If you were like me, you blindly accepted the Topps All-Star team subsets as factual representations of real life. In the Topps universe, Shane Rawley and Dwight Gooden were All Stars in 1987, since they were included in its 1988 All-Star subset. And yet, neither of them was an All Star in 1987.

Rawley was an All Star in 1986, and he did have a great 1987 season, posting a career-best 17 wins for the mediocre Phillies. But that's not the point. The point is that Topps unilaterally decided that the voters got it wrong when they put pitchers not named Rawley or Gooden on the team. Or maybe Topps didn't want to make an All-Star card of Sid Fernandez? It's all unclear, but it got me thinking.

Just how many of Topps's 1988 All Stars were actually on the 1987 teams? Let's look at the starting lineups.

1. Eric Davis                   LF       1. Rickey Henderson             CF
2. Ryne Sandberg                2B       2. Don Mattingly                1B
3. Andre Dawson                 CF       3. Wade Boggs                   3B
4. Mike Schmidt                 3B       4. George Bell                  LF
5. Jack Clark                   1B       5. Dave Winfield                RF
6. Darryl Strawberry            RF       6. Cal Ripken                   SS
7. Gary Carter                   C       7. Terry Kennedy                 C
8. Ozzie Smith                  SS       8. Willie Randolph              2B
9. Mike Scott                    P       9. Bret Saberhagen               P

For the National League, Dawson, Smith, Clark, and Steve Bedrosian got Topps All-Star cards, and over in the American League, Randolph, Bell, Winfield, Mattingly, Boggs, and Tom Henke got cards. Tony Gwynn, Juan Samuel, Tim Raines, and Tim Wallach, represented in the Topps All-Star lineup, were NL reserves, and Kirby Puckett, Matt Nokes, and Alan Trammell, all three Topps All Stars, were reserves for the American League. But Benny Santiago? Not an All Star. Roger Clemens? Not an All Star. Jimmy Key? Dwight Gooden? Nope and nope. And no Shane Rawley, either.

The other side of that meant that Eric Davis, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Schmidt, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, Mike Scott, Sid Fernandez, Mark Langston, Rickey Henderson, Cal Ripken, Terry Kennedy, and Bret Saberhagen weren't in the regular Topps All Star subset. (They were included in the Glossy All-Star mail-away set and the glossy All Stars found in rack packs, but so what? Not everybody had the cash to send away for the larger All Star set, and it wasn't a guarantee that your drugstore carried rack packs (which were also more expensive than wax packs).)

One of Topps's "things" would be to include an All-Star right-handed starting pitcher and an All-Star left-handed starting pitcher in their All Star subset. So for the NL, these should have been Mike Scott (RHP) and Sid Fernandez (LHP). And for the AL, Bret Saberhagen (RHP) and Mark Langston (LHP). So, because they should exist, here are your 1988 Topps National League All Stars.

Terry Kennedy, 1991 Score

Terry Kennedy the baseball player -- not Compton Ass Terry -- was an old farty farthead who took naps while watching golf and who would have been the oldest baseball player who ever lived were it not for his Giants teammate, Gary "Old Man" Carter.



For two old guys, the catching tandem of Gary Carter (36) and Terry (34) did very nicely, thank you, in '90.

I am 34 years old myself and let me just tell you --                                    oops forgot what I was going to say. THAT'S how old I am. Where are my pants?

Seriously though, where are my pants? Seriously seriously though, age ain't nuthin' but a number (h/t Aaliyah or Mary J. Blige, one of them), and what really counts in the big scheme of things is craftiness, which is an intangible possessed by old people who are too freakin' lazy to exert physical effort.

Together, these two crafty catchers

It's a darn good thing these two elderly men did not try to outcraft each other. CRAFT-OFF!

Carter: Hold on there, rook. Let's work smarter, not harder. Might want to decide at what angle you want to get that couch out the door before you go thrashing it around like that. You're gonna throw your back out.

Kennedy: Listen, old man. Why don't you go check that paper over there. I already diagrammed the degrees at which we need to pivot to get this beauty out the door and into her new home. Took me all night, not that you would know, since you fell asleep watching "Matlock" ... AGAIN.

Carter: First of all, I was just resting my eyes. Second, not really sure I need to check a diagram from a guy who can't even pick an absent-minded rookie off first.

