#123T Willie Upshaw

IMPACT FACTOR 1/10: Upshaw played one year, the last of his career and only not with Toronto, with the Cleveland Indians.

Upshaw is the cousin of the late Gene Upshaw, Hall of Fame NFL player and head of the NFL Players Association until his sudden death earlier this year.

#95T Doug Robbins

This card is pretty cool because of the mention of scout Ed Sprague Sr. on the back. Sprague was a major league pitcher and father to a future major leaguer whose card we will be seeing very soon. Stay tuned.

IMPACT FACTOR 0/10: Robbins never made it to the big leagues. Checking out his full minor-league stats, he did hit pretty well, batting over .300 in a few stops and finishing with more career walks than strikeouts.

#66T Tino Martinez

IMPACT FACTOR 6/10: Martinez scores a 6, despite all of his best years and championships coming with the Yankees. Constantino was a major force on the 1995 Mariners, the first truly good team the franchise ever had, as well as their first playoff appearance. He was a key factor in the Mariners' ALDS victory over the Yankees that year. He was then traded (along with Jeff Nelson and Jim Mecir) to those same Yankees for Russ Davis and Sterling Hitchcock, two players who were somewhat helpful for the Mariners in the following period.

#50T Bob Horner

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Horner signed with the Cardinals after a year in Japan and was having a marginal season before an injury ended his year and career early.

#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.

#785 Alvin Davis

Why this card is awesome: Because, again, how about an action shot of a great hitter instead of a terrible posed photograph where Davis has a dumb look on his face? I really think Topps was trying to screw Seattle in this set. While Davis didn't live quiet up to the weight put on his shoulders (to singlehandedly turn the franchise around from 10 years of futility) he was in fact a much better hitter than most remember.

Cool stat: Among first basemen who played at least 800 games from 1984 to 1991, Davis was 4th in RBI, 7th in homers, and 2nd in OBP.

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.

#769 Cecil Cooper

Why this card is awesome: Because the screwing continues. Like the Phillies and Mariners, the Brewers got raked through the mud by Topps. In Milwaukee's case, it was assigning pretty pathetic card numbers to their star players. Cecil Cooper is not a HOFer and he was out for a lot of 1987, but the guy deserved a number ending in 5 for sure.

Cooper is rocking the beard and sunglasses, an awesome look!

Cooper is currently the manager of the Astros, and he's a great signer through the mail. Go ahead and send him a card and a SASE care of the Astros, and you'll get it back, personalized no less, in a matter of weeks.

Cool stat: From 1980 to 1983, Cooper had 3 seasons with 120+ RBI. Nobody else did it more than once. From 1970 to 1990, only Cooper and Jim Rice has as many as 3 seasons with 120+ RBI and a batting average of .300.

#764 Greg Walker

Why this card is awesome: Because turnabout is fair play. Here's a photo of a White Sox player at Comiskey, showing the Red Sox's catcher. Most of the Red Sox cards are from this same game and show the White Sox catcher's mitt.

If I remember correctly, Walker has epilepsy, or at least had a few seizures during his playing days. I'm not sure to what extent that contributed to his fairly short career.

Cool stat: 100 RBI is one of those magical numbers that so many whuse to separate great players from average players. Walker managed 100 RBIs in a season but from 1984 to 1987, he managed at least 24 HR with no more than 95 RBI three different times. He wasn't a superstar but he deserved to be remembered better than he is.

#758 Eddie Williams

Why this card is awesome: Because it's nice to see a guy who looks genuinely happy! It's a real-looking smile for once.

Cool stat: Williams had an absolutely wild 1994. Firstly, he made it back to MLB after 3 years in Japan and the minor leagues. Then, he batted .331 but didn't reach even 200 PAs, and yet still managed 42 RBI. Only 2 guys have ever had a season like that.

#753 Danny Heep

Why this card is awesome: Because you get a nice shot of that patch on the Dodgers uniform. And, leave it to Topps to find a way to get a guy's entire face in the shadows except for the tip of his nose. Consequently, they've made Heep look a bit like Pinocchio in this photo.

