#538 Bill Wegman

Why this card is awesome: Because I like the little white "46" on Wegman's glove. Seems so old school to have to mark up your equipment manually for identification purposes. (These days, most guys are playing with their own custom models manufactured just for them.)

Cool stat: Wegman's name is forgotten outside of Milwaukee but over 1991-1992, among the 20 pitchers to throw at least 450 innings, Wegman had the 6th-best ERA+. Neutralized B-R.com stats suggest he deserved to go 30-19 over those 2 years, instead of the 28-21 he actually went.

#537 Steve Buechele

Why this card is awesome: Because he was signed by scout Rick Schroeder. Heh. In 1982 no less!

Cool stat: Only two guys had double-digit homers and a sub-.250 batting average every year from 1986 to 1989: Buechele, and Steve Balboni. And Balboni had 93 HR in that span compared to Buechele's 63. BOOOOOO, indeed.

#536 John Morris

Why this card is awesome: Because, holy cow, they are digging deep for that stat on the back of the card. Reaching all the way down to AA level ball (and this was when prospects played at AAA, not AA like these days) and referring to a player of the week honor which, let's face it, makes him one of 30 special guys for that season.

Cool stat: Morris hit just 8 career homers, but most were off quality pitchers. One of the 8 was the first-ever homer hit off Mark Wohlers, a game-winning shot in the 10th inning. That was Morris' only career PA against Wohlers, too.

#535 Ron Guidry

Why this card is awesome: Because 11 cards after Gary Lucas, have a very similar position shot, right down to the oversized cap.

See?



Cool stat: Over the last 40 years, only two pitchers have had multiple seasons with 22+ wins and a W-L% of .750 or better. Gator and 38bitches.

#534 John Wathan

Why this card is awesome: Because this card is the opposite of Jamie Quirk's. Quirk looks like a manager on his card even though he's not, whereas Wathan looks like a player here even though he's not. He's wearing a batting helmet even though he wasn't an active player for the Royals after 1985. Perhaps he still took part in some batting drills.

Sorry this scan came out a little blurry.

Cool stat: Wathan had just 21 career HR, but he did hit 2 off one guy: Floyd Bannister, who was later managed by Wathan.

#533 John Farrell

Why this card is awesome: Because this is two Indians cards in the last 3 cards. Makes me wonder if Farrell was a late addition to the set like Shawn Hillegas. Farrell is now pitching coach for the Red Sox.

Also, I swear, doesn't it look like Farrell is a younger version of Doc Edwards? I am totally serious.

Cool stat: Farrell's got one of the more recent seasons with at least 90 IP but an ERA+ of 65 or worse. Interestingly, most of the guys on that list had pretty good careers overall, which is why I guess they were given the chance to go 90+ innings in a year while doing so poorly.

#532 Mike Kingery

Why this card is awesome: Because what's with that silly batting helmet? Isn't it a bit far back on his head? He could take a fastball right to the forehead in that thing.

Cool stat: Kingery was not much of a hitter. His career high in total bases in a game was 7, which he did twice.

#531 Rich Yett

Why this card is awesome: Because of that rough 1985 he had. He recorded just one out all season for the Twins, allowing 1 ER and garnering a lovely 27.00 ERA.

Cool stat: Yett is among just 20 pitchers since 1901 to have an ERA+ of 200 or better and a K/BB ratio of 2 or better in his final season. The catch? He did it in just 4.1 innings.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #48 Gary Carter

Why this card is awesome: Because this card actually looks really close to his original 1988 Topps card, unlike some of the Fan Favorites we've seen so far. There are only two giveaways that this is not from the same at-bat: Carter's wearing long blue sleeves here but short sleeves in the original, plus you can see that different people are sitting behind the dugout. I think it's pretty cool to see such a similar shot.

#530 Gary Carter

Why this card is awesome: Because although Carter's got a goofy look on his face, I like the fact that you can clearly see he's keeping his eye on the ball. As an offensive force, Carter is largely forgotten due to the big offensive numbers that some catchers put up (Piazza, I-Rod, etc) in the steroids era, but he was damn good in his day.

Cool stat: From 1977 to 1987, Carter had a huge lead in HR among catchers, and a massive lead in RBI among catchers. He was also first in runs scored.

Hall of Fame count: 35

88 AUTO FEST #8

Oh so tricky.

Please see the first 88 AUTO FEST post for contest rules. First person to post a comment with the correct identity of the card wins an autographed copy. One guess per customer.

