#51T Ricky Horton

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Horton came to the White Sox in that same Lance Johnson trade, a pretty good deal for Chicago. He pitched one fairly bad season for them before being traded to the Dodgers for Shawn Hillegas. Hillegas was at best decent for the ChiSox over parts of three seasons, and was then packaged in a trade that brought Cory Snyder. Snyder was abysmal for the White Sox before being traded for 2 guys who did almost nothing for the White Sox.

#47T Ray Hayward

IMPACT FACTOR 1/10: Hayward started 12 games for the Rangers in 1988, pitching fairly below average, and then never saw any further major league action.

#36T Cecil Espy

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Espy was picked up by the Rangers through the Rule V draft and played parts of 4 seasons for the club. He was pretty bad with the bat and not too good with the glove either. I give him a 3 since he did stick with the club for a while.

I remember Tom Seaver, then broadcasting for the Yankees, continually mispronouncing his last name as "Epsy" instead of "Espy."

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that the ESPN awards (The ESPYs) are named for this guy.

#26T Jose Cecena

IMPACT FACTOR 1/10: Cecena had one below-average season as a reliever for Texas in 1988 and then never resurfaced in the big leagues.

#771 Ruben Sierra

Why this card is awesome: Because here's another guy who deserved a better card number. Even in 1987, the year of the homer, a 22-year-old guy smacking 30 HR and 109 RBI deserved a little more press. Seirra is clearly in the necklace club.

Cool stat: Sierra's got the 4th-lowest career OPS+ for a guy with 300 homers. And he has the 13th-fewest walks in that club. But here's the really odd one: he has BY FAR the fewest hit-by-pitches in that group. How the hell did he manage to get hit only 7 times in his career? In fact, of the 135 guys to amass at least 7935 ABs in MLB history, Sierra has the fewest HBP. (Incidentally, my whipping boy Garrett Anderson has 7934 ABs and 6 HBP.)

#747 Bobby Witt

Why this card is awesome: Because he was born in Arlington VA but lived (at least at that time) in Arlington TX. A Tale of Two Arlingtons. And, he led the league in walks twice in a row (see back of the card.)

Cool stat: Of the 437 pitchers to throw at least 1800 innings since 1901, guess who had the highest walk rate? Yup.

#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.

#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.

#617 Oddibe McDowell

Why this card is awesome: Because McDowell was born and raised in Hollywood! (Hollywood, Florida, that is.)

For those who don't know, his first name is pronounced "OH-dib-ee."

Cool stat: Check out how many times McDowell was drafted. It was only the 6th time he was drafted that he signed, and that included two previous first-round shots with the Yankees and Twins.

#594 Bobby Valentine

Why this card is awesome: Because, OMG, there's someone masturbating right behind him! I mean, I know it's a perfectly natural and normal thing to do and all, but right behind your manager in a public place? Valentine might want to hang a towel over the back of his uniform.

Cool stat: As a player, Valentine hit 12 homers, including 2 off HOF pitchers (Phil Niekro and Catfish Hunter.)

#589 Geno Petralli

Why this card is awesome: Because this card joins Wade Boggs in the ass-grabbing catchers category. And to do it to another catcher!

Cool stat: I can't think of much to say about Petralli. He had 31 game-ending PAs, and two of them were walk-off singles.

#563 Jose Guzman

Why this card is awesome: Because, once and for all, this is NOT Juan Guzman. Yes, Jose and Juan are both very common Latino names, but they are really not the same guy. The two Guzmans are no more identical than Mark Davis and Mike Davis.

Cool stat: Interestingly, though, Jose Guzman kind of reminds me of Juan Guzman in terms of his career. This Guzman, like his surnamesake, was a pretty average pitcher who showed fairly often flashes of brilliance. He had 10 game scores of 80 or better, including 4 shutouts and a mess of other complete games. But he got blasted a lot too, and ended up with a career ERA+ of 102. Average. Sort of like Bobby Ojeda.

#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.

#490 Larry Parrish

Why this card is awesome: Because of a love/hate relationship I have with this card. On the one hand, I love being able to read a player's name on his jersey. On the other hand, you can't see his face!!

Cool stat: Just 10 guys had double-digit homers at least 13 years from 1975 to 1988. You could guess most of the names on here, except maybe Gary Carter and Parrish.

#462 Don Slaught

Why this card is awesome: Because for a long time, I assumed Slaught was a pitcher due to this picture. I realize that sounds odd, but I became a baseball fan in the offseason between 1987 and 1988, and this photo really confused me for later, when I couldn't understand why Sluggo wasn't pitching.

Cool stat: This is neat. Look at the list of all pitchers that Slaught homered more than once off of: Tanana, Harnisch, Leibrandt, Bud Black, Mike Morgan, Higuera, Tommy John, and Curt Young. That's a pretty good group of guys.

#427 Paul Kilgus

Why this card is awesome: Because I've bitched about shadows a lot, but this has to be the worst shadow on any card in this set. I mean, you can't see the top half of Kilgus' face AT ALL. Some might say that's a good thing, but not me.

Cool stat: Kilgus was pretty good in 1987 and 1988, and pretty rough in 1989-1991. But 1993 was a weird year. He pitched to a 0.63 ERA with a 0.907 WHIP at just age 31, and yet never pitched again. In fact, Kilgus had the most IP in a final season for a pitcher 31 or younger, with an ERA and WHIP both below 1.00.

#369 Greg Harris

Why this card is awesome: Because of that totally awesome face that Harris is making. It's nice how Topps highlighted his funny mouth by hiding the rest of his head in a dark shadow.

Cool stat: A lot of you know this, but many probably don't. Harris was (and still is, I'm sure) ambidextrous and had a special glove with a thumb on each end that he could wear on either hand. He pitched in his career