Cool stat: Heep was the ultimate part-time player for most of his career. From 1982 to 1989, he and Mickey Hatcher tie for most seasons appearing in 80 to 120 games.

#746 Gene Larkin

Why this card is awesome: Because, my friends, love him or hate him, that is actually George W. Bush pictured. Seriously.

Cool stat: Larkin is by far best remembered for the game winning hit in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, widely regarded as The Greatest World Series Game Ever Played, thanks in large part to Jack Morris' 10-inning CG. Larkin had 3 other walk-off hits in the regular season, all singles, including a 2-run come-from-behind job off Gene Garber.

#721 Pete O'Brien

Why this card is awesome: Because cruel Topps used a photo where O'Brien obviously popped up. Why did they pull crap like that?

Cool stat: I can't understand why Topps didn't give O'Brien a better card number in this set. Coming in to 1988, he had 4 consecutive years with an OPS+ over 110, and averaged over 150 games played those years. That's pretty good. He had the 41st best OPS+ over those years for players with at least 600 games played (which means he was among the 2 best players on each team.) For those same criteria, he was in the top half of all first basemen.

#719 Denny Walling

Why this card is awesome: Becasue this is one of my favorite cards of the set, with Walling seriously leaning over as he moves his way out of the batter's box. Along with Eddie Murray's card, this is one that captures a real sense of motion. Lovely photo.

Cool stat: Check out Walling's career splits as a starter vs. as a sub. Not only were his BA/OBP/SLG essentiallty identical in both cases, but he put together a nice season-equivalent line as a sub: 555 AB, 34 doubles, 6 triples, 7 homers, 98 RBI. Of course, a lot of those were probably pinch-hit opportunities with guys on base a bit more often than usual.

#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.

#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.

#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.

#630 Darrell Evans

Why this card is awesome: Because Evans was coming off a great 1987, with an OPS+ of 135 and 99 RBI in 150 games. He also walked 100 times while striking out only 84 times, and did it all at age 40.

Cool stat: In 1985, Evans had one of a handful of seasons with 40 homers but fewer than 100 RBI. Evans is also one of just three players to have 100 homers for three different franchises. Can you name the other two? (Answer in small font below the image of the back of the card.) Evans was also part of a triad of players to hit 40 homers each for one team. Only 3 such triads have ever existed, and two of them were Coors-inflated.



Alex Rodriguez and Reggie Jackson

#618 Cecil Fielder

Why this card is awesome: Because of two things. Firstly, I love those houses in the background. Secondly, this was a forgotten card from the 1988 set. Fielder didn't play much in 1988 and then was sold to a Japanese team after the season. For all intents and purposes, he was gone from major league baseball (at least in North America.) After a year away in Japan, Fielder reappeared in MLB with the Tigers and swatted 51 homers. See below for more on this.

Fielder pronounces his first name as a rhyme with "vessel," hence the nickname "Cecil the Vessel." Most other players with the name Cecil, such as Cecil Cooper, pronounce it more like a rhyme with diesel.

Cool stat: Fans today don't necessarily appreciate just how monster Fielder's 1991 season was. If you look at 50-homer seasons by year, you first notice that it happens all the time these days, a total of 12 times in the 2000's. But look down at #24, that was Fielder's 51-homer season. Prior to that, it had been 13 years since anybody did it, going all the way back to George Foster's 1977. For a time there in the 1980s, it seemed like it might never happen again. And then Big Daddy busted on the scene and blew everybody away. (Incidentally, if you live under a rock, note that #2 on that list is Fielder's estranged son, Prince.)

#610 Keith Hernandez

Why this card is awesome: Because while it's cool to get such a nice shot of the prominent "C" on Hernandez's jersey, I can't get past the fact that he looks like Groucho Marx in this photo. Quite honestly, the first time I saw this card, I thought it was a joke.

Cool stat: Hernandez was a great defensive player and a pretty darn good offensive one too. For players with at least 2000 games played and 1000 walks, Hernandez had one of the lowest strikeout totals.