansford
582 Tim Flannery
367 Bob Stanley
138 Howard Johnson
207 Ron Guidry
342 Bob Walk
8 Mark Davidson
299 Jeff Calhoun
603 Brett Butler

For some reason that I don't know or remember, I always liked Carney Lansford. Back in the late 80s, aside from being a Braves fan, I was both a Dodgers and A's fan. I always like Carney Lansford better than Jose Canseco or Mark McGwire. I can't explain it... I was a strange child.

Regardless of my childhood idiosyncrasies, you have to admit, this is a pretty nice looking card. I'm kinda surprised the card lists his position as first and third base. Yes, he played a few games at first, but only a very few. Of 1850 games played, 1720 of those were at third. He played 124 games at first, as well as a few at the DH position and a handful at second and short.

Moving on to a card that could really stand to have some flavor text on the back.

Thanks to the power of the internet, I learned that Tim Flannery does (or did at least in 1988) surf. Even without the internet, my powers of reasoning and deduction would probably have come to the same conclusion, but isn't it just a bit... strange to have a surfboard on a baseball card with absolutely no explination?

What if, in 100,000,000 years the human race is long dead and all traces of our existence are gone, except a single remaining factory set of 1988 Fleer? What if an alien race finds that factory set and builds a rudimentary understanding of this game? From flipping through the cards they could easily conclude that it was a game that involved hitting a spheroid object with a club. But then what happens to their fragile understanding of baseball when they come to card number 582 and here's a guy with what looks like an oval shaped shield?

The only possible conclusion they could draw from that card would be that that thing he's holding is a defensive tool. And now instead of hitting that spheroid object with a club, they think the object is to hit the other players with the ball AND the club.

Do we not owe it to future inhabitants of earth to explain that that's a surfboard and that Tim Flannery likes to surf? That that shield like object is not part of the game of baseball?

I think we do. Or at least if a time capsule is ever buried containing a factory set of '88 Fleer, we should at least include a note and explanation of surfing.

One good thing that I will say about this card is that they picked a good location on the field to take the picture. You can see the Padres logo on the wall behind Tim. It seems like a lot of times in the late 80s they'd take a picture wherever the guy was standing and you'd have a Cubs player with a Pirates logo in the background.

Now that we have a plan in place to keep from confusing the aliens, let's look at two guys that I've never heard of...

Jim Eppard played in 82 games over four seasons. He was used primarily off the bench and started only 20 games.

In two seasons, Joey Meyer played in 156 games, hit 18 homers and drove in 74 runs. Strike outs were his main problem at every level of play, though he hit for good power in the minor leagues (.289/.354/.527, 135 HR, 487 RBI in six seasons).

He does have a place in history though. On August 9, 1988 against the Red Sox, with the game tied at two, he hit the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth out of the park. It was the only walk off home run Roger Clemens ever gave up.

You learn something new everyday.

Pack Four

2009-05-10T16:47:00.001-04:00

Pack 4 +14
313 Bruce Ruffin
119 Lloyd Mosbey
167 Steve Kiefer
204 Pat Clements
328 Mike Dunne
20 Jeff Reardon
AS7 Eric Davis
660 Checklist
105 John Cerutti
266 Jamie Quirk
29 Bill Dawley
361 Jim Rice
194 Jeff Reed
95 Don Robinson
423 Greg Maddux

Packs of 1988 Fleer randombly included two insert sets that weren't numbered as part of the base set. They were the Fleer All Star Team (12 cards) and Fleer Headliners. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read somewhere that the Headliners were exclusive to rack packs, so I shouldn't be running across any in this box.

The numbering convention used by Fleer for the inserts was the typical 1-XX, but just for the sake of keeping everything in order, I'm numbering this insert as ASx. So in this case we have AS7.

It's been said that these All Star cards aren't the most exciting cards in the world. Well, they're not. But they're no less exciting than Topps' All Stars. The Fleer cards do however look like mug shots.

Moving right along.

There's one soon to be inducted Hall of Famer in this pack, and one future first ballot Hall of Famer:

1988 would be Greg Maddux's second full year in the Major Leagues. After going 6-14 with a 5.61 ERA in '87, Greg turned it around and had an outstanding 1988 and made his first trip to the All Star game.

Twenty years later, his stat line reads: 355 victories (8th all time) against 227 losses, a 3.16 ERA, 3371 strikeouts (10th all time), 999 walks, 1.143 WHIP and an ERA+ of 132.

Don't forget his four straight Cy Young awards (1992-1995) and eighteen Gold Gloves.

He was the best. There are some great pitchers around right now, but it'll be a long time before we see another Greg Maddux.

The checklists for this set are interesting. Like the 1989 Bowman set we just saw, the checklist is divided into teams, this time based on their finish in 1987.

And finally, today's sticker is the Atlanta Braves.

I wonder when that picture was taken? You'd think that even in the off season there'd be a few cars here and there in the parking lots. I count seven cards and a few on the street next to the stadium.

I've made a few trips to Turner Field, but only went to Fulton County once. It looked nothing like that picture because when I was there it was 1996 to see a game at the Olympics. So by the time I was there, the Olympic Stadium (now Turner Field) was taking up most of the parking.

Turner Field is beautiful and a great place to watch a ball game. And while Fulton County lacked a lot of the nice comfort features that Turner has, it was still a good place to see a game and much nicer in person than any picture ever made it look.

Pack Three

2009-05-09T20:14:00.002-04:00

Pack 3 +15
399 Ron Hassey
420 Leon Durham
157 Glenn Braggs
532 Paul Assenmacher
372 Mike Campbell
85 Mike Krukow
66 Matt Nokes
585 Tony Gwynn
570 Cal Ripken, Jr.
522 Mike Marshall
279 Dennis Eckersley
201 Floyd Youmans
259 Mark Gubicza
644 Major League Prospects (Greg Myers, Greg Tabor)
464 Ed Correa

You can't ask for a much better pack than this. It was going along, just so-so. Nothing special until I came across Matt Nokes. His career didn't live up to the expectations, but in 1988 he was a young star.

But after Nokes is where it got good. I flipped Nokes over, and there was Tony Gwynn looking at me. A Hall of Famer and one of my favorite players ever, second only to Cal Ripken, Jr.

I really like how Fleer used the team colors in the banner at the bottom. It kinda ties everything together and somehow manages to not clash with the red and blue stripes. It would be nice if those stripes matched the team colors too, though.

I also noticed when I was putting these scans together, that today is Tony's 49th birthday, how fitting that I pulled his card today. Happy Birthday Tony Gywnn!

As I was thinking how much I like Tony Gwynn and that I hope I pull Ripken out of the box somewhere, who do I see next?

So in one pack I pulled the entire HoF class of 2007. But it wasn't over yet. A few cards later and there's Dennis Eckersley. Three Hall of Famers in one pack is pretty nice. I'm going to say this is an early season contender for best pack of the box.

I also pulled the rookie card of Greg Myers and Greg Tabor. Myers stuck around as a part time player until the conclusion of the 2005 season and finished with a .255 average with 87 homeers and 396 RBIs in 1108 games.

The stats you see for Tabor are it for his Major League career. Nine games, nine at bats, one hit, one RBI and four runs scored. His one hit, a double, came on September 29, 1987 against Twins pitcher Dan Schatzeder. He moved to third on a wild pitch and then scored on a Bob Brower single. Tabor was pinch hit for his next at bat.

His other three runs scored came as a pinch runner on September 10, 27 and October 1, 1987.

He was traded to the Cubs in March 1988, but never played for the big club and retired after that one season with Triple-A Iowa.

Today's sticker was the St. Louis Cardinals.

Pack Two

2009-05-08T14:59:00.000-04:00

Pack 2 +14
(bold blue text indicates upgraded card)
191 Reid Nichols
611 Tommy Hinzo
460 Wade Rowdon
400 Donnie Hill
527 Franklin Stubbs
626 All Star Righties (Bret Saberhagen, Mike Witt, Jack Morris)
546 David Palmer
572 Larry Sheets
449 Billy Hatcher
386 Rey Quinones
641 Rookie Prospects (Mark Grace, Darrin Jackson)
67 Dan Petry
502 Johnny Ray
478 Jeff Russell
99 Jose Uribe

Despite having never bought a pack of this stuff when it was new, I had managed to accumulate twenty cards somewhere (most likely through repack boxes I bought in the early 90s).

In my other box breaks, most notably '88 Score, I didn't make note of upgraded cards. I'm not going to count them as doubles, as such, but I do want to keep a running count of what cards get replaced. Hence marking upgrades.

So we'll see if I can replace all twenty of the cards I have or not. They're not in terrible shape, aside from a dinged corner here and there, so if I had a choice, I'd vote not to replace them. But I don't have a whole lot of say in the matter, do I?

While we're on the topic of that upgraded card, if Billy Hatcher loses his job today, I am truly sorry.

And now it's time to look at some cards.

This card reminds me a lot of the Super Shortstops from 1988 Score. In fact, they were taken in nearly identical locations. The Fleer card was shot a bit to the left of the Score card, and probably right around the same time, as you can see batting cages on the field in both shots.

I wonder if more than one photograph was being taken at the same time. Jack Morris is clearly not looking at the same cameraman.

The front of the card looks miscut, but I don't think it is. Even in the horizontal orientation, the photograph is set in the same place it would be on a vertical card. But by looking at the back, the card is actually miscut just a bit, but it doesn't affect the placement of the photograph. It looks like they used the same template for all the cards and didn't try to center the horizontal photographs. It doesn't show well in the scan because of the white behind the card, but in hand you really notice how off center the photographs are.

Major League Prospects. I had to do some checking, but it looks like this is the true rookie card for both Mark Grace and Darrin Jackson. Grace made his debut in May 1988, but Jackson had played a few games at the Major League level in both 1985 and 1987 (16 at bats, five hits), but looking around I didn't find any earlier cards. I guess I'm finally getting used to the idea that today "rookie card" means a photograph taken seconds after birth of a potential future baseball player.

Both of these guys had respectable careers, with Grace being one of the more consistent hitters of the 1990s. His 1,754 hits between 1990 and 1999 are the most by any player during that decade, he also hit the most doubles and sac flies of the 90s.