Kennedy: I don't make the calls, Gary the Elder, I just do my job. Rook was out by a half-step at least. You know it, I know it.

Carter: Welp, if you had spent any of your, what -- 14 years in the bigs? -- developing any kind of rapport with the men in blue like a good catcher should, you might have gotten the call.

Kennedy: Are you going to help me with this couch or what?

Carter: I was thinking -- it might be easier to take the door frame off ...

totaled 30 years of experience.

I just don't think "zero dropoff in experience between starting and backup catchers" is something general managers are targeting much these days, to everyone's great chagrin. Personally, I hate when my favorite team removes it's old catcher and inserts a younger catcher or vice versa. Even medium-age catchers are like, eh.

Best of all,

This is the best part.

Carter batted .302 and Terry hit .281 by mid-season.

That was the best part of ALL of this. That Gary Carter hit .302 and Terry hit .281 "by mid-season." What happened after mid-season? Don't know; doesn't matter. It's not the best part. The batting average by mid-season (BABMS) of two absurdly old catchers is what we're talking about here, nothing else. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find my pants.

Pack 87: Rick Burleson, Toby Harrah, Ron Oester, Juan Eichelberger, Rick Camp

Pack 88: AL All-Star George Brett, 1981 World Series Game 5, Gary Matthews, NL All-Star Gary Carter, Bert Blyleven

Pack 89: Greg Minton, AL All-Star Carlton Fisk, Lloyd Moseby, Ken Singleton, Ken Oberkfell

Pack 90: 1981 World Series Game 4, Gene Richards, Ray Knight, Burt Hooton, Cliff Johnson

Pack 91: Neil Allen, Luis Salazar, Jerry Reuss, Ozzie Smith, Fernando Valenzuela

Pack 92: Len Barker, Billy Martin Highlight, Omar Moreno, 1981 World Series Game 3, Ken Oberkfell

Pack 93: Ivan DeJesus, Bob Boone, Tony Armas, Jack Morris, Jim Palmer

Pack 94: Enos Cabell, Tommy John, 1981 World Series Game 6, Gary Lucas, Dave Concepcion

Pack 95: Dennis Leonard, Bob Boone, Tony Armas, Jack Clark, Willie Stargell

Pack 96: 1981 World Series Game 4, Gene Richards, Ray Knight, Burt Hooton, NL All-Star Dave Parker

Pack 97: Ivan DeJesus, Luis Salazar, Tony Armas, Jack Morris, Jim Palmer

Pack 98: Len Barker, Tim Blackwell, Omar Moreno, 1981 World Series Game 3, AL All-Star Dave Winfield

Pack 99: Hubie Brooks, Broderick Perkins, Andre Thornton, Roger Erickson, Chris Speier

Pack 100: Larry Herndon, George Foster, Dick Tidrow, Cesar Cedeno, Frank White


Notes. Well, that's all she wrote: With only 15/75 new stickers, my sticker album will be forever unfinished. And only 11 stickers short. So that means that within my box of 500 stickers, I only got 249 individual stickers (and 251 others). What I find most interesting about this is the idea of where certain stickers appeared within the box, and then how long it took to get a double, and then sometimes a triple, of that sticker [the Pack Pocket hypothesis, introduced in Sunday's post].

Highlight stickers seemed to appear in the first third of the box, World Series and League Leaders appeared in the last third, and All-Stars appeared throughout. Also, I completed the Red Sox team page before receiving a single Padre, and for a very long time was one Jim Palmer sticker from completing the Orioles team page, only then to receive two Palmers within a few packs of each other towards the end of the box.

Other Notes... This sticker of Omar Moreno has to be the worst sticker in the entire book. Why isn't he facing the camera? A sane person would not have known it was Moreno... I've been staring at the album cover for a while now and I'm convinced that a) the players obscured by the large "25¢" in the lower right corner are shown in team-less uniforms, which is bizarre, and b) Gary Carter's eyes are closed, which begs the question: Why didn't Topps use a photo of one of the World Series-winning LA Dodgers? Like Valenzuela mid-windup or Ron Cey picking his nose?... And speaking of Dodgers, like the other teams, there are only eight players on the team page: Ken Landreaux, Dusty Baker, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey, Pedro Guerrero, Fernando Valenzuela, Burt Hooton, and Jerry Reuss. OK, so most of them are star players, but because the team won the World Series, I would've thought that Topps would have given them a spread. Because how would you feel if you were Davey Lopes, Mike Scioscia or Bill Russell? Or even Tommy Lasorda, for that matter? If anyone deserved a sticker, it was Davey Lopes. The guy was traded after the 1981 season to the A's presumably because he was 36. But then he goes on to put up respectable numbers for six more seasons, including a great 1985 with the Cubs, where he steals 47 bases while getting caught only four times. I'm Davey Lopes! Gimme my damn sticker!

