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.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #3 Bo Jackson

This is the last Fan Favorites card we'll be featuring here. Also, this is the last set of scans provided by dayf at Cardboard Junkie.

Why this card is awesome: Because of the mention on the back of Jackson's catch in the 1989 All-Star game. If you saw that catch, you remember and will NEVER forget it. If you haven't seen it, check out this incredible video.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #66 Kevin McReynolds

Am I sounding like a broken record yet? These are more scans by dayf at Cardboard Junkie.

Why this card is awesome: Because unlike many of the other Fan Favorites cards we've seen, this one is actually a very different shot, giving us a posed torso photo of McReynolds instead of an action batting shot as from his regular card. Variation is nice.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #9 Darryl Strawberry

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

Why this card is awesome: Because this photo looks to be at a very similar time as the one from his regular card, although clearly not the same game. (He's wearing long sleeves and orange wrist bands here but not in the other photo.)

Recently, Kevin at Orioles Card "O" the Day has done some great sleuthing about Jim Palmer and Cal Ripken Fan Favorites cards that I sent him.

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...

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.

2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #27 George Bell

Why this card is awesome: Because, oh I don't know. I'm not a huge Bell fan, but I remember going to a few games at Comiskey in May 1992 and I loved how the announcer used to say "George.......BELL" where the "Bell" was both louder and deeper in tone. You White Sox fans know what I'm talking about.

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.

2004 Topps All-time Fan Favorites #54 Dave Stewart

Why this card is awesome: Because it sure has got a lot of bright colors on it, especially that blue sky. I wonder why, though, they chose to make the card border pea green instead of a more regular green as on the Athletics cards from the original set.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #8 Don Mattingly

My bad - I totally forgot to post this back when card #300 went up. Matt, the winner of the last giveaway, gets screwed because I only just realized that I had forgotten this card when I packed up his winnings. So he's not getting this one. And since Mattingly's my favorite player, I'll probably just keep this one anyway.

2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #32 Will Clark

It's another Fan Favorites card, this time of Slick Willy.

2004 Topps All-time Fan Favorites #53 Mookie WIlson

Here's another special card, this one for M-M-M-MOOKIE!

At first, it appeared to me as if this photo might have been taken from the same at-bat as his main 88 Topps card. But no--he's wearing white batting gloves here and black gloves in the other shot.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #7 David Cone

Why this card is awesome: Because it's David, this time around, not Dave as in 1988. Also, I like the see-through action with his jersey where you can see "NEW YORK" underneath, although it would be better if his T-shirt said something like "Tell your eyes to stop staring at my chest!"

The font that Cone's name is written in looks pretty weird to me. I wonder why Topps made these cards clearly not EXACTLY match the original design.

2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #81 Orel Hershiser

Why this card is awesome: Because of the totally wacky pose. It's like the photographer told him to start his windup, even though he's clearly not on the mound and (hopefully) not going to fire the ball.

I also love the very casual spring training shot with players warming up. And, there's something very unusual for a baseball card, which is a wheelchair behind Hershiser on the right. I can't tell if the person in the yellow shirt is in the wheelchair or behind it, but nevertheless it's quite unusual to see.

By the way, this card (as you can see from the title) is from the 2004 fan favorite set, not the 2003 set as with the Puckett and Lyons cards we've already seen. If you compare it to Hershiser's regular card, you'll see that the wording for both the team name and Hershiser's name is a bit narrower on the 2004 card.

2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #31 Steve Lyons

Why this card is awesome: Because it's a nice classically-posed card, with a bonus jumping jack in the background!

Compare this to Lyons' regular 1988 Topps card, which is right here. The above photo was clearly not taken at the same time as the original card, given that Lyons is wearing a totally different uniform. He also looks much younger here, although that may just be due to the lighting.

Also, notice how the card back shows just his games with the White Sox.

2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #98 Kirby Puckett

Many of you are probably surprised to see this card and are wondering what the heck it is. In 2003, 2004, and 2005, Topps issued special sets called "All-time Fan Favorites", depicting the better-known players on cards from their teams. For each card, they picked a year among that player's peak with the given team, and chose the classic Topps design from that year. Then, they usually used a photo taken in that year (or close to it.)

For example, if you compare the above card of Puckett to his regular 1988 Topps card, it looks like both photos might have been taken from the same at-bat.

There are a lot of differences between the regular 1988 set and these special cards from 15 or so years later:

• The team lettering at the top is different. (It's less pronounced on this card, but you'll see what I mean with other cards coming up.)
• The colors are slightly different in the red border and the orange banner behind his name, and similar differences exist on other cards.
• There is a foil stamp.
• The back includes a banner with the updated copyright information.
• The stats on the back include only the years with the team featured on the card. In Puckett's case, it's moot since he spent his entire career with the Twins, but again compare on some of the other cards coming up.
• Also, the stats are for the entire career, not just up through 1987.
• The coloring on the back is a bit different too, primarily with the gray background being replaced by a much brighter gray that's closer to white.
• The cards are on much thicker stock.
  

Why this card is awesome: Well, it's a bonus shot of an awesome HOF player. What more could you want?

(Incidentally, I'm not going to be adding players from these special cards to the HOF and deceased player counts, since these are not true 1988 Topps cards.)