For some reason I always think Grace had been around before 1988. Maybe because for some reason I get he and Ryne Sandberg mixed up. I don't know, but I always have to stop and think when I see a Mark Grace rookie card from 1988.

The sticker for today is a good one:

That is the best logo in the history of baseball. Period. The Expos of the '80s had the best uniform and cap ever, but the Brewers had the best logo.

Sorry Bob

2009-05-08T01:19:00.002-04:00

MLB.com reports that the Diamondbacks have fired Bob Melvin and will replace him with A.J. Hinch before tomorrow night's game.

So? Look who was in pack one:

Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe I've uncovered the mythical 1988 Fleer From Beyond that's able to tell the future through baseball cards.

Let this be a warning to all current managers and coaches who are featured in 1988 Fleer. If I pull your card, I take no responsibility for what foul events transpire in your career.

Stickers

2009-05-07T23:55:00.002-04:00

The Fleer Sticker Project has a great post on the stickers from 1988 Fleer. Interestingly enough it was posted just a few days ago.

Great pictures and great information.

Pack One

2009-05-07T13:53:00.003-04:00

Pack 1 +15

Pack one can be seen over at A Pack to be Named Later.

By the end of the afternoon, I'll have completed the process of turning 1989 Bowman into 1988 Fleer. So stay around for that, and come back tomorrow for pack two.

How 'bout this one?

2009-05-03T17:45:00.003-04:00

I'm liking this one. It has the spiffy Fleer crown that has gotten positive nods and a more accurate font/text placement.

A cleaned up version of this (or maybe just this version of it) will probably end up as the final product. Unless there's screaming from the masses against it.

And as I mentioned on 1988 Score, I signed on to write a few pack breaks here and there for A Pack to be Named Later, so pack number one when the box arrives will be posted over there.

Hopefully in the next several days we'll see some cards.

new banners, you decide!

2009-04-24T19:15:00.007-04:00

After Gimping around for a few hours, here's two pretty rough drafts for possible banners. I like the second one a lot, but not all the clutter in the middle, text needs to move around a bit, but I like the "At their best" banner and the day/night doodad.

Number 1:

Number 1b:

Number 2:

Number 2b (I cleaned up some clutter):

Number 2c:

Let me know what you think. I'll probably post this over at '88 Score as well.

I'm an impatiend little feller

2009-04-24T17:41:00.004-04:00

Impulse got the better of me and I went ahead and ordered a box of '88 Fleer. Well, I got a good deal on it ($10 + $4.99 shipping), so I couldn't pass it up. So hopefully by the end of next week, this place will be the 1988 Fleer Blog. I'm gonna work on a few banner ideas tonight and let the readers decide which to use.

Graphics editing has never been my strong point. I had to learn Page Maker in college, but never worked with PhotoShop much. So I'm just a' learnin'. I used GIMP for the Bowman banner and I must say I think it came out pretty well. So hopefully I can do as well with an '88 Fleer banner.

I may have to call this place "8889 Fleerman" until the Bowman set is complete though.

1989 Bowman want list is up...

2009-04-23T23:24:00.002-04:00

I've gone through the whole binder and stack of doubles to make sure I didn't miss anything. So here's the final want list for this set, and here are the doubles I have for trade if anyone needs anything.

And for those who are interested, 1988 Fleer is going to be next. Next Saturday is my birthday, so a box of 88 Fleer is going to be my birthday present to myself. I'll order it sometime in the next several weeks.

Once again, thanks for reading.

Pack Thirty-Six

2009-04-22T22:17:00.003-04:00

Well, here we are at the end of the box and I've got a few things to say before we get to the cards.

First, I want to respond to Andy's comment about Griffey in yesterday's post. I think what I was after when I called Griffey a "pure hitter" was a slightly more eloquent way to say he didn't stick needles in his bum. So I didn't exactly mean pure hitter in the Ted Williams/Tony Gwinn kind of way. But Andy is right, Griffey certainly isn't the best "pure hitter" in the purest sense of the word. His .288 career average is certainly very good, but not phenomenal.

My poor choice of words did bring up an interesting debate in my head this afternoon when I read Andy's comment though. Who is the best pure hitter of this generation? To be more specific, in this post-Tony Gwinn era? It's a hard question to answer because of the focus on the home run hitter over the past ten to fifteen years. Sometimes a guy who hits .340 with nine home runs and 76 RBIs goes unnoticed in favor of the the .269/45/115 guy.

A pure hitter is certainly a patient hitter, but a high walk count doesn't always equate to patience. Neither does a low strikeout total. In my mind, a pure hitter would be a guy with a .320+ average, a high OBP but not necessarily a high slugging percentage (doubles type hitter) and therefore an average OPS.

I'll see who I can come up with.

Moving along.

I've been holding back on this post for a few hours to see what the Braves can do tonight. They loaded the bases in the top of the 9th but were only able to score one run (on a walk to Kelly Johnson) but it was enough.

My prediction of a 9-6 record looked promising until the bullpen collapsed about a week ago. Tonight's win puts them at 7-8. Not what I'd hoped for. But it's only April. Gotta keep telling myself that. It's only April. Only April...

And finally before we get to the cards. I really enjoy these pack by pack box breaks and I hope people reading them enjoy it too. I'm interested in new cards, and I'm looking forward to Topps Series 2 to come out, but these nostalgic breaks are something I hope to continue doing. And I don't want this site to die just because the box is empty. I'm going to keep updating this site until I complete the set, but I'm thinking I'll keep this place and use it for future box breaks. I'll of course change the title and banner.

So where do I go from here? 1989 Bowman won out over 1989 Score for the next break, and I still want to go back and take a look at '89 Score. But right now I'm thinking about doing box breaks and trying to put together the major sets from 1988, the year I started collecting. With Score complete, that leaves Topps, Donruss and Fleer.

Since Andy just recently did 88 Topps, I want to hold off on it for a while. The fun for me in doing these are to see cards that I've never seen before. So I want to give myself a bit of time to forget 88 Topps before I rip open a box of it.

So that leaves Fleer and Donruss. Please don't groan. I do like '88 Donruss, in the same way I like 1950's sci-fi. I know it's bad, but I can't help myself. From the looks of things on Amazon and ebay, boxes of 88 Donruss are plentiful, and hell I could probably just post my name and address at every trading forum on the internet and just sit back and wait for people to gladly and gleefully dump boxes and boxes of it on my doorstep. And I may do that "WILLING TO GIVE 1988 DONRUSS A GOOD, LOVING HOME."

But I'm kinda interested in Fleer. I didn't see too much of it back in '88, so I'll probably start poking around looking for a box within the next several weeks. We'll see what happens... maybe a box of '88 Fleer will be a nice birthday present for myself.

NOW we can look at some cards.

Pack 36 +12
462 Jerald Clark
364 Rex Hudler
15 Steve Finley
27 Rich Gedman
465 Kelly Downs
12 Billy Ripken
344 Willie Randolph
109 Keith Moreland
329 Bill Doran
410 Jeff Robinson
323 Rick Rhoden
79 Rich Yett

I'm overjoyed that there were no doubls in my final pack. So my speech about doubles and whatnot from yesterday still applies.

Bowman should have put Cal and Billy next to each other in the checklist, but they're separated by Randy Milligan and Juan Bell. I've got something to say about the Orioles in this set, but I'm going to wait until I have them all, just to make sure I can still say it and be accurate. But the card I'm going to post today is an Oriole, and if you go back and find any other Orioles I've posted you can probably figure out what I want to say.

Who is that Oriole?

Steve Finley. If it weren't for rookie cards of Griffey and Smoltz, I think it may be safe to say that Steve Finley had the most successful career of all the rookies in this set.

Finley was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 11th round of the 1986 draft but chose to finish his college career at Southern Illinois University (where he graduated with a degree in physiology). He was drafted again by the Orioles in the 13th round of the '87 draft and did sign.

He hit a combined .303 in his first professional season split between Newark and Hagerstown. He continued to hit well in '88 and most of '89, though his numbers for Triple-A Rochester weren't great. But 1989 also saw his first shot at the Major Leagues and aside from a few rehab games here and there, he stuck in the bigs until 2007.

Finley possessed good speed his entire career and in 2006 at the age of 41 he legged out twelve triples.

He's most likely not a Hall of Famer, but Baseball Reference's similarity scores put him in some good company (Roberto Clemente, Bernie Williams, Dwight Evans to name a few).

Steve Finley was a two time All Star and the winner of five Gold Gloves and has one World Series ring to his name (2001 Diamondbacks).

Well, that's about all I've got to say.

I have a few clerical things to get caught up on. My doubles list isn't completely up to date, and I'll have a wants list made up sometime in the next 24 hours.

Thanks everyone for reading, and stay tuned for more to come. Hopefully I can get this set completed before too long.

Thanks again.

Pack Thirty-Five

2009-04-21T13:19:00.000-04:00

Pack 35 +12
123 Kevin Seitzer
435 Tony Pena
230 Scott Fletcher
220 Ken Griffey, Jr.
444 Tom Brunansky
253 Fred McGriff
158 Gary Gaetti
383 Kevin Elster
405 Juan Samuel
217 Darnell Coles
204 Tom Niedenfuer
267 Tom Glavine

This is a nice way to wind the box down. No doubles. I hope the final pack is the same. I had my share of frustrations with my '88 Score box, but the only real let down was the final pack.

The blocks of doubles have certainly been frustrating in this box, but there haven't been any of those major let downs, so all in all, I'm going to say of the four old boxes that I've opened since I got back into the hobby last summer this one has been the most fun.

Now I realize that my feelings could change completely tomorrow upon opening the final pack, so maybe I should have saved this speech. Oh well.

This is a pretty good pack. Fred McGriff has always been among my favorite players, and there's a very young Tom Glavine. But we're going to focus on the rookie of this pack. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of this kid, but he had a pretty good career for himself, and he even started off the 2009 campaign with a bang.

Ken Griffey, Jr. was the first pick of the 1987 draft by the Seattle Mariners and made his professional debut at Bellingham, where his 14 home runs led the team. 1988 saw a promotion to High-A San Bernardino and then to Double-A Vermont, as the back of the card tells us.

