#690 Jay Howell

Why this card is awesome: Because we can see an interesting patch on Howell's arm, but I don't know anything about it. Do you? I see that we can see it much better on Moose Haas' card.

Cool stat: Howell was a really good reliever for a whole bunch of years. For relievers from 1988 to 1993, he had the 3rd-best ERA+ (minimum 200 IP.) Our man Jeff Montgomery actually beat him out.

#689 Tom Pagnozzi

Why this card is awesome: Because, hey check it out, Pagnozzi's mom is watching him bat!

Cool stat: Pagnozzi is one of a bunch of players from this set who spent their entire career at the major-league level with just one team.

Here are the batters (minimum 500 games):

Barry Larkin
Cal Ripken
Tony Gwynn
Tom Pagnozzi
Ron Karkovice
Mike Greenwell
Robby Thompson
Alan Trammell
Don Mattingly
Kirby Puckett
Lou Whitaker
Kent Hrbek
George Brett
Randy Bush
Robin Yount
Jim Gantner
Mike Scioscia
Ron Oester
Andres Thomas
Frank White
Bruce Benedict
Tim Flannery
Tim Laudner
Jim Rice
Mike Schmidt
Dave Concepcion
Garth Iorg

And here are the pitchers (minimum 100 games):

Teddy Higuera
Mark Williamson
Bill Wegman
Jeff Innis
Tim Crews
Wally Ritchie
Allan Anderson
Scott Garrelts
Bob Stanley
Ron Guidry
Scott McGregor
Mario Soto
Ken Dixon

HOF players in bold. If you want to get a hint about how I came to this list, see here.

#688 Jim Winn

Why this card is awesome: Because if you're going to be a pitcher, Winn is such a rough name, since it's so easy to joke how rarely he actually did "Winn" ball games. It's so much better to be Early Wynn in this case, who managed to "Wynn" 300 games. At least Jimmy Wynn and Marvell Wynne didn't have to worry about this stuff.

Cool stat: Over the last 50 years, Winn has one of the highest total IP for a pitcher with a K/BB ratio very close to 1 (specifically between 0.98 and 1.02.) I can't believe Mike Torres won 185 games while topping this list. Back on Tim Laudner's card, we saw that Winn was the only guy he hit multiple homers off of. Well, Laudner is not the only guy Winn gave up multiple homers too.

#687 Mickey Brantley

Why this card is awesome: Because, geez, Brantley got around in the minor leagues. From Bakersfield CA to Chattanooga TN to Salt Lake City UT to Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Cool stat: Brantley couldn't stick in the majors mainly because of a terrible OBP. Among players who had at least 30 career HR, he had one of the lowest walk totals.

#686 Terry Francona

Why this card is awesome: Because I guess this must have been Santa Claus day at the ballpark, given that there are two of them in the stands.

This is a nice card of another future manager, the current Red Sox skipper.

Francona is also the son of All-star outfielder Tito Francona.

Cool stat: It would seem pretty rare to have more doubles than RBI in a season, and in fact Francona has one of just a handful of seasons with 19 or more RBI and 18 or fewer RBI. I'm not able to search in general for years with more doubles than RBI, but I bet they are pretty rare.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #74 Ron Darling

This is another set of scans provided by dayf at Cardboard Junkie.

Why this card is awesome: Because methinks that this photo was taken a bit before 1987...

#685 Ron Darling

Why this card is awesome: Because this is the second guy in 6 cards to be born in Honolulu. Charlie Hough was too. And for that matter, Darling's teammate Sid Fernandez was too.

Cool stat: Darling was vastly overrated. Sure, he finished his career with a 136-116 record (.540) but his ERA+ was just 95. His neutralized record was 122-138, .469. Darling has one of the most recent seasons with 4 shutouts but at best a league-average ERA.

#684 Hal Lanier

Why this card is awesome: Because, looking at the back of the card, it sure seems like the Astros had a lot of guys play 3B.

Cool stat: In 1987, they tied for first with 3 different guys playing at least 30 games at the hot corner.

