#131T Don Zimmer

IMPACT FACTOR 4/10: Zimmer led the Cubs to a rare post-season appearance in 1989, although they got beaten in the NLCS by the Giants. Before then, they made the NLCS in 1984, which was their first post-season appearance since 1945. By comparison, they've made the playoffs 3 out of the last 6 seasons, including the last 2.

Zimmer has been involved in baseball for a long time and has been involved in many memorable moments, not the least of which was getting tackled by Pedro Martinez during a brawl between the Red Sox and the Yankees.

#104T Calvin Schiraldi

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Schiraldi pitched decently for parts of two seasons with the Cubs, but he (and Al Nipper) was picked up for Lee Smith and traded away for players who didn't do much for the Cubbies.

#87T Jeff Pico

What exactly is that in the background of the card, just below the "C" and "O" in his last name? It sort of looks like a wagon wheel. This is a pretty cool posed shot, although it kind of looks like Pico plays for the "CUPS".

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Pico was a below-average reliever for 3 years with the Cubs. He did put together a fairly nice 1989 with an average ERA over 90.2 innings, but he didn't appear in the post-season with them that year.

#75T Al Nipper

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Nipper pitched one very nice season for the Cubs, but in order to get him and Calvin Schiraldi, they gave up Lee Smith, who pitched 10 more effective seasons after leaving Chicago.

#60T Vance Law

This card rocks due to the bonus shot of Shawon Dunston there on the right. The outfielder, judging by the angle of the photo, is probably the center fielder, who in 1988 was probably either Darrin Jackson or Dave Martinez.

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Law came and left the Cubs as a free agent, playing just two years for them. His 1988 was pretty good while his 1989 was subpar.

#56T Darrin Jackson

Those are some dark and fuzzy people in the background. Insert your own joke here.

Jackson had a really strange career including:

• Getting 11 ABs in 1985 and 5 ABs in 1987 before finally qualifying as a rookie with 188 ABs in 1988.
• Despite playing 12 years and hitting 80 HR, he had nearly half of those HR in just 2 seasons (1991 with 21 and 1992 with 17.)
• He had an enormously bad OBP of .293 and a horrific K/BB ratio of 480/131.
  

IMPACT FACTOR 1/10: Jackson did fairly little in parts of 4 seasons with the Cubs, and then left town in a trade involving players all either past their prime or with no prime.

#44T Ty Griffin

IMPACT FACTOR 0/10: Griffin never made it to the big leagues, though he played in the minors as recently as 1995. He had a #1 draft pick card in the 1989 Topps set, too.

#42T Mark Grace

Here's another great rookie card from the set.

IMPACT FACTOR 9/10: Grace was a fantastic player for the Cubs, playing the first 13 years of his career with them before heading out to Arizona. He had the most hits of the 1990s. The only thing that keeps Grace from getting a 10 is that the Cubs didn't have any post-season success with him. In 1989, that wasn't Grace's fault. In the 5 games against the Giants in the NLCS, Grace had an 1.800 OPS (not a typo) with 11 hits and 8 RBI.

I'm sure that Cubs fans will push for Grace to get into the HOF, but he falls quite short, actually.

#41T Rich Gossage

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Gossage came to the Cubs in a pretty meaningless trade. Only he and Keith Moreland had lengthy major-league careers and both were past their primes by this time. The Goose had one below-average year for the Cubs before moving on and having several good years with other teams to close out his career.

Finally, here is our first HOFer in the traded set!

Hall of Fame count: 46

#15T Damon Berryhill

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10 Berryhill was the starting catcher for the 1989 Cubs team that went to the playoffs, but he got injured halfway through the year. Eventually the Cubs traded him with Mike Bielecki for Yorkis Perez and Turk Wendell. The latter did some good things with the Cubs, but overall Berryhill didn't have a huge impact for the Cubs organization. He did some better stuff with the Braves, of course.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #4 Mark Grace

Why this card is awesome: Because this is a pretty cool card. It's neat that Topps chose to give Grace a Fan Favorites card from 1988 even though he didn't have a Topps card until the 1988 Traded set (stay tuned, that card is coming up.) It's also a great shot as a rookie.

This is the final Fan Favorites card I'll be showing on this blog. I hope you enjoyed them.

#768 Dickie Noles

Why this card is awesome: Because not only does is this one of the few cards in this set with the "NOW WITH" label on it, but it looks in the photo as if Noles has just been told that he's going to the Tigers. Why does he look so surprised? Well, how weird is this:

September 22, 1987: Loaned to the Detroit Tigers by the Chicago Cubs.
October 23, 1987: Dickie Noles returned to the Chicago Cubs by the Detroit Tigers as part of earlier loan.

Yes, apparently he was loaned (not even lent) to the Tigers. That is utterly bizarre. Waht actually happened is that he was traded for a player to be named later, but ultimately the teams couldn't agree on that player, so Noles was sent back for himself.