On April 3, 1989 Junior made his Major League debut going one for three with a walk. His first big league homer came a week later off of White Sox pitcher Eric King.

His 1989 performance was good enough for third place in the Rookie of the Year voting. Gregg Olson won for his 1.69 ERA and 27 saves.

Injuries have slowed Griffey down considerably over the past decade and his once brilliant outfield play has become somewhat of a liability (his last Gold Glove came in 1999), but he's still a threat in the DH role.

It would have been nice to see him in a Braves uniform and the way things are going in the outfield right now, his inability to run out some flyballs probably wouldn't make much of a difference, but in the end I'm glad to see him back in Seattle. Even if it is for just one or two more years, it'll give him a chance to end his career where it all started, and as much as I hate the DH rule, it'll give a great player a little more time to shine.

In the end, Ken Griffey is arguably the greatest pure hitter of his generation. When all is said and done, and the time comes to look hard at the steroid era, Griffey, Manny Ramirez and Chipper Jones will come out on top as the greatest pure, clean hitters of their time.

Griffey is without a doubt a first ballot Hall of Famer. There's really no point in putting his name on the ballot, just make a bronze bust and put it in its place. They might as well do it now. If Greg Maddux isn't the first to get 100% of HoF votes (and I'm pretty sure he will be), Griffey certainly will be.

There aren't enough good words to describe Griffey's career and what he has meant to baseball. When I think back to 1994 and the strike, I'm always reminded of a picture of a young Griffey on the cover of Newsweek magazine with a broken back and a sad expression. He had helped to revitalize baseball before the strike, and he certainly did his part after the strke.

I was beginning to worry that this box had been searched for this card because a few (no more than four or five) of the packs were no longer sealed and a few looked like they'd been resealed. But I guess 20 years doesn't do much for the seal on wax paper.

A little part of me wishes I'd grabbed the other pack first. This one would have been a great way to end it. But we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Pack Thirty-Four

2009-04-20T07:42:00.004-04:00

Pack 34 +6
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
440 Pedro Guerrero
241 Mike Flanagan
118 Mike Macfarlane
46 Dick Schofield
122 Frank White
200 Dave Henderson
441 Milt Thompson
309 Chris Sabo
249 Bob Brenly
439 Tim Jones
76 Greg Swindell
87 Mark Lewis

Here's an interesting block of doubles. The Guerrero was first pulled in pack 25 and it's all alone here. The next five cards were pulled first from pack 29. Strange.

The only rookie of the pack is Mark Lewis.

If you had told me that Mark Lewis stuck around in the Major Leagues until the 2001 season, I don't know that I'd have believed you. Honestly the only thing I remember about Mark Lewis is a grand slam he hit during the '95 play offs against the Dodgers while a member of the Cincinnati Reds.

Thanks to the power of Baseball Reference...

Heading into the bottom of the 6th on October 6, 1995 at Cinergy Field in Cincinnati, the Reds had a 3-1 lead over the Dodgers. LA had Hideo Nomo on the mound due to face Hal Morris, Benito Santiago and Bret Boone.

With a one and one count, Hal Morris hit an infield single. A wild pitch to Santiago moved Morris to second and Santiago's single to left put runners at first and third, thus ending Nomo's night.

Kevin Tapani came in to face Bret Boone and walked him on six pitches, loading the bases. Mark Guthrie was brought in to replace Tapani with no outs and the sacks full o' Reds.

At this point, Jeff Branson was scheduled to hit, but was pulled in favor of Mark Lewis. With the count even at two balls and two strikes, Lewis homered to left center, giving the Reds a 7-1 lead.

The next inning, this time facing John Cummings, Mark Lewis was intentionally walked. He later scored when pitcher Mike Jackson hit a three run double. Strange game.

Cincinnati won the game 10-1 to complete the three game sweep and advance to the NLCS where they faced the eventual world champion Atlanta Braves.

Doing a little more digging around, I found that Mark Lewis' pinch hit grand slam was the first in post season history. Have there been others since then?

Two packs left, and if you recall that I predicted the Braves would be 9-6 the day the box was finished. That means they have to sweep the series with Washington that begins tonight. Here's hoping...

Pack Thirty-Three

2009-04-19T23:00:00.001-04:00

Pack 33 +6
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
265 Paul Assenmacher
92 Frank Tanana
23 Wes Gardner
142 Gary Sheffield
68 Ivan Calderon
185 Gene Nelson
472 Royce Clayton
285 Paul Kilgus
332 Willie Ansley
264 Derek Lilliquist
335 Jay Howell
168 Lance McCullers

Nothing too special here. A second copy of the latest member to join the 500 home run club, and I also pulled another Gil Hodges reprint card which gives me two complete reprint sets.

There are three rookie cards to talk about today though, so let's jump right in.

Derek Lilliquist showed some potential with the Braves in 1989, posting an 8-10 record and a 3.97 ERA. That, combined with his less than two walks per nine innings, led him to a fourth place finish for Rookie of the Year. Despite his potential, the Braves traded him to the Padres for Mark Grant on July 12, 1990.

After spending most of the 1991 season at Triple-A Las Vegas, Lilliquist was taken off the waiver wire by the Indians where he pitched until the end of the 1994 season. At that point he was selected off waivers by the Braves in November, but released just over a month later.

He was picked up in late April '95 by the Red Sox but was released in July. On August 1, Derek signed with the Dodgers and spent the remainder of the season at Albuquerque but was granted free agency after the season. He signed on to play with the Reds in '96 and then with the Royals in '97 but never saw action with the Royals and retired.

Royce Clayton was the 15th pick of the 1988 draft by the San Francisco Giants and made his way to the Major Leagues on September 20, 1991.

I'm trying to find something good to say about his career, but nothing really jumps out. He was an above average player who stuck around for seventeen seasons, you can't really say much that's better. He was an All Star in 1997 with the Cardinals.

Willie Ansley was the seventh pick of the first round of the 1988 draft by the Houston Astros out of Plainview High School in Plainview, Texas. His first stop in the pro ball was for my local team, the Asheville Tourists when they were an Astros farm team. In 103 games for Asheville in 1989, Willie hit .309 with 6 home runs and 55 RBIs. Those numbers were good enough for a promotion to Double-A Columbus for the final 30 games of the 1989 season.

He spent the entire 1990 season in Columbus, and split 1991 between High-A Osceola of the Florida State League and Double-A Jackson of the Texas League. His numbers in both places left a bit to be desired and he spend some time in '92 with the GCL (rookie league) Astros in what I can only assume was extended spring training. The rest of his playing time in '92 was a Jackson.

In 1993, at 23 years old, he played for Triple-A Tucson of the PCL and hit relatively well (.262/5/61 in 125 games), but injuries had taken their toll over his short career and he called it quits.

After his playing days, he made it his life's missions to help other young ball players reach their dreams. There's a nice article about him here, from Lubbock Online, it's a few years old.

We're getting close. T minus 3 packs.

Pack Thirty-Two

2009-04-19T01:01:00.003-04:00

Pack 32 +12
117 Mark Gubicza
388 Kevin McReynolds
331 Glenn Davis
208 Dave Valle
333 Gerald Young
250 Rance Mulliniks
312 Todd Benzinger
259 Ken Griffey
40 Bryan Harvey
399 Steve Lake
39 Jim Abbott
445 Walt Terrell

Look over in the upper right corner. See it? This pack pushed me to my goal of 70% completion and there's still four packs to go. By the end of next week I'll have a want list for '89 Bowman up on 1988 Score and hopefully I can complete this thing pretty quickly (and get rid of some doubls while I'm at it... I hope).

On to the cards.

The rookie of this pack is truly an amazing man.

His win/loss record doesn't look so great at 87-108 and his 4.25 ERA is just average. But for what Jim Abbott had to overcome in his life to make it to the Major Leagues without spending a day in the minors is remarkable.

He was given the James E. Sullivan Award in 1987 as the best amateur athlete in the country, and then won a gold medal at the 1988 olympics. Pretty impressive considering he was born without a right hand.

1991 was statistically his best year in the majors. He went 18-11 with a 2.89 ERA and placed third in the Cy Young race (Roger Clemens won on the power of his 241 strikeouts that season). His ERA in 1992 was even better than '91, but his win/loss record suffered from playing on a team that lost 90 games.

After the 1992 season, Abbot was traded to the Yankees for Jerry Nielsen, J.T. Snow and Russ Springer. It was with the Yankees that on September 4, 1993 he no-hit the Indians. He walked five, but thanks to double plays, faced only three over the minimum.

A horrific 1996 season (2-18/7.48 ERA) led him to briefly retire, but he came back with the White Sox in '98 and then he signed with the Brewers for the 1999 season but was released midway through and retired for good.

I really can't see why he chose to sign with the Brewers, who were a National League team by that point. At least in the American League, thanks to the DH, he never had to bat. In 21 at bats in 1999 he picked up two hits (both singles) and drove in three runs.

These days he's a motivational speaker.

We're nearing the end. Four packs to go.

Catching up... four packs...

2009-04-17T18:27:00.003-04:00

I really haven't been in the mood for writing lately, not sure why, just not feeling it I guess.

Here's four packs to get us caught up and I'll try to get back into the swing of things for the last five packs.

I'm going to skip pictures and a lot of text for this post just to get caught up, I promise more in the way of writing and pictures for the final five though.

Pack 28 +6
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
177 Ken Phelps
215 Alvin Davis
24 John Dopson
227 Jim Sundberg
268 Mike Aldrete
210 Harold Reynolds
298 Andre Dawson
216 Edgar Martinez
295 Jerome Walton
398 Pat Combs
451 Bruce Hurst
188 Dave Stewart

Pack 29 +12
241 Mike Flanagan
118 Mike Macfarlane
46 Dick Schofield
122 Frank White
200 Dave Henderson
315 Joel Youngblood
297 Dwight Smith
378 Dave Proctor
401 Ricky Jordon
290 Ryne Sandberg
231 Jeff Kunkel
128 Danny Tartabull

Pack 30 +7
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
353 Bryn Smith
437 Terry Pendleton
47 Wally Joyner
317 Dave Smith
108 Chet Lemon
70 Daryl Boston
52 Claudell Washington
71 Dave Gallagher
182 Bob Brower
377 Sid Fernandez
65 Robin Ventura
407 Ron Jones

A note of interest is a block of five instead of six. I'm thinking these cards are from one of the top or bottom corners of the sheet.

