#652 Bruce Benedict

Why this card is awesome: Because Benedict's career was built the way they should have been. He was a Braves lifer as a backup catcher. Here's a bonus cool stat for you: catchers who played their entire career for one team (minimum 1000 PAs.) Despite retiring after 1989, Benedict is the 6th most-recent catcher to do it.

Cool stat: Benedict had just 18 career homers, and he hit 2 off one guy. You'll never guess who.

#651 Mike Jackson

Why this card is awesome: Because this is yet another nice hidden gem rookie card from this set. This was Mike Jackson's first Topps card, although he had a 1987 Fleer Update card and a 1987 Donruss The Rookies card.

Jackson had a mostly-brilliant 17-year career as one of the top relievers in baseball. He had a couple of great years as the Indians closer, too.

I have to mention, though, that this card continues the trend of the Phillies getting royally screwed in this set. Jackson's card is yet another one that makes the player look like a dopey minor leaguer. And just wait until you see the Phillies Leaders card coming up shortly.

Cool stat: Only 7 guys have ever had a season with 40 saves, a WHIP under 0.9, and an ERA+ of 300 or better. Jackson, of course, was one of them.

Giveaway #10 PART TWO

Since dayf doesn't want the cards he won, here's another little contest to give them away.

The contest works like this: first person to post a comment with the best all-star team assembled from posted 88 Topps cards on this blog wins. I'm going to throw in a few unopened packs too.

Here's how it works:

You enter a name in the search box at the upper left of this page. It can be a first name or a last name. If there is some way to trick the search into accepting wildcards, that doesn't count. You can use the cards of any players that come up as a result of your search, provided that the name of the player on the card uses your exact search term.

For example, put "Leonard" in the search box. Jeffrey Leonard comes up, and you can use him. Mike Aldrete comes up because I mentioned Leonard in Aldrete's post, but you can't use Aldrete since the name "Mike Aldrete" doesn't include "Leonard." Len Matuszek's card doesn't come up, and you couldn't use him anyway, because even though his first name is Leonard, that's not what the name on the card shows.

Keep in mind that if your search turns up lots of results, they might be spread onto more than one page and you'll want to click "older posts" at the bottom to see cards from earlier in the set.

So, try to assemble to best team you can as follows:

Starting pitcher =
Relief pitcher =
Closer =
C =
1B =
2B =
3B =
SS =
OF =
OF =
OF =

I don't think there is a single search that will give you enough players to field an entire team. See how close you can get. You can be a little creative as far as assigning positions.

I've searched on this exhaustively and I think I know the best answer, but I'll wait at least a day to see if anybody beats it. Whenever I decide to end the contest, the best posted comment wins. Unlike other contests, you can go ahead and post multiple entries if you like. I'll count whichever one is your best. The final decision as to who's team is best is mine, but feel free to make your best argument to convince me.

88 Topps Giveaway #10

This one is a huge giveaway. The first person to figure out the question below wins the following:

• Cards 551-650 of the 1988 Topps set, which include Don Sutton, Mark McGwire, George Bell, Mike Schmidt, Kirk Gibson, Cecil Fielder, Cory Snyder, Matt Nokes, and Cal Ripken.
• A paperback copy of John Schuerholz's autobiography, which I found pretty droll.
  

• The George Bell All-Time Fan Favorites card.
• And a whole bunch of packs that I opened on A Pack a Day, all containing star/HOF cards: a 1990 Fleer rack pack, a 1984 Topps wax pack, a LOADED 1987 Donruss rack pack (section 1, 2, and 3), and a 1988 Sportsflics wax pack. Check the links and you can see all the cards you're getting.
  

All you have to do to win is be the first commenter to post the name of the five current major league ballplayers identified below:

1) Complete dromedaries
2) Sabermetric female horses
3) After this, guy who kicks the ball on 4th down
4) Cartography for felines
5) Homicide of upper body garment

A bit of wordplay is involved...

#650 Cal Ripken

Why this card is awesome: Because while I'd love to say that this is the classic Ripken batting stance, the truth is that there is no such thing. This guy changed his stance more often than I change my infant daughter's diaper. Frankly, I'd love to see someone (this means you, Kevin) do a study of Rip's different stances as shown by his baseball cards.

