88 Score Rookie & Traded Set

This is a great action shot of Perez, but what exactly is sitting in the stands on the right? It looks like a huge cartoon giraffe.

There are a few choice words on the back including "supple," "ironies," and "charming."


The

Holy orgasm face! The one on the back ain't much better.

Best phrase on the back is clearly "gold-plated."



The

Here's another great photo showing the back of a player, made OK by the headshot on the back of the card.

Best word on the back is clearly "Oral." You just have to go read the card back now, eh?

This isn't even close to August's rookie card, as he had on Olympic card in the 1985 Topps set. (See here.)

Speaking of the Olympics, the best word on the back is "thrill."

All I have to say is...wtf is going on with Belcher's eyes on the back of the card? Oh that, adn the fact that the front photo features a nice shot of his grip on the baseball.

I like that phrase--"swiftly amassed"--on the back.

Leiter's got some nice flying gold chain action on the front of the card. On the back, there's an odd white spot in the orange border around his head shot. I wonder if that's a misprint on this particular card or if they were all like that.

The back of this card is one of the cheesiest in this set, and the oddest word is quite clearly "elan."

Some serious chunks of dirt flying there! Nice!

Here is a list of shutouts in first career start, coming for the Cubs. The back of the card refers to only the first start in a career, not the first start for the Cubs, which is why they ignore Cardwell. That list goes back only to 1956.

Best word on the back? "Auspicious."

Gordon was a strange choice to include in this set. He wasn't a rookie, having pitched in the bigs in 1986 and 1987, as you can see on the back. I guess Score didn't give him a card in the regular 1988 set (unlike Topps, which did.) It's also strange that they tucked him in the back of this update set, along with true rookies all around him.

At least they used a nice photo.

All kinds of unusual words on the back, including "Commercial Education", "Retail Management", and "Gamecocks."

Not much to say about this card except for how sweaty he is on the back of the card.

For strangest word, I'm going with two uses of the word "Venezuelan" for a guy not born in that particular country.

The orange color scheme distracts a bit from a great photo here. Lots of blue for the Blue Jays, ball captured mid-flight, and Stottlemyre's arm and fingers all extended. Nice stuff.

Best word on the back is either "sizzling" or "meteoric."

And the honor of card #88 in 1988 goes to John Dopson, who appeared in the bigs in 1985 and yet gets a rookie card in 1988.

Anybody know who coached first base for the Cubs in 1988? That guy is probably in the background.

The best words on the back are the phrase "14-hit shutout." Here are the most hits allowed in a complete-game shutout.

Here's yet another squinter. What the hell is up with this? The photographs in this set have been uniformly excellent until the last few cards.

Most surprising word on the back? Clearly "Furniture" although I liked "downtown" too.

Check out Dibble's arm fat rippling all over the place! Wow!

Best word on the back? "Sizzling." Why sizzle fat when you can Sizzlean?

(If you are over the age of 30 and don't find that commercial hilarious, then something's wrong with you.)

Flying gold chain on the front, squinty eyes on the back!

The word "equalled" is on the back, again an acceptable but rare variant of the word "equaled."

Sad to see the mention of the late Don Drysdale on the back. For perspective on how old these cards are, he's be gone for more than 15 years already and yet was quoted on this card.

This is one of the more boring photos in this set, which is saying something because it ain't so bad. On the back, this is one of a number of upcoming cards where the player has squinty eyes.

Check out how interesting the text on the back of the card is. Smith was believed the head of "Atlanta's impressive young crop of pitching prospects," which at the time included Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Steve Avery.

How about the trade that is mentioned. Good for both teams? Really? Smith never won more than 7 games in a season for the Braves. Virgil was a decent catcher and league-average hitter. Bedrosian, meanwhile, won a Cy Young for the Phillies and was then traded for Terry Mulholland, Charlie Hayes, and Dennis Cook, 3 players that all did good things with the Phillies and were traded later for more talent. Thompson was a good player for the Phillies who eventually was on the 1993 NL champion team and is now their hitting coach.

Most unexpected word on the back is "star" since Smith was never one in the big leagues.

The last 4 cards have been 2 well known Cubs (Grace & Berryhill) and two unknown Red Sox pitchers named Steve (Curry and Ellsworth.) This Steve got himself into 8 games with the Red Sox in 1988, had a 6.75 ERA, and was never heard from again. Note that Ellsworth was close to his 28th birthday in these photos--pretty old for a rookie. This photo was taken in Fenway Park, so it must have been one of these four games.

The most interesting text on the back is "Business Administration." Also interesting is the implication by Score that getting his college degree was better than playing minor league baseball. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree, just that it's sort of odd that Score would choose to make a value judgement on that.

Here's another guy I never heard of. Curry made it into 3 games for the Red Sox in 1988, pitching to an 8.18 ERA, and then never appeared in the majors again. An unidentified White Sox player is in the background.

Checking out Curry's gamelogs, two of his 3 starts were against the White Sox, and one was in Chicago. So this photo was probably from that July 10th game at Comiskey. Hmm, maybe we can figure out which White Sock that is. Looks like a guy leading off second base, and he's pretty dark-skinned. Check out the box score from that game. Gary Redus got to second base in the first inning, but I think his skin was significantly lighter than that of the fellow in the photo. Greg Walker (white guy) got to 2B in the first inning, and then Daryl Boston got there. Boston (Daryl, that is) was #8 and I think that's who we are looking at.

In the second inning, Redus got to 2B again. In the third inning, no White Sock got there. In the fourth inning, Fred Manrique got there, but again I think his skin was much too light to be the guy in the photo. Redus got to second yet again that inning. I think 5th inning, a couple of White Sox got on, but nobody stopped at second before Curry was knocked out of the game.

So there you have it: Daryl Bsoton.

The oddest word on the back of the card is clearly "Manatee."

Heinkel is another guy of whom I've never heard. He did get back to the bigs in 1989, but pitched just 7 games before departing for good. He spent a lot more time in the minors than most of the other rookies we've seen in this set, so he gets less copy on his card.

Still, we did get a mention of "Biology" on the back.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 1990 NL All-Star starting pitcher!

The photo on the back looks like a mannequin.

The most interesting word on the back is clearly "odyssey" but I'll give a shout out also to "heady" and "eye-popping."

Wow, look how far bent Peraza's wrist is! I mean the one on his glove hand, of course.

Peraza is one of the few guys in this set I've never heard of. He had only 19 games in the big leagues, all in 1988.

Instead of selecting just one odd word, let me point out two odd phrases on the back: "loads of stuff" and "enough said." Enough said.