Pack 31 +12
375 David Cone
197 Mark McGwire
363 Spike Owen
321 Juan Agosto
357 Brian Holman
284 Greg Maddux
417 Ken Oberkfell
130 Don August
468 Wil Tejada
229 Buddy Bell
268 Steve Avery
165 Dave LaPoint

Great pack here. Maddux and McGwire. But most importantly, a second Steve Avery rookie so that I can have one in the '89 Bowman binder and one in my player collection.

And with five packs left, I'm very close to the goal of 70% completion. In fact, with a good pack tomorrow, I could hit 70%.

Pack Twenty-Seven

2009-04-14T03:17:00.006-04:00

Pack 27 +6
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
365 Andres Galarraga
30 Jody Reed
481 Checklist
159 Wally Backman
187 Rick Honeycutt
272 Andres Thomas
186 Bob Welch
345 Alfredo Griffin
107 Pat Sheridan
428 Ken Dayley
373 Wally Whitehurst
163 Danny Gladden

From this pack, I was able to fill my first nine card page. That always gives me some sense of accomplishment. Actually, those pages were a dilemma. I searched high and low for nine card pages that were oversized to fit these cards. No luck. There are eight card pages that are made for oversized cards like the early '50s Bowmans, but they orient the cards horizontally. I just coulnd't bring myself to use pages like that, so I dug up some old pages from my first round of collecting that are a little bit taller than usual.

They're not perfect. But they display the cards correctly, and the binder is tall enough that the tops of the cards are pretty well protected. I can live with it.

Wally Whitehurst was drafted by Oakland in the third round of the 1985 draft but was traded to the Mets as part of a huge three team deal. Because I don't like typing, I'll just copy and past from Baseball Reference:

December 11, 1987: Traded as part of a 3-team trade by the Oakland Athletics with Kevin Tapani to the New York Mets. The Los Angeles Dodgers sent Bob Welch and Matt Young to the Oakland Athletics. The Los Angeles Dodgers sent Jack Savage to the New York Mets. The Oakland Athletics sent Alfredo Griffin and Jay Howell to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The New York Mets sent Jesse Orosco to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Lots of guys moving around in that one.

Wally had a very good 1990 season with the Mets where he pitched 65.2 innings, striking out 46 and walking only 9. The next year he went 7-12 in 36 games (20 starts) and 3-9 in 1992.

After the '92 season he was traded to the Padres where he pitched until the end of the '94 season. He spent the '95 season in Triple-A with the Red Sox, Giants and Blue Jays. The Jays released him at the end of the season and he signed with the Expos and began in '96 season at Triple-A Ottawa. He was selected off waivers by the Yankees and pitched in six games at Columbus before making his final two Major League stars with the Yankees on August 24 and 29.

Over all, he was 20-37/4.02 ERA in 163 games (66 starts).

Pack Twenty-Six

2009-04-12T17:26:00.002-04:00

Pack 26 +12
103 Lou Whitaker
478 Candy Maldonado
112 Floyd Banniester
303 Ron Robinson
74 John Farrell
80 Tom Candiotti
60 Jeff Bittiger
350 Mike Marshall
409 Bob Walk
136 Chuck Crim
396 Floyd Youmans
484 Checklist

Nothing. Nothing at all to show today. I got the final checklist (and last card in the set). With this pack we're entering the home stretch, ten to go.

I have always been interested in Bob Walk. As a parent, with a son interested in baseball and a last name like Walk, wouldn't it be a great service to your child to persuade him to be anything but a pitcher?

Being a pitcher worked out ok for Mr. Walk, though he did to batters what his name implies more times than a manager would like. If I were Bob Walk though, I think I'd have chosen first base, or at least changed my name to Armando Strikeout on my 18th birthday.

Packs Twenty-Three, Four and five

2009-04-11T16:00:00.001-04:00

I haven't really felt like writing much in the past several days. So here's three packs to get caught up.

Pack 23 +6
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
354 Pascual Perez
291 Mark Grace
474 Kevin Mitchell
19 Lee Smith
262 Zane Smith
190 Dennis Eckersley
77 Mike Walker
106 Chris Brown
9 Cal Ripken
151 Shane Rawley
448 Andy Benes
43 Bob McClure

It would be nice if there were a Griffey rookie hiding somewhere in the last twelve packs of this box, and I wouldn't mind pulling the Smoltz rookie either. But having pulled my very favorite player in the history of the game out of this pack made the box a success.

Here's the one game I got to see Cal play in person. He didn't disappoint.

Of all the rookies I've featured thus far, I think it's safe to say that Andy had to best career. Not only did he make his professional debut in 1989, as the card predicts, he made his Major League debut in '89 and stuck there.

He made ten starts in the last two months of the '89 season and went 6-3 with a 3.51 ERA.

Pack 24 +12
365 Andres Galarraga
30 Jody Reed
481 Checklist
159 Wally Backman
187 Rick Honeycutt
272 Andres Thomas
319 Brian Meyer
300 Jose Rijo
380 Keith Miller
351 Kirk Gibson
459 Carmelo Martinez
218 Jeffery Leonard

I've written several times about Galarraga. He's always been a favorite of mine.

With the checklist here, I'm one away from having all the checklists.

Pack 25 +12
353 Bryn Smith
437 Terry Pendleton
47 Wally Joyner
317 Dave Smith
108 Chet Lemon
440 Pedro Guerrero
430 Brad DuVall
54 Devon White
169 Jimmy Jones
266 John Smoltz
111 Bret Saberhagen
135 Bill Wegman

Here's one of the two more sought after rookies (if you can use those words to describe '89 Bowman) of the set, John Smoltz.

I've held my tongue for the most part, aside from a few comments on other blogs here and there, about my feelings for Mr. Smoltz these days, and I don't plan on saying much here either. It's his career and the choices are his to make. But without any guarantee that he's going to be able to pitch in '09, why not stay and finish his career in Atlanta?

I wish him the best of luck in Boston and I hope he does get to pitch a few games. I'll accept him as a Hall of Famer when he goes in wearing a Braves hat, and in a few years if he ends up in the Braves broadcasting booth, I'll listen in. But a lot of the respect I had for John Smoltz is gone, and aside from Steve Avery he was my favorite on that great pitching of the '90s.

Here's a first round flop.

Brad DuVall was drafted 23rd in the first round of the June '88 draft out of Virginia Tech. He made his professional debut at Hamilton in the New York-Penn League in 1988 and went 3-3 with a 3.54 in 13 starts before moving up to A+ Virginia of the Carolina League (2-9/5.90 ERA). In 1989 for the Springfield Cardinals, he went 2-5 with a 3.95 ERA. Back in High A in 1990, he pitched one game for the St. Petersburg Cardinals in the Florida State League. He pitched five innings, gave up five hits, two runs and a walk. That was it for his professional career.

In four seasons he never progressed higher than A+, and pitched a combined 7-17, with a 4.44 ERA in 45 games (43 starts), striking out 148 and walking 110. Hell of a first round pick, eh?

Pack Twenty-Two - 50%

2009-04-08T11:09:00.006-04:00

Pack 22
469 Kirt Manwaring
38 Kirk McCaskill
416 Doug Drabek
464 Craig Lefferts
248 Ernie Whitt
124 Willie Wilson
233 Monty Fariss
69 Ron Kittle
37 Chuck Finley
11 Juan Bell
127 Hugh Walker
427 Don Heinkel

This pack pushed me over the 50% completion mark. With fourteen packs to go, I don't think my goal of 70% completion is too far off base.

After not being able to feature any of the rookies here for the past several days, I hit the jackpot with three of them in this pack (four counting Don Heinkel, but he saw MLB action in 1988 so I won't count him here).

Kicking things off is the not so good with a bat, but kinda sorta not so bad with a glove younger brother of George Bell.

Early in his career, Juan was involved in a deal that sent Eddie Murray to the Dodgers. It was somewhat of a one sided deal as Eddie had a few pretty good years in LA, and Baltimore didn't get too much out of the three players that came their way.

Juan's best season (statistically) came in 1993 where he batted .228 with five homers and 36 RBIs in 115 games split between the Phillies and Brewers. The only other season he played in at least 100 games was 1991 and he managed a .172/.201/.249. D'oh.

After finishing his Major League career in Boston in 1995, he played at the Triple-A level with Boston in '96 and Toronto in '98. He finished his profession career in 1999 with Elmira of the independant North East league.

I have never seen someone look so unhappy to be on a baseball card in my life. Maybe that's why he never made it past Double-A. In seven minor league seasons, all with KC, he batter .248 with 48HR and 306RBIs.

Monty Fariss was originally drafted by the Mets in 1985 but didn't sign. In 1988 he was the sixth pick of the June draft by the Rangers.

He had a good career at Oklahoma State University between 1986 and '88 and he put up decent numbers in the minors before getting a chance at the Major Leagues in 1991. His second year in Texas didn't go so well and he was chosen in the 1992 expansion draft by the Marlins. He only played in 18 games at the Major League level for Florida in 1993 and spent '94 and '95 at Triple-A (with the Marlins and Cubs) before retiring in 1995 at age 27.

Pack Twenty-One

2009-04-07T16:29:00.003-04:00

Pack 21
286 Mike Harkey
288 Damon Berryhill
53 Brian Downing
56 Bill Long
201 Jose Canseco
3 Jose Bautista
90 Oddibe McDowell
483 Checklist
414 Bob Kipper
166 Andy Hawkins
143 Greg Brock
88 Luis Aguayo

Not a lot great here either. But I did manage to complete the reprint insert set with this:

1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle rookie card.