Cool stat: I noticed that Noles issued 11 intentional walks in 1980, mostly as a relief pitcher. I was curious so I check our his event finder for IBBs. Noles intentionally walked 3 guys in this game, including intentionally walking Dave Parker to get to Willie Stargell.

If you're curious, here is a list of games where a relief pitcher threw 3 or more IBBs. It used to be a lot more common. In 1980, Noles' such game was one of 9. It didn't happen even once in 2007.

#740 Rick Sutcliffe

Why this card is awesome: Because, man oh man, 16 wins in 20 games with the Cubs in 1984. Nobody will ever forget that, although C.C. Sabathia might do as well with the Brewers this year.

Sutcliffe has one of what seems like a rash of former players making embarrassing appearances in TV when he appeared on an ESPN telecast obviously drunk. I would guess the video is around somewhere. To his credit, he wasn't working, he was just in the crowd. There's nothing wrong with drinking off the job--or at least in that case, how much you drink is your own business, not your employer's.

Cool stat: It's pretty rare to register 300 decisions in MLB with a below-average ERA. Only 17 guys in history have done it. Sutcliffe was one of the very lucky ones, registering a very healthy W-L% of .552 despite that very average ERA. Of course, nobody was luckier than Lew Burdette, who managed more than 200 wins despite being very average.

#717 Jay Baller

Why this card is awesome: Because, what more can I say about this card than what was already written here by Ben Henry. At least Baller joins our little necklace club. And I can just hear Jay saying "Baller? I didn't even touch her!"

Cool stat: A surprisingly large number of players have had a season allowing exactly 10 ER and 10 hits. They all, for lack of a better word, sucked.

#695 Shawon Dunston

Why this card is awesome: Because, heck, here is another great-looking Cubs card from this set. The only think better than red, white, and blue is when you add a sea of green from an impeccably maintained grassy area. It might sound like I am being sarcastic, but truly I love this card.

Toward the end of Dunston's career, I learned that his first name is actually pronounced like it's spelled, i.e. "Sha-WAN", not "Shawn" like we all thought for years and years. I thought that was pretty cool because it's a much more African American-sounding name than plain old "Shawn."

Cool stat: What with his .296 career OBP, Dunston was, shall we say, offensively challenged. But he was damned versatile, making the top 10 in career homers for guys who played at least 10 career games at 1B, SS, 3B, OF, and DH.

#667 Luis Quinones

Why this card is awesome: Because, boy oh boy, Quinones sure does not look very confident is this photo. If I had to guess, I'd say that in the last half-inning, he made a bad error that allowed 2 runs to score, and he's nervous about going out on to the field in the next half-inning.

True dat, his fielding stats, at least as far as errors and range factor, were quite poor in the major leagues.

Cool stat: In his last year in the big leagues, 1992, Quinones had a .200 BA but only a .167 OBP. How did he do that? Sacrifice flies count against OBP but not BA. He had 1 hit in 5 AB that year, but also 1 SF, giving him 1-for-6 when calculating OBP. Only 5 guys have ever had a seasonal BA as high as .200 and an OBP as low as .167. Quinones, and 4 pitchers.

#642 Bob Dernier

Why this card is awesome: Because, hot damn, this is a red, white, and blue card. For some reason, that red border really stands out on this card more than other Cubs cards.

Cool stat: Despite playing on the Phillies for all but four seasons of his career, Dernier hit more of his 23 career homers off Don Carman than anybody else.

#615 Jody Davis

Why this card is awesome: Because Davis was a very nice Rule V pickup for the Cubs, as noted on the back. He was a pretty darn good catcher for a number of years in the 1980s.

Cool stat: From 1983 to 1987, just 4 catchers had at least 100 homers. You'd probably never have guessed Davis except for the fact that I'm bringing this up on his card. The other three are pretty easy, and they include two HOFers.

#593 Bob Tewksbury

Why this card is awesome: Because that is an incredibly unflattering photo of Tewksbury's teeth. He looks like Richard Kiel.

Cool stat: Tewksbury was a pretty good pitcher, better than his numbers indicate (actual W-L record of 110-102, .519, neutralized to 109-95, .534.) But if you know the Tewk, you know that his big thing was simply incredible control. Going back to 1901, among all pitchers with at least 1000 IP, Tewksbury incredibly makes the top 10 for fewest BB/9IP.

#564 Frank Lucchesi

Why this card is awesome: Because this card demonstrates how things have changed over the years. Look at this photo of Lucchesi. How old would you say he is in the picture? I myself would guess about 70. But he was born in 1927 so in this picture he was just 50 (and in fact is 71 at this writing.) This is my point. In 1988, being 50 was being old. But these days, 50-year-olds are much healthier than they used to be, and lots of people who are in their 70s now look the way people in their 50s did back then. I bet Lucchesi looks pretty much the same today as he did then.

Cool stat: Lucchesi managed the Cubs for just 25 games in 1987, taking over for Gene Michael as the Cubs finished last (although at just 76-85 were not a terrible team.) The Cubs had just two guys play more than 142 games that year, which is among the fewest in MLB that season.