Cool stat: I love Cal Ripken and there are tons of positive stats I could call up, but here's a slightly negative one: lowest batting average of anyone with 3000+ career hits. Note that that list goes back only to 1901 so it doesn't catch guys like Honus Wagner. Trust me when I tell you that Wagner's career BA was higher than Ripken's too.

Hall of Fame count: 39

#649 DeWayne Buice

Why this card is awesome: Because this card has Buice's name wrong. His first name is "De Wayne," with a space, not DeWayne without a space.

Buice had a short major league career, but played a lot in the minors. More importantly, he holds a much greater significance to baseball card collectors, as one of the major forces that helped Upper Deck get off the ground. See here for more.

Cool stat: In the last 30 years, Buice cracks the top 25 for fewest hits per 9 innings in a season with at least 110 IP exclusively in relief.

#648 Al Newman

Why this card is awesome: Because I'm pleased to say that Al Newman is not dead. For some reason, when I see Newman's name, I always think he passed away several years ago. If I recall correctly, Newman fell seriously ill while working as a coach for the Twins, and there was some question about whether he would recover. For some odd reason, I always think he didn't recover, but he did and is alive and (hopefully) well.

Cool stat: Since 1980, Al Newman had the most career ABs for a guy who finished with 1 career homer. Doug Flynn wasn't actually that close since he had several homers before 1980. Here is the game Newman homered in. Notice anything else interesting about it? Check out the Atlanta homers.

#647 Pascual Perez

Why this card is awesome: Because, oh man, there are SO MANY stories about Pascual Perez. Again I'm going to invite readers to comment on some of them. Suffice it to say that this guy was one of the most colorful players to ever appear in the majors.

Anyway, this is another card that makes it sound like his brother was retired (just like Al Leiter's card) but in fact Melido was just getting started.

Cool stat: Pascual Perez pitched one of the few rain-shortened no-hitters we've seen since 1956. These games don't count as official no-hitters because the revised rules state that the game must go nine innings. Incidentally, brother Melido achieved the feat as well. Games 2 and 4 on that list are in fact no-hitters, but were 8 inning CGs because they were losses on the road.

Contest coming later today

I am posting a new contest at 4:45 PM ET today. First correct answer wins a whole mess of stuff. See the post for more details.

#646 Checklist 529-660

Why this card is awesome: Because it's interesting that the first and last player in each column on both sides of the card had notable careers. Tim Burke - very good reliever. Tim Wallach - All Star. Ken Williams - successful GM. George Bell - MVP. Doug Drabek - Cy Young. Jim Leyland - successful manager. Frank Viola - Cy Young. Rick Reuschel - All Star.

#645 Matt Nokes

Why this card is awesome: Because, ahh, here is REALLY the last All-Star Rookie card from the 1988 Topps set, and it's a decent one in Matt Nokes. Sure, Nokes didn't ever reproduce his stellar 1987 again, but he was an OK catcher for a few years, certainly accomplishing more as a big-league player than Mike Dunne, Al Pedrique, or Casey Candaele.

Cool stat: Wow, Nokes simply owned Todd Stottlemyre, with 7 homers against him. He also had 4 off Roger Clemens. His overall numbers against Stottlemyre are excellent with 19 RBI in 53 AB.

All in all, Topps did a pretty good job picking this year's All-Star Rookie team. I'd like to get your opinion on the ranking of these 10 players, in terms of how good they were as selections for this team (by whatever criteria you choose.) My list goes: 1) McGwire 2) Burks 3) White 4) Greenwell 5) Seitzer 6) Nokes 7) Candaele 8) Musselman 9) Pedrique 10) Dunne.

I think McGwire has got to be the #1 choice. Overrated as he is, he clearly had the best and most valuable career out of all these guys. Burks was also somewhat overrated, helped by some good years at Coors Field when it was still a huge hitter's park. White very narrowly beats out Greenwell and Seitzer. All three were pretty good and White just managed to do it for a little longer. Of the bottom five, Nokes had the longest and most productive career. Candaele and Musselman stuck around longer than the last two, and Pedrique beats out Dunne because of his post-playing managing career.

Please leave your own list in the comments!

#644 Terry McGriff

Why this card is awesome: Because of those two dudes hanging out behind the lesser cousin McGriff. They look like they just stepped out of the 1970s.