The only other card of interest is this:

Pack Twenty

2009-04-07T00:30:00.000-04:00

Pack 20 +12
354 Pascual Perez
291 Mark Grace
474 Kevin Mitchell
19 Lee Smith
262 Zane Smith
190 Dennis Eckersley
429 Todd Worrell
393 Bruce Ruffin
99 Paul Gibson
463 Don Robinson
66 Fred Manrique
299 Jeff Sellers

Not a whole lot to say about this Opening Day pack. One Hall of Famer, and one (Lee Smith) that probably should be in the Hall).

Hopefully there will be more to say tomorrow.

Pack Nineteen

2009-04-05T16:05:00.001-04:00

Pack 19 +6
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
89 Cory Snyder
473 Robby Thompson
450 Dennis Rasmussen
305 Rob Dibble
320 Jim Deshaies
29 Luis Rivera
119 Bob Boone
258 Sandy Alomar
41 Bert Blyleven
338 Ricky Horton
6 Gregg Olson
102 Ricco Brogna

Not the best pack in the world to celebrate Opening Night, that's ok. I'll be happy as long as the Braves put up a good fight against the Phillies.

I'm getting close to 50% of the set and should be there in about three days assuming the next three packs are free of doubles. I think that's pretty good progress and I'll be happy with 70% from this box. There are 432 cards in a box and 484 cards in the set, with no doubles that would be right at 90% of the set, so I don't think my goal of 70% is unrealistic or unreachable.

Moving along...

Here's a fresh faced Rico Brogna in a Tigers uniform. His first name is spelled wrong on the back of the card and I can't find any information on whether or not it was corrected. The only book I have lists it as card number 102 "Rico Brogna (R)," with no mention of the spelling error.

When I think of Brogna, I think of the Mets, but he was drafted by the Tigers in June 1988 as the 26th pick of the first round. He made his Major League debut with the Tigers in 1992, but only played in nine games for Detroit and spent the entire 1993 season at Triple-A Toledo.

On March 31, 1994 he was traded to the Mets for Alan Zinter. The Mets clearly got the better end of that deal as Zinter toiled away in the minors with seven different organizations before making his Major League debut in 2002 for the Astros, at age 34. He hit 276 minor league home runs (plus three ML homers) in 19 seasons.

But I digress.

Brogna played parts of three seasons with the Mets before being traded to the Phillies for Toby Borland and Ricardo Jordan on November 27, 1996.

He was later picked up off the waiver wire by the Red Sox for the last two months of the 2000 season after which he was granted free agency. He signed with Atlanta for his final season in 2001.

Rico Brogna will be remembered by history for hitting the first home run at Coors' Field in Denver.

These days he's a football coach at Wesleyan University.

That's all I've got today. Hopefully I can celebrate a Braves victory tonight.

Pack 18 - Halfway Home.

2009-04-04T19:09:00.000-04:00

Pack 18 +12
395 Steve Bedrosian
442 Willie McGee
126 Bo Jackson
172 Don Slaught
34 Mike Greenwell
310 Ron Oester
255 Tom Lawless
302 Rick Mahler
199 Glen Hubbard
181 Rickey Henderson
408 Curt Ford
318 Mark Portugal

Here we are at the halfway point. This is actually a really good day for the mid point of the box. To celebrate Opening Night 2009, I can start opening the second half of the box.

Pack number 36 will be opened on April 22. That day coincides with the final game of a three game series between the Braves and Nationals in DC. My prediction: At the end of play on April 22, the Braves will be 9-6. There it is, I'm sticking to it.

As to today's cards. Nothing great, but I did get the other new Hall of Famer.

Not much more to say.

Pack Seventeen

2009-04-03T13:53:00.000-04:00

Pack 17 +12
307 Bo Diaz
417 Mike LaValliere
370 Dave Martinez
374 Randy Myers
35 Dwight Evans
83 Andy Allanson
349 John Shelby
104 Al Pedrique
382 Tim Teufel
234 Rick Leach
134 Chris Bosio
180 Stan Jefferson

Not much in the way of interesting cards today. There's not a single player in this pack that made me scratch my head and ask "who?" Rick Leach threw me at first, but then I started thinking "didn't he play for the Giants?" I'm not entirely sure how I remembered that, but a check at Baseball Reference shows that he did play for the Giants in 1990.

I remember an obscure baseball player because he played for the Giants for one season 19 years ago and I can't remember to take my shopping list with me to the grocery store. grrr

This box's fascination with death continues here with Bo Diaz, who was memorably killed in a satellite dish accident.

The only point of interest in this pack was the reprint card:

1953 Bowman Mickey Mantle. With this card, I'm only one card short of having all the reprints. Interestingly enough the last reprint is also a Mantle (his '51 rookie card). Even in 1989 Topps was flooding the market with Mickey Mantle.

Pack Sixteen

2009-04-03T00:37:00.000-04:00

Pack 16 +12
89 Cory Snyder
473 Robby Thompson
450 Dennis Rasmussen
305 Rob Dibble
320 Jim Deshaies
29 Luis Rivera
178 Steve Sax
84 Pete O’Brien
391 Mike Maddux
433 John Ericks
292 Curt Wilkerson
296 Mitch Webster

I didn't mean for this to be so late, I've gotten hooked on Guitar Hero again. Hopefully I'll be getting my grubby little hands on the Metallica Guitar Hero for Wii sometime soon... actually, the money I'm saving for a box of Heritage may/probably/very likely will go into that game.

I started playing yesterday afternoon and the next thing I knew it was 3:30am, then today I had every intention of watching the Simpsons re-runs at 5pm and then it was 10:30. D'oh.

Anyhoo, cards... Nothing much to speak of today. I saw Maddux and was hoping for Greg, but it was just the Rangers pitching coach. Oh well.

For that very reason I feel sorry for Mike Maddux. He didn't have the kind of career that his brother did, but he played Major League Baseball for fifteen seasons and now he's a pitching coach at the Major League level. There aren't a lot of people who can say that about their life. That's pretty damn special, no matter who your brother is.

Since Bowman's focus today is on draft picks and prospects, from this point forward, unless I have something important to say, the main feature of this site will be the rookies. It should be fun to look at guys that very few of us have ever heard of.

Today, I give you John Ericks.

Ericks was the 22nd pick in the first round of the June 1988 draft by the St. Louis Cardinals out of the University of Illinois. He pitched relatively well through the end of the 1990 season, with his best year coming in 1989. That year, pitching for Savannah of the South Atlantic League, he went 11-10 with a 2.04 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 211 strikeouts in just over 167 innings of work. Not too shabby.

Things started going downhill for him in 1991 when he went 5-14 with a 4.77 ERA for Double-A Arkansas in the Texas league. 1992 wasn't a whole lot better and he was released on September 8.

The Pirates picked him up on February 12, 1993 but he didn't pitch in the Pirates orginazation until the 1994 season. He finished the '94 season at Double-A Carolina of the Southern League.

He began the 1995 season at Triple-A Calgary but on June 24, 1995 he made his Major League debut as the Pirates starter against the Expos. He pitched 3 2/3 innings, giving up four runs (all earned), five hits, struck out two and walked two. He gave up his first Major League home run in the bottom of the first to David Segui with a runner on first.

His first win was a solid performance against the Phillies on July 4, 1995. In seven innings of work he gave up four hits, no runs, and struck out eight. Four days later he pitched the only complete game of his Major League career against the Mets.

He spent some time in the minors in both '96 and '97, and was used mostly out of the bullpen at the Major League level those years. He was granted free agency on October 15, 1997 and signed with the Cleveland Indians on January 8, 1998 but never pitched for them at any level.

His Major League stat line reads (for three season): 8-14, 4.78 ERA, 132 strikeouts.

Pack Fifteen

2009-04-01T13:23:00.001-04:00

Pack 15 +6
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
226 Jeff Russell
347 Mickey Hatcher
460 John Kruk
257 Jesse Barfield
242 Todd Stottlemyer
238 Pete Incaviglia
59 Melido Perez
479 Tracy Jones
162 Kirby Puckett
397 Larry McWilliams
20 Tom Fischer
447 Donell Nixon

Here's the second pack with a large block of doubles, these are from pack twelve. Doubles don't bother me, but when there's six of them in a pack of twelve cards, especially when I'm less than half way through the set I get irritated.

I can't really complain too much because I've opened fifteen packs so far and only two contained doubles, but in those two packs I've essentially lost an entire pack because half of each were doubles.

In the end, I'm just thankful that collation in 2009 is much better than it was twenty years ago. I look at '09 Heritage, it's comparable in size to '89 Bowman (500 in Heritage, 484 in Bowman) and out of two blasters I have no doubles.

But whatever, onto the cards...

This box is getting a bit morbid. For the third day in a row, I've pulled a card of someone who is no longer with us. This time it's a Hall of Famer.

What could he have done with another six or seven years? I don't think 350 home runs would have been out of line, 1800 RBIs.

We'll unfortunately never know. But what he did accomplish in his 12 seasons was nothing short of greatness and he was deserving of the Hall of Fame.

Moving on.

Eric Show's picture was creepy, this one is just flat out horrible. It looks to have been taken on a high school field and judging from the position of his bottom lip, he's about to say something that rhymes with "duck pew" to the camera man.

What can we say about Tom Fischer? He was the 12th pick in the first round of the June 1988 draft by the Red Sox out of the University of Wisconsin. His minor league numbers aren't great, but they're not really terrible either. He was one game under .500 for his career (41-42) and struck out 468 batters in 643.2 innings of work. Certainly not terrible. I'm a bit surprised that he never got a chance to pitch at the Major League level, especially considering how bad the Red Sox were in '92 and '93 (years where Fischer was playing in either Double- or Triple-A). His ERA was on the high side though.

He ended his career after the 1993 season with Double-A New Britain.

At some point, I'll have to go through this set and find out how many players never made it to the Majors.

Pack Fourteen

2009-04-01T01:40:00.003-04:00

Pack 14 +12
219 Jay Buhner
25 Bob Stanley
105 Alan Trammell
113 Jeff Montgomery
421 Jose Lind
1 Oswald Peraza
434 Frank DiPino
205 Mark Langston
236 Cecil Espy
475 Ernie Riles
153 Johnny Ard
8 Bob Melvin

Not really a whole lot to talk about tonight. But let's at least look at the rookie of the pack, Johnny Ard.