Final Notes. In the next few days I'm going to do a post outlining the entire box, just to see if there's any reason to the madness of opening 100 packs and not finishing the set.

The further I get into this checklist, the more I realize that this is actually a pretty easy set to put together. Dave over at Cardboard Junkie has been supplying the scans, in numerical order, and with his visual guide as a cheat sheet, you could put together the set for about $100. Not bad, considering it's supposed to be the 'perfect' set of the decade. Whether you want to invest the time is another matter entirely.

Speaking of time, here's the next fifty-card installment from The 792.

#301 - 350

301. Reggie Jackson In Action, 1982
302. Dodger Future Stars, 1981
303. Juan Berenguer, 1987
304. Mike Gallego (RC), 1986
305. Don Sutton, 1982
306. Dodger Leaders, 1984
307. Dave Sax, 1986
308. Jesus Vega, 1983
309. Mike Witt, 1985
310. Dave Parker, 1980
311. Rickey Henderson Turn Back the Clock, 1987
312. Reggie Jackson Turn Back the Clock, 1987
313. Gary Gray, 1983
314. Frank Pastore, 1986
315. Kirk Gibson (RC), 1981
316. Sammy Khalifa, 1986
317. Tom Nieto, 1988
318. Ted Simmons, 1985
319. Greg Swindell (RC), 1987
320. Barry Bonds (RC), 1987
I want to speak about the fact that not only was Bonds given a 2nd Tier number for his regular-issue rookie card, but in 1988 he was put on #450. That's just unheard of for a 2nd year player. Well, we can't call them inconsistent: The love affair between Topps and Bonds seems to have been a career-long infatuation.

321. Earl Weaver (MGR), 1986
322. John Smiley, 1989
Smiley always looked like he was wishing evil things on the photographer. He also resembled Jimbo from The Simpsons.

323. Bill Lee, 1982
324. Alejandro Pena (RC), 1984
325. Von Hayes, 1983
How come there isn't a well-known indie rock band called 'Von Hayes' yet?

326. Mark Gubicza, 1987
Or 'Gubicza'? "Hello, Cleveland! We're Gubicza and we've come to rock!"

327. Mark Lemke (RC), 1989
328. Twins Team, 1980
329. Kirby Puckett, 1986
330. Eric Davis, 1989
331. Alan Ashby, 1986
332. Lee Lacy, 1981
333. Willie Hernandez, 1985
334. Dave LaPoint, 1988
This card of LaPoint is in the Top 10 Greatest Achievements in the Field of Airbrushing.

335. Willie McCovey, 1980
336. Mariners Leaders, 1984
337. Pete Rose NL AS, 1982
338. Bob Owchinko, 1983
339. Mike Schmidt NL AS, 1982
340. Cal Ripken, Jr, 1986
341. Dwayne Murphy, 1981
342A.+B. George Foster NL AS, 1982
343. Gary Sheffield (RC), 1989
344. Gary Carter NL AS, 1982
This is a great card of Carter where he's sporting clown hair plastered underneath the bowl-cut Expos batting helmet.

345. Donnie Moore, 1986
346. Tom Seaver NL AS, 1982
My spellcheck doesn't recognize 'Seaver.' You'd think that there would be a few names Microsoft would've programmed in, like Seaver, DiMaggio, Ripken, Koufax, Clemente. Instead only names like Einstein, Rembrandt, and Gandhi make the cut. Not even Van Gogh. 'Blyleven' I understand, but 'Van Gogh'? Seriously?

347. Teddy Higuera (RC), 1986
348. Carmelo Martinez, 1987
349. Domingo Ramos, 1985
350. Will Clark, 1988

Don't you worry, there's plenty more where this came from.
More checklist from The 792 to come!