#683 Julio Franco

Why this card is awesome: Because let's take a guy with one of the coolest unique batting stances ever, and put him in a blurry photo with his mouth hanging open. Suuure.

Cool stat: I love Julio Franco. Check out some stuff I wrote about him here. Franco makes the top 10 all time for most hits from Age 40 season on.

#682 Jimmy Key

Why this card is awesome: Because I can't look at this card without thinking of Jimy Williams' card. Clearly they must have been sitting near each other at about the same time. Imagine it like this:


See? Isn't that a nice slice of life?

Plus, if this is how it actually was, I think they were holding hands. Awww.

Cool stat: So Jimmy Key finished second in the AL Cy Young voting in 1987, yet still doesn't get a card ending in a 5 or 0? That's the story of his career, I guess. Few people seem to think much of him, yet he finished with a .614 W-L% and two World Series rings. Among lefties with at least 150 wins, Key was in the top 10 for W-L%.

#681 Bobby Bonilla

Why this card is awesome: Because I love playing games to try to figure out who else is on the card. Who's that standing next to Bonilla? In 1987, the following Pirates had numbers ending in 9: Hipolito Pena, Jeff Robinson, and Mark Ross all wore 49, but they were all pitchers and would be very unlikely to take BP at the same time as Bonilla. Infielder Houston Jimenez and outfielder Terry Harper both wore #19 and Onix Concepcion wore #29. Based on the fact that the digit on the left looks to be pretty much vertical, I'd say it's got to be #19. Terry Harper didn't join the Pirates until June 26 and there would be unlikely to be in a 1988 Topps photo. Houston Jimenez, however, signed as a free agent in late 1986. So he's my guess. Interestingly, Jimenez has no card in the 1988 set because he got only 6 AB with the Pirates in 1987.

This card is also interesting because it pretty prominently features a cross on a necklace around Bonilla's neck. Although I'd bet there are others, I can't at the moment think of any other examples in this set of any prominent religious symbols.

Cool stat: I guess Bonilla was a bad base stealer and/or runner since for guys with no more than 45 career steals, he is tied for the most CS. 57 CS against 45 SB is dreadful.

#680 Charlie Hough

Why this card is awesome: Because this is simply a great photo showing the sky blue eyes of a very good pitcher. Hough had a very long and interesting career, starting off as an ace reliever with the Dodgers in the early 70s and going all the way into the mid-90's, finishing as the anchor of the brand new Florida Marlins franchise.

Cool stat: Hough finished his career at 216-216, .500, but neutralized he was 226-196, 30 games over .500 at .536! As is typical for a knuckleballer, he allowed very few hits. But check out his company: fewest hits per 9 among pitchers with at least 3500 IP. The top 19 guys are all in the HOF except for Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens, who both will be one day. (Yes, Rocket will get in.) Oh, and Hough is not in.

#679 Darrell Miller

Why this card is awesome: Because of that weird effect going on in the dugout--looks like fancy yellow laser beams going across the card.

Cool stat: Miller was one of 9 players to have 140 or fewer ABs every year from 1984 to 1988, covering his entire career. He sure played a lot of positions, though--97 games at catcher, 54 in right field, 34 in left field, 16 at first base, 8 in center field, 2 at third base, and 8 more as DH. Wow.

#678 Jim Acker

Why this card is awesome: Because of the odd mention of minor league totals. Yeah, he had 437 IP and 28 wins in the minors before making the show. What they don't say is that they were split among 3 different locations, and that Acker actually went back down to AA from AAA in 1982 before suddenly making the Blue Jays out of spring training in 1983. They also don't say that he had 31 losses to go along with those 28 wins.

Cool stat: Acker had one of the small number of seasons by middle relievers with over 100 IP, no game starts, an ERA+ of 150 and a WHIP no higher than 1.12. Acker had two excellent years and a handful of good years.

#677 Eddie Milner

Why this card is awesome: Because check out that dumpy, slumped over guy sitting on a bucket of Gatorade at the end of the dugout. I guess he's sad because he's the equipment manager and there's crap strewn all over the floor.