Johnny Ard was the 20th pick in the first round of the 1988 June draft by the Minnesota Twins out of Manatee Community College.

He pitched in the Twins system until after the 1990 season when he went to the Giants system to finish out his career.

His minor league numbers are pretty good overall, but he never got a chance to pitch at the Major League level. In six seasons he put together a 49-33 record with 485 strikeouts and a 3.54 ERA. He ended his career after the 1993 season with the Double-A Shreveport Captains of the Texas League.

Pack Thirteen

2009-03-30T16:53:00.001-04:00

Pack 13 +12
446 Eric Show
251 Kelly Gruber
161 Greg Gagne
50 Chili Davis
342 Mike Scioscia
78 Doug James
461 Tony Gwynn
61 Jack McDowell
225 Nolan Ryan
334 Cameron Drew
287 Lloyd McClendon
228 Julio Franco

This pack 13 was a lot better than my last pack 13. At least this time I have no expectations of being able to complete the set out of this box.

Today we get a very nice reprint card. Everytime I see pictures or hear stories about this guy, I just think what could have been...

What could he have done had he spent his prime in the Major Leagues? Records from the Negro Leagues are so spotty in some places that today it's hard to get a real good idea of just how well he really pitched. The stories about him are amazing, and more than anything else, it's unfortunate that better records don't exist.

I won't debate the racial issue in baseball at the time. Looking back at it nearly 60 years later it seems wrong that the color of someone's skin kept them out of the game. But it's hard to say that they were wrong in doing so because they were following society's lead. The world is a much different place today. We're still a long way away from settling our racial problems, and we won't settle them until people of all races realize how stupid it is.

The game of baseball is of course a lot better off now than it was before integration and knowing what we know now, and thinking the way we as a society do now, segregation wouldn't have lasted very long. But the fact still remains that baseball was racially segregated and a lot of people missed out on seeing some great players. And a lot of great players missed a chance to proove themselves at a national level and in the end a lot of careers have been lost because of substandard record keeping.

I've been interested in Negro League ball ever since watching the Ken Burns Baseball documentary back in the early 90s. Their style of play was exciting and their uniforms were a lot more interesting. Us white folk don't know how to wear brightly colored uniforms.

One of my favorite things on my baseball shelf is a replica of a 1938 Philadelphia Stars cap.

It's between my old Braves hat (I really should get a new one), and a replica 1914 Chicago Cubs road hat. Next to the old Cubbies hat is a Hickory Crawdads hat that I got at one of my many trips to LP Frans stadium in the late 90s. I'm hoping to ad an Asheville Tourists cap to the shelf this year. Not seen in the picture is a modern Cubs hat and a Baltimore Orioles cap that I got at Camden Yards back in '97.

Ok... I didn't intend for that section of the post to be that long. Oh well. Let's more on to the rest of the pack now.

I've said before that I deem a pack successful if it includes a Hall of Famer. When a pack gives me one of my favorite players, it's also a success. So far, of the first thirteen packs, this one has been by far the best. Not only did we get a Hall of Famer, who happens to be one of my very favorite players of all time, I also pulled another of my all time favorites.

I'll start with the Hall of Famer first.

Next to Cal Ripken, there's not another player in the history of baseball that I have more respect for or like more than Tony Gwynn. He played for twenty years with one team, he played the game the way it was meant to be played, and he was fun to watch and watching him you knew he was having a lot of fun playing.

The only times I didn't enjoy seeing Gwynn play was when it was against the Braves. Tony Gwynn batted against Greg Maddux more than any other pitcher, 103 plate appearances. His stat line against Maddux reads .429/.485/.538 with a 1.023 OPS, with 10 walks, 9 RBIs and no strike outs.

He batted .312 against Glavine with only two strikeouts, .462/.482/.738 with 12 RBIs and two home runs against Smoltz, and .357 against Steve Avery.

And this is yet another Padre where the signature is nearly unreadable.

It'll be a long time before we see another player like Tony Gwynn.

Up next is another of my favorite players.

I'm still all for Julio making the Hall of Fame. He'd get my vote. Maybe when the time comes, I'll sit outside Cooperstown and lobby for him.

The next card I want to show for two reasons.

First, this is a Padre with a readable signature. So they're not all that bad.

But, the combination of the pose and the facial expression make this a highly disturbing card. He either looks like a used card salesman, or a pedophile. I'm having a hard time deciding which.

Also, this is the second pack in a row with a player who died well before his time because of substance abuse (we saw Frank Williams yesterday).

This was a lot longer than I had intended, so I'll stop here. Check out 1988 Score, for the first post in a series about the Rookie Prospects of 88 Score.

Pack Twelve

2009-03-29T15:44:00.005-04:00

Pack 12 +12
226 Jeff Russell
347 Mickey Hatcher
460 John Kruk
257 Jesse Barfield
242 Todd Stottlemyer
238 Pete Incaviglia
183 Roberto Kelly
355 Kevin Gross
449 Eddie Whitson
376 Doc Gooden
206 Erik Hanson
100 Frank Williams

First we'll have a look at today's reprint card.

1951 Bowman Whitey Ford. Something went horribly, horribly wrong here. It looks a little like Whitey, but the hat is terrible. There are lumps where there shouldn't be lumps and the logo is too high. I know it's not possible to perfectly recreate a photograph, but look at the Willie Mays card, it's beautiful. Whitey just didn't fare too well (I'm sure there's some sort of racial joke to be made there if you really try).

Moving right along, to a sad note.

It was no secret that Frank Williams had problems since the end of his relatively short career. I didn't realize that he died in January at the age of 50. Here's an article written in 2007 about his time on the streets, and another just after his death.

And next is a story just about as tragic, but without the unhappy ending.

What could he have done without drugs and injuries? 300 wins? Hall of Fame?

Not a bad pack and no doubles. Hopefully yesterday's pack was a fluke.

Pack eleven

2009-03-28T21:56:00.006-04:00

Pack 11 +6
(duplicates are indicated by bold text)
293 Vance Law
42 Mike Witt
385 Keith Hernandez
454 Sandy Alomar, Jr.
198 Carney Lansford
304 Danny Jackson
470 Terry Kennedy
179 Dave Winfield
372 Ron Darling
343 Rick Dempsey
147 Fred Toliver
294 Shawon Dunston

The first appearance of doubles. The frustration in opening two boxes of 1987 Topps was the blocks of doubles. It was very rare to have one duplicate card appearing alone in a pack, it happened, but no more than five or six times in 72 packs. Most doubles come in blocks like we see here. This particular block was from pack seven.

I'm hoping the box doesn't go sour from here, but this was the one frustration I didn't want to encounter so early on.

This is Topps collation of the 80's for anyone interested, and if you open enough boxes of this stuff you can begin to piece back together full printing sheets just based on what cards are in what order.

Even with only six new cards, the pack wasn't a complete bust. Here's a Hall of Famer:

Come back tomorrow. Hopefully I won't be as frustrated with the next pack. And look out for the final '09 Topps Series 1 post on 1988 Score sometime tomorrow afternoon (the last three cards were in my mailbox today).

Pack Ten, two mullets and a checklist

2009-03-27T13:57:00.001-04:00

Pack 10 +12
336 Tim Belcher
72 Harold Baines
482 Checklist
392 Don Carman
120 Kurt Stillwell
148 Jeff Reardon
283 Mitch Williams
237 Rafael Palmeiro
394 Ken Howell
94 Doyle Alexander
324 Jim Clancy
5 Dave Schmidt

With this pack, I'm one quarter of the way through the set with no doubles yet. At this pace, I hope to be close to 80% complete when the box is empty. I learned my lesson with '87 Topps and I will not buy a second box of Bowman. That second box of '87 was more frustrating than fun with horrible collation, don't want to risk that a second time.

I don't have a whole to to say about any particular player in this pack, but I do want to look at a two mullets. I have long hair, but equally lengthy (I'm a metal head, don't try to change me) but I just don't get mullets. I just don't see the draw of the mullet. Who the hell ever thought it would be a good idea to cut their hair short on the top and sides and let it hang down in the back? I'm sorry, there is no justifiable excuse for having a mullet.

Who ever wrote the Wikipedia entry on mullets must be a mullet person because the article goes way out of its way to justify what it calls the mullet subculture. Mullets are no more a subculture than the afro.

Well. Now that I've gotten that out of my system... Here's a checklist.

I've always been a fan of old school checklists and I like them as part of the set. The checklists in '09 Topps base and Heritage are fine too and the team checklists in Upper Deck are ok. But there's just something nice about a dedicated checklist.

But I know not everyone likes to have a checklist included as a numbered card in the set. The checklists in '89 Bowman are a good compromise for everyone. They're numered into the set, but they're the final four cards. I prefer checklists to break the set into parts, but this is ok too.

To end this strange post, everyone have a look at a goofy shot of Doyle Alexander.

'89 was Alexander's final year.

Pack Nine

2009-03-26T18:53:00.000-04:00

Pack 9 +12
339 Tim Leary
277 Dion James
316 Eric Davis
154 Tim Laudner
116 Charlie Leibrandt
311 Barry Larkin
358 Dave Wainhouse
221 Drew Hall
327 Alan Ashby
139 Dale Sveum
211 Tino Martinez
115 Tom Gordon

Today's reprint card is nice. Hall of Fame center fielder and Phillies broadcasting legend, Richie Ashburn. Shown here on a 1949 Bowman card.

The original '49 Bowman set featured a color background with "colorized" black and white photographs. It was a 240 card set and sold in five card packs. Inserted into packs of 1949 Bowman in certain regions were cards of Pacific Coast League players. There were 30 PCL cards and they were all in color.

Here's the second card of a future Hall of Famer that I've shown today.

Barry has a very nice signature that's partially obscured by the shadows of the dugout wall, but this is another one that has no better place for a signature. If this card were produced today, the signature would most likely be in foil or silver ink.

Now let's have a look at two rookie prospects.

Here we see a young Tino Martinez. As we saw yesterday with Ed Sprague, this is another player who signed in 1988 and hadn't yet seen professional action at the time the cards were printed. The background looks rocky, which makes me think Arizona. But for this to be spring training it would have to be 1989 and that's not very likely. The Arizona League Mariners play in Peoria, AZ, but if Martinez didn't make his professional debut until 1989, what's he doing in Peoria in '88?