#529 Tim Burke

Why this card is awesome: Because he led the league in games pitched in his rookie year. That's probably pretty rare, right?

Cool stat: In fact, only 6 guys since 1901 have appeared in at least 78 games in their first season. (Mind you, the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index doesn't discount cups of coffee, so some players might have appeared in a handful of games one year, and then a ton of games in their official rookie season the following year. They don't make this list.)

88 AUTO FEST leader board

A rundown of who's won what so far:

Autographed 1988 Topps cards

Mike S 2 (J Jones, C Lansford)
Kevin 1 (J Gott)
Cannonball 1 (D DeCinces)
Matt 1 (J Calhoun)
zman40 1 (D Jones)
dayf 1 (T Brunansky, T Henke, B Surhoff, D Williams, R Horton)
rgrantd 1 (D Clark)

So Mike S is in the lead, having won two separate 88 AUTO FEST contests. Just as a reminder, dayf won the 5-card contest which as the rules stated, only counted for one point.

I am going to make one more 88 AUTO FEST contest post tomorrow. Unless somebody ties Mike S with 2 points, he's going to be the winner of cards 451-550 from the Topps set plus a few bonus cards. If somebody does tie Mike, then I'll keep posting more snippets until we have a winner. And don't worry, I have lots more autos to give away as we finish out the 1988 Topps set.

#528 Checklist 397-528

Why this card is awesome: Because, umm, well, we're two-thirds of the way done with the set. Exactly.

#527 Steve Henderson

Why this card is awesome: Because, man, I love the yellow warmup jersey. At least a few A's were rocking those on their 1988 Topps cards. These days, we're so used to alternate jerseys that the teams use to try to encourage more merchandise sales. But back then, except for batting practice, it was rare to see a player in an alternate jersey. It was home whites, road grays, and that's it. Oh, and his entire face is in the shadow.

Cool stat: Since 1978, Henderson is in an 8-way tie for most seasons with exactly 10 HR. Also, Henderson hit 3 walk-off homers, all at Shea when he was playing for the Mets, and all were 3-run jobs.

#526 Juan Berenguer

Why this card is awesome: Because, bear with me on this one: for cards where the entire player's body is shown on the card (or nearly entire body, as we're missing bits of both of Berenguer's feet) I think his body occupies a higher percentage of the card area than anybody else. That's not supposed to be a fat joke--I'm referring to how the photo captures him bent over in a pretty compact position, and they crammed that all onto the card.

Cool stat: Since 1983, Berenguer is one of 23 pitchers to have at least 2 career shutouts and 30 career saves.

#525 Marty Barrett

Why this card is awesome: Because any card that mentions Ray Boone is awesome. Plus, Barrett is rocking that helmet-over-cap look that was so popular back in the 80s. Looks like that helmet might come flying off at any moment. Seems like nearly all of the BoSox cards in this set were taken at Comiskey Park.

Cool stat: 60 different players had at least 2800 PAs from 1984 to 1988. Only three had fewer extra-base hits than Barrett. In that stretch, five players--Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, George Bell, Juan Samuel, and teammate Dwight Evans--had more than double the number of XBHs as Barrett had.

#524 Gary Lucas

Why this card is awesome: Because, wow, his cap looks to be about 6 sizes too large. I think maybe he has a ham sandwich under that thing.

And, this is the second Gary card in a row.

Cool stat: Lucas pitched in some bad luck in 1982. That was one of just 10 seasons since 1956 where a pitcher who pitched exclusively in relief had an ERA+ of at least 105, got 10 or more losses, and no more than 5 wins. And Lucas had the lowest W-L% of all. There are some good names on that list, including Lee Smith who did it twice.

Sort of the opposite of Mitch Williams.

#523 Gary Roenicke

Why this card is awesome: Because for those who cannot remember, Gary is the "good" Roenicke brother (besting brother Ron) although that's very much on a sliding scale.

Roenicke is pronounced "REN-ickey."

Cool stat: Roenicke, ala Ken Phelps, had 2 seasons with 20+ HR and yet fewer than 400 ABs. Over the period 1979-1982, he was the only guy to do that twice.

#522 Bob Patterson

Why this card is awesome: Because where the heck is Patterson looking? Down and to the left? At a little bird sitting on the grass in front of the mound? That's how you get creamed by line drives, my friend. Just ask Bryce Florie.

Cool stat: Patterson was a top mop-up guy of the 1990s. For pitchers with at least 160 games finished, Patterson was tied for the second-fewest saves.