Cool stat: Milner had a good batting eye. Over the last 50 years, for players with no more than 280 career strikeouts, he had one of the top walk totals. Other players on there we've talked about lately include Bruce Benedict, Randy Ready, Stan Musial, Mike LaValliere, and Marty Barrett.

#676 Ken Dixon

Why this card is awesome: Because there's a weird airbrushing on the left. There's a pitcher in the background but Topps but a blue block over everything. Weird. Why did they feel they need to do that?

This was Dixon's last card.

Cool stat: Dixon had a pretty short career, but not too short to avoid giving up 4 homers to Dave Winfield.

#675 Jim Rice

Why this card is awesome: Because in 1988, when I saw this card, I thought Rice looked like a dork. It's not a good photo, bottom line, and Rice deserved better. He goes down with Mike Schmidt as a star player who got robbed in this set.

Cool stat: Jim Rice was excellent, although not as good as Boston-area fans think. In my book, he's just slightly shy of deserving the Hall of Fame, although I think he will be voted in this coming year. His peak from 1977 to 1979 was incredible, though. He was #1 in homers and #1 in RBIs. Among guys who played at least 400 games, he had the 3rd-highest OPS, but he played in 481 games, more than the two guys ahead of him, and 200 PAs more than those guys too.

#674 Mike Fitzgerald

Why this card is awesome: Because I can't figure out which Expo that is in the background. It follows that it's the on-deck hitter, for starters, and it's clearly a white guy or fairly light-skinned Latino player. It looks like he's wearing #1, but the Expos didn't have a guy wearing #1 in 1987 or 1988. So then I looked at the lineups for the 1987 Expos. Interesting that early on, Fitzgerald batted 5th, but he slid later and later during the year until he was stuck in the 8-hole ahead of the pitcher. It's likely that this photo was taken earlier in 1987, though, and that means he batted mainly in front of Vance Law, who wore #2. Seems like that might be Law--there is perhaps a shade of eyeglasses on the guy, and otherwise the color and build is correct. Perhaps it's a pitcher, but those only pitchers with a #1 in their jersey are Floyd Youmans, who that clearly is not, and Randy St. Claire, who had only 6 AB in 1987 (and probably none of them came following Fitzgerald, although that's easy to check.)

Anybody else have any ideas?

This is also the final card in the trade mentioned on the back, having already posted the 4 other guys mentioned.

Cool stat: In 1986, Fitzgerald had one of the top seasons for a backup catcher. For catchers with no more than 250 PAs and an OPS+ over 120, he had one of the highest RBI totals.

#673 Tony Phillips

Why this card is awesome: Because Phillips is a pretty underrated player, mainly because he was much better in the second half of his career. From 1982 to 1991, he had an OPS+ just under 100, and an OBP under .360. From 1993 to 1999, his OPS+ was well over 100 and his OBP was something like .390. Superstar, no, but a quality hitter. Factor in that he could play both infield and outfield, and he was a pretty valuable player.

Steve at White Sox Cards recently wrote a little piece about Tony Phillps.

Cool stat: Phillips' increase in OBP can be seen in his career batting splits. A quick analysis suggests that his managers used him pretty well. Note that he had a career .386 OBP batting 1st, and a career .335 OBP batting 9th. If you click on "Batting 9th" you can get it year-by-year, and discover that most of those ABs came early in his career, when he wasn't as good at getting on base. Now click on "Batting 1st" and see that most of those ABs came in the second half of his career, when he was getting on base a lot more often.

#672 John Davis

Why this card is awesome: Because this is a very interesting rookie card. Davis had a nice 1987 season with the Royals, but that came after a quiet unimpressive minor-league career (see back of card below.) I guess Topps knew something not making him an all-star rookie, because 1987 was his only good year.

Cool stat: Check out this list of pitchers who had at least 40 IP and an ERA+ over 200 in their rookie season. (As always with B-R.com, it misses guys who might have had a cup of coffee before their true rookie season, such as Jonathan Papelsmear Papelbon, who definitely should be on this list.) Davis was the only guy to do it over a 14-year period, although that probably has more to do with September call-ups than anything else. That list is a real mixed bag.