I'm really curious about when this set was printed. Early in '89 to be released with base Topps, or later in the year? I'm not really sure where to go to find these thigns out.

Moving right along to another prospect.

Who? I've never heard of this guy, but he stuck around off and on until 2000. He was drafted in the first round by the Expos in June 1988 and made his Major League debut in August 1991. He pitched in 85 games in parts of seven seasons between '91 and 2000, a grand total of 105 innings with a poor strike out to walk ratio, 66K - 61BB. All that with a 7.37 ERA. Oops. 1998 was his only season with an ERA+ above 100, but he only pitched in ten games. His career ERA+ was 66. Oops, again.

But he gets lots of points in my book for the old school Expos uniform.

I'm now over 100 cards into the set and no doubles have shown up yet.

Pack Eight

2009-03-25T19:08:00.001-04:00

Pack 8 +12
406 Von Hayes
224 Charlie Hough
7 Jeff Ballard
322 Mike Scott
276 Dale Murphy
281 Rick Sutcliffe
252 Ed Sprague
164 Randy Bush
196 Walt Weiss
267 Mike Sharperson
145 Glenn Braggs
413 John Smiley

I've been talking a lot about these sweepstakes insert cards, and I think from here on out, when I pull one that I haven't seen before, I'm going to post it and talk a little bit about it.

This is a reprint of a 1951 Bowman Willie Mays rookie card. If you want one that may or may not be the real thing, and have $3,600 burning a hole in your pocket you can pick one up here, or you can buy an autographed copy of the '89 Bowman reprint here for the low low price of $135. $135 may not be a bad price for a Mays auto, I'm not an autograph hound so I don't know what they sell for, but the auction breaks several of my rules of buying success on ebay, so it's not one I'd bid on.

Moving right along.

There's a lot of people who want to see this guy in the Hall of Fame, but is it ever going to happen?

He has an impressive resume: seven All Star selections, five Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers and, most importantly, two National League MVP awards (with five more top 25 MVP finishes). He racked up over 2000 hits and close to 400 home runs.

Murphy had a lot of good seasons, and a few very poor seasons. His two statistically worst seasons came ten years apart, in 1978 and 1988. The numbers for those years are remarkable similar: .226/.284/.394 with 23HR and 79RBI in 1978, and .226/.313/.421 with 24HR and 77RBI in 1988. Granted, those were two very bleak years for the Braves, and Murphy lead the team in RBIs both years (ouch). But he also struck out a lot over the course of his career, leading the NL in '78, '80 and '85 (his 1748 career strikeouts are 13th all time).

But when he was going well, he was a great player. Excluding 1981, Murphy put up consistently good numbers between 1980 and 1987, and all seven of his All Star selections came in that period.

Hall of Fame? On June 21, 2008 when opening pack ten of my 1988 Score box, I said yes, I think Murphy is a Hall of Famer. I still think he deserves more consideration than he's been given. Two MVP awards must say something about a player, and while his few poor seasons jump out like a pink flamingo on a lake of swan, he had more good seasons than not.

He received 62 votes for 2009 induction, falling well short at 11.5%. If he gets there, it'll be a struggle like Jim Rice endured. Time will tell.

Here's an interesting card. Notice that all the stat categories on the back are faded out. That's because Kelly had never seen a professional pitch at that point. I wonder where and when this picture was taken. He was drafted by the Blue Jays in the first round of the 1988 amateur draft and signed on June 22. So this picture was taken sometime after June, 1988, possibly in a minor league ball park (though he wouldn't play minor league ball until 1989).

Maybe we'll never know.

Pack Seven

2009-03-24T17:52:00.000-04:00

Pack 7 +12
293 Vance Law
42 Mike Witt
385 Keith Hernandez
454 Sandy Alomar, Jr.
198 Carney Lansford
304 Danny Jackson
121 George Brett
73 Charles Nagy
456 Jack Clark
346 Eddie Murray
222 Bobby Witt
82 Bud Black

I've got a lot to talk about today with this pack.

First we're going to look at the sweepstake card. It amazes me beyond belief that people are selling these things on ebay. Fortunately I haven't seen any auctions claiming that it's a real card. I can almost see selling the Tiffany version, but not really. Have a look.

Even though they have a nice picture on the front, they're not much more than the Spring Training cards inserted into base Topps. I've got a stack of those from 1987, maybe I should sell some of them.

That said, I do like them, but I'n not going to claim they're worth anything at all, and the sweepstakes replica card in today's pack is particularly nice.

This is a very nice looking reprint of a 1950 Bowman Jackie Robinson card. The card features a color painting of an actual photograph and it looks great. 1950 Bowman was a small set at only 252 and it was the only nationally available set produced that year.

After some rooting around on ebay, I found this. Sad.

Ok, now let's leap foward in time to 1989 and talk about what we're all here for.

In this day and age of hits and misses, an old wax pack is deemed a success in my eyes if it contains a Hall of Famer. This one (not counting the Robinson reprint) contains two.

The first Hall of Famer in this pack is one of the greatest third baseman to ever grace the field. If it weren't for Michael Jack Schmidt, Brett would be the best, period. .305 lifetime average, 3154 hits, 317 home runs, 13 All Star Selections and a fielding percentage sitting right at league average. A pretty complete package.

I'm curious about that dot on the brim of his helmet. It looks a bit like a penny, but I think it's too red for that. Maybe a manufacturer's sticker on a new helmet that he forgot to take off? Who knows.

Our second Hall of Famer is one of the greatest switch hitters the game has ever seen. Second only to Mickey Mantle.

That's right. I'm talking about Steady Eddie Murray, pictured here in his first year in a Dodger uniform.

In 1989, Eddie batted only .247/20/88 in 160 games. But by 1990 he'd figured out National League pitching and led the majors with a .330 batting average (though he didn't win the NL batting title because Willie McGee hit .335 with St. Louis before being traded to Oakland where his season average dipped to .324).

Eddie's number 33 has been retired by the Orioles and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003.

Lately I've been posting some cards to show the interesting placement of signatures. But here are two where Topps failed miserably at making the signature readable.

They're there. And at least Jack Clark's is readable (barely), but Alomar's is actually much easier to see on the scan. On the card it almost disappears. I will concede that in the case of the Alomar card, there really isn't a better place to put it, but they could have used a different picture where he wasn't wearing the dark brown jersey.

But Topps and the occasional photographic blunder go hand in hand.

Pack Six

2009-03-23T17:24:00.004-04:00

Pack 6 +12
467 Scott Garrelts
193 Terry Steinbach
306 Tom Browning
101 Matt Nokes
360 Tim Burke
57 Jerry Reuss
44 Bill Schroeder
361 Nelson Santovenia
326 Alex Trevino
261 Mel Stottlemyer
138 Joey Meyer
403 Tom Herr

Nothing really great to speak of today. Tom Browning had an ok career, but he gave up a lot of home runs. Look at 1988 in particular. He gave up 36 home runs and still managed an 18-5 record.

There are two cards that I do want to touch on a bit though.

1989 was Jerry Reuss' final full season in the majors, he pitched in four games in 1990. He had a long and relatively productive career, including a no-hitter in 1980. But what I really wanted to show with this card was another nice signature placement. Instead of trying to stick it down at the bottom where it would be almost entirely obscured by the black jersey, they choose to put it over the blue sky. There are no signatures that are unreadable in this set, but there are certainly some that could have benefitted from better placement.

The second card I want to feature today is one of the father and son subset cards.

1955 Bowman meets 1989 television technology. The back of the card tells us where to find Mel Jr. and Todd. The other father/son cards are Sandy Alomar, Ken Griffey and Cal Ripken. Maybe we'll get to see those before the box is over.

So far I'm happy with the box. Six packs in and no doubles have shown up yet. I don't want to jinx it though.

Pack Five and a Revelation

2009-03-22T16:38:00.004-04:00

Pack 5 +12
28 Marty Barrett
419 Sid Bream
36 Ellis Burks
313 Paul O’Neill
98 Mike Henneman
55 Bobby Thigpen
167 Dave Righetti
400 Dickie Thon
132 Mike Birkbeck
330 Rafael Ramirez
223 Jamie Moyer
420 Austin Manahan

Pretty good pack here, but first my revelation. Once again, I admit that sometimes I'm slow, and sometimes it takes a little time for me to catch on. I'm sure what I'm about to say is old news to 99% of you who have any experience with this set. But I realized after opening this pack and putting the cards in their place that the checklist is set up by team. Beyond that, it looks like they're set up alphabetically by division.

Several days before the box arrived, I was setting up my checklist in preperation for opening the box. I noticed something a bit odd and thought to myself "that looks like a lot of Orioles in one place." But from time to time there will be a run of cards of the same team. I didn't give it another thought until a lot of cards very close together were players from the same team. So off to Baseball Reference I went to have a look at the 1988 Orioles roster and the clouds parted, the angels sang and it all became clear.

So yeah, I'm a bit slow sometimes.

Anyway, the cards.

Several guys here had great careers: Burks, O'Neill, Righetti. The former single season saves leader, who has been relegated to a footnote in the annals of baseball history, is here too And we come across the second player who's still around.

And that's where I'll start.

1989 was Moyer's first year as a member of the Texas Rangers. Moyer is of course best known for his ten years in Seattle and for the past several seasons with the Phillies (where he's under contract throug 2010), but the first ten years of his career was spent moving around with five different teams.

I didn't really pay much attention to Jamie Moyer until the past several years and the more I see him the more I like him. Is he Hall of Fame material? I don't know. He's certainly a very good pitcher who's flown under the radar for much of his career. Two more good seasons (15-8 or so) could earn him some serious consideration for Cooperstown. I doubt he'll be in, but I'd give him my vote if I had one.

I wonder if the photo is posed. I think it is because at this angle, we should be seeing the shortstop and maybe the centerfielder, and the look on his face isn't one of effort. Not a terrible photo though.