Cool stat: McGriff got 23% of his career RBIs in just two of his games played.

#643 Rocky Childress

Why this card is awesome: Because of all the obscure-sounding minor league stops on the back of the card - Helena, Bend, Spartanburg, Peninsula...

Cool stat: Funny how things work sometimes. The batter with the most career PAs against Childress was seen just a few cards ago: Garry Templeton, and he went hitless against Rocky.

#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.

#641 Rick Honeycutt

Why this card is awesome: Because, OMG, what a terrible airbrush job. Not only did they give him a ridiculous hat that looks like he's storing his lunch under there, but they put the Oakland name on his jersey so high it's ridiculous. Just like they did with Dave LaPoint.

Cool stat: Honeycutt posted one of the finest seasons for a reliever over 42, one of just 10 seasons with at least 60 games, and he pitched very well.

#640 Garry Templeton

Why this card is awesome: Because this is the most obvious of the uncorrected errors of the 1988 Topps set: a green border on a Padres card instead of the orange border on all other cards from the set. I remember when I first pulled this card out of a pack and assumed it was a one-time error. I desperately tried to pull another Templeton, expecting the next pull to have an orange border. Of course, it didn't. Then, I at least thought I had a few error cards that would eventually be corrected, but that was wrong too. Poor adolescent me. :(

Cool stat: Templeton had the lowest OBP for a qualifying season with at least a .314 batting average (and three of the top six such seasons.) The guy could hit some but he couldn't walk. He was the first guy to get 100 hits from each side of the plate in the same season, but he batted exclusively from one side at the end of the season in order to achieve the feat. He certainly seems to me to have been a pretty selfish player.

#639 Brewers Leaders

Why this card is awesome: Because unless I am mistaken, this is the only card in the 1988 Topps set that prominently features a person who was neither a manager nor a player in 1987. Yeah, there are lots of cards with guys in the background who don't qualify, but that's Tony Muser on the left (and Glenn Braggs on the right.) Muser finished up as a player with Milwaukee after the 1978 season and was a coach with the team later. Eventually, he became manager of the Royals from 1997 to 2002.

Cool stat: Check out the back of the card, on the offensive side. Molitor and Yount were just massive forces on the field. A .353 batting average for Molitor, 9 triples for Yount, 45 stolen bases for Molitor, 103 RBI for Yount...it goes on and on. Still, these guys get very little national recognition. I was surprised (very pleasantly) by how easily they both got elected to the Hall of Fame. And for an almost totally meaningless stat, the 1987 Milwaukee Brewers tied for most players that year with at least 3 triples.

2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #9 Frank Viola

I don't actually own this card. The scan was graciously provided by dayf at Cardboard Junkie.

Why this card is awesome: Because that guy in the outfield sure doesn't look ready for the play. If I had to guess, I'd say it's LF Dan Gladden, although the complexion might be a bit too dark to be him.

#638 Steve Balboni

Why this card is awesome: Because if you know Steve Balboni, you know he was one of the strongest guys ever to play baseball, and yet he has such little muscle definition in this photo. That, my friends, is a pre-Steroids Era photo.

Cool stat: Next to Mark McGwire's 2001, Balboni had the highest OPS+ in a season with at least 200 AB but a batting average under .195. He may not have gotten a lot of hits, but many of them went over the fence. In fact, for players with fewer than 800 career hits, Balboni's got the most home runs of all time.

#637 Jay Bell

Why this card is awesome: Because you gotta love that there's a guy taking a hack in the batting cage in the background. Plus, we see one of two interesting trades that Bell was involved with on the back. He was one of the chips that got Bert Blyleven to Minnesota. Later, Bell was involved in a double "player-to-be-named-later" trade, with the famous Felix Fermin.

Cool stat: Bell had a massive fluke year in 1999. All time, he's had the second-lowest batting average in a season with at least 130 runs, 110 RBI, and a .550 SLG. Only Roger Maris' 1961 was lower. Some people think that this is evidence that Bell used steroids in 1999, saying that he wasn't any better hitter, just hit the ball further that year. I don't think statistics can really inform on one player like that. But Bell's year is a fluke just because of the other names on the list. He's clearly the very worst player from the 80 such seasons.