Not as bad as this one. Here we see a classic baseball card pose, with some unfortunate shadows and what looks like a charred left arm. The reason I'm showing this card though, is the nice placement Topps used for the signature. Too many of these cards have the signature near the bottom where it can be obscured by shadow or darker parts of the outfield wall. The placement of Marty's signature makes it look more like a real autograph.

Finally we see 18 year old Austin Manahan. Prospecting are we? Mr. Manahan never progressed higher than AA Orlando in the Cubs system. And his minor league stat line isn't all that impressive.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Pack Four

2009-03-21T16:36:00.005-04:00

Pack 4 +12
157 Kent Hrbek
263 Charlie Puleo
10 Randy Milligan
129 Teddy Higuera
443 Vince Coleman
22 Rob Murphy
171 John Candelaria
352 Mike Davis
32 Wade Boggs
212 Rich Renteria
371 Bob Ojeda
93 Jack Morris

Pretty good pack today, another Hall of Famer and one of the top pitchers of the 1980s.

But first let's look at today's sweepstakes card.

It's a reprint of a 1954 Bowman Ted Williams that according to the back of the card, was worth an estimated $1,500 in 1989. It's a nice looking card and very similar to the design Topps chose for 1989.

Here's 2005 first ballot Hall of Fame inductee Wade Boggs. It's a spring training shot, most likely taken in Winter Haven, Florida.

I wish I had more of the '89 Topps set so I could compare the photography. '89 Topps may be my next project.

Despite a 6-14 record in 1989, Jack Morris was the winningest pitcher of the 1980s, finishing the decade with 162 wins and five top ten Cy Young finishes. He was also known to throw a wild pitch or two, leading the AL in '83, '84, '85, '87, '91 and '94.

Morris finished his career with a 254-186 record.

Pack Three

2009-03-20T18:01:00.005-04:00

Pack 3 +12
177 Ken Phelps
215 Alvin Davis
24 John Dopson
227 Jim Sundberg
268 Mike Aldrete
210 Harold Reynolds
425 Gary Redus
278 Lonnie Smith
174 Rafael Santana
466 Rick Reuschel
156 Al Newman
189 Mike Moore

Howard pointed out that the list of replica cards is printed on the back of the sweepstakes card, so that answer my question from yesterday about how many different sweepstakes cards there are. I pulled a second Duke Snider from this pack.

"Should I smile or look serious? I'm just not su..." CLICK. Actually, it kind of reminds me of my driver's license. When the lady said OK, I looked up and smiled. What she actually meant was "OK, we're done."

Spring training in Arizona. I love the rocky hills in the background.

This is, in my opinion, one of the classic baseball poses and this card just looks great. It took me a long time, but I actually do like Harold Reynolds on TV. He was a little shaky at first and even now he talks too much sometimes. But overall I think he does a good job.

Tomorrow will be the final pack of the top layer, maybe we'll get something good. For now, I've got to figure out what to do with this gum. Maybe I'll save it all and build something at the end.

commenting works now

2009-03-20T10:20:00.001-04:00

I don't know what was going on, but it wouldn't let anyone comment. I fixed it somehow.

Pack Two

2009-03-19T12:48:00.007-04:00

Pack 2 +12
265 Paul Assenmacher
92 Frank Tanana
23 Wes Gardner
142 Gary Sheffield
68 Ivan Calderon
185 Gene Nelson
244 Tony Castillo
411 Jim Gott
195 Stan Royer
152 Juan Berenguer
308 Manny Trillo
110 Mel Stottlemyer, Jr.

I hadn't realized that there were different sweepstakes cards. I say this because I distinctly remember the sweepstakes card I got from my one pack in 1989 was also Duke Snider (pictured yesterday). When I opened today's pack and flipped the top half over, there was Yogi Berra's awkward, goofy, but lovable face looking up at me.

It's a nice touch and makes these cards much better than the standard WIN A TRIP TO SPRING TRAINING cards Topps threw in with their base set. Kinda reminds me of this year's ToppsTown cards, pretty useless, but nice to see something different every pack.

I'm curious how many different sweepstakes cards there are. I wonder if emailling Topps would get me anywhere.

Here's our first player who's still active. There won't be many in this set, but there are a few. We saw Bonds yesterday and while he's not officially retired, I doubt we'll ever see him in a major league uniform again.

I like this shot of a young Sheffield playing the infield. It's a much better picture than his awkward looking '89 Topps Future Star card. I wonder if his well known difficult personality had manifested itself at this point in his career?

He's another known steroid user and was named in the Mitchell Report.

Stan Royer. Who?

According to Baseball-Reference, he was drafted by the Braves in '85 but didn't sign. He was drafted again, and signed, with Oakland in '88. Though pictured here as an Athletic, Royer never saw a big league pitch as an A.

Near the trade deadline in 1990, Royer was part of a package that sent Felix Jose to St. Louis in exchange for Willie McGee.

Royer made his major league debut as a pinch hitter in the sixth inning of a 3-1 loss against the Pirates on September 11, 1990. His first start came on September 22.

As a member of the Boston Red Sox, Royer played his final major league game on July 22, 1994.

Pack three coming up tomorrow, and be sure to stay tuned to 1988 Score as we run through the 1988 Score Young Superstars set.

Pack One

2009-03-18T16:00:00.010-04:00

This should be fun. Before we start let's see what we get. 36 packs to a box, 12 cards to a pack. I'm not sure what these cost in 1989 and there's no price on the box. I think they were a little more than base Topps, but I can't remember for sure (I think wax packs of '89 Topps were $.65).

Here's the first pack that lets us know that this is the Comeback Edition! Yes, I used my cat to prop the pack up for the picture. She wouldn't move, so I figured I'd put her to work.

According to the back of the pack, I can win "a complete set of 1953 color bowman baseball cards. Approximate Value: $10,000." We;ve also got the ingredients for the gum.

Speaking of the gum...

I think you could build sturdy, low income housing out of this stuff.

And before we get started, here's a scan of the wrapper, and the sweepstakes card.

REPRINT.

I wonder if the offer for the binder pages is still good. They'd probably open an envelope with three old wrappers and think "what the hell..." Does anyone know a good place to get appropriately sized binder pages for this set? I probably should have thought of that first.

Anyhoo, on to the cards. If you're familiar with how I did the '88 Score box, this'll be similar. The pack number followed by how many cards were added to the set, then the cards and a few highlights and lowlights of the pack.

Pack 1 +12
33 Jim Rice
86 Brook Jacoby
356 Andy McGaffigan
175 Mike Pagliarulo
256 George Bell
480 Brett Butler
13 Jim Traber
207 Mike Jackson
426 Barry Bonds
145 Rob Deer
279 Geronimo Berroa
389 Mark Carreon

Pack one is a pretty good one. Right off the bat we get one of the newest Hall of Famers in Jim Rice and a few other guys who were star players in 1989: George Bell and Brett Butler.

The photography in this set, well judging by this first pack and what few surviving cards I have from 1989, is better than Topps used in their flagship release. Maybe because this is the re-introduction of Bowman they tried a little harder. There's a good assortment of action shots, casual shots and classic baseball card posed shots.

Since this is the first pack, for anyone not familiar with this set, I'll put up a scan of the back of one the cards.

Here's Jim Rice:

I didn't like this back in 1989 because I couldn't exactly make sense out of it. Then when I found a few mangled '89 Bowmans going through my cards again last summer for the first time in 14 years, I still didn't like it.

But now that I think about it, I do like it. I still prefer full stat lines. But if you want someone's full stat line, you don't have to look any farther than one of the other '89 releases. This is a nice glimpse of how the player did against other teams in the league.

Funny, this is the second Barry Bonds card I've seen today, and considering I don't particularly like Mr. Bonds, the first one made me very happy. This one ain't half bad either. Bonds has a very nice signature and it's a classic pose. It also shows how skinny Barry used to be in that the P and S are almost under his armpits, leaving him irate...

I don't remember Geronimo Berroa playing for the Braves, at all. Granted I was only 8 years old, but I remember a lot of Braves baseball from the days when they were bottom feeders, but I don't remember Berroa.

When I hear his name, I think Oakland because he put up good numbers in Oakland. After Berroa's retirement, Jason Grimsley accused him of using steroids. Maybe that explains the fact that he hit 88 home runs in three and a half years as an Athletic, and 13 in seven and a half seasons else where (but he did play nearly everyday in Oakland, something he didn't so anywhere else).

So there's pack one. This was a long one, the rest won't be as long.

I hope everyone enjoys reading this site and I know I'll enjoy ripping this box. Come back tomorrow for pack two.

It's here...

2009-03-18T14:16:00.000-04:00

It's here. Check back later this afternoon for pack one.

A homemade '89 Bowman...

2009-03-14T22:27:00.002-04:00

Just to have something to look at, here's my '89 Bowman WiiBen card. Slightly different pose than the '88 Score card, but you can clearly tell that it's the same photographer.

Greetings.

2009-03-14T20:19:00.004-04:00

Hello and welcome to 1989 Bowman. We're going to be taking a trip back to 1989 and having a pack by pack look at Bowman's re-entry into the baseball card hobby.

I just ordered a box on Amazon for less than $20 shipped and I hope to have it in my hands by the end of the week.

Today the name Bowman means Chrome, rookies and Draft Picks & Prospects, and you don't see much about this set. The size of this inaugural set limited its appeal to younger collectors and has thus nearly been lost to time.

At three and three quarters of an inch tall, the cards are a quarter inch taller than standard, and the hobby, and makers of supplies, just weren't ready for this non-standard issue. I recall buying one pack back in 1989 and thinking to myself "what the hell am I going to do with these?" That one pack got stuffed (literally) into a box and twenty years later the tops of the cards are bent and mangled.

So this is a set, unlike the 88 Score set, that I'm essentially starting from scratch on. Well, I have one '89 Bowman in decent condition: the Steve Avery card featured on 1988 Score a few days ago.

If you were a reader of 1988 Score at the beginning, this site will follow much the same pattern. One pack a day with highlights (and lowlights) featured.

Stay tuned and once the box gets here, we're going to get under way.

Just unpacking and painting the walls...

2009-03-14T18:34:00.001-04:00

Nothing to see here yet. We're just moving in and getting a fresh coat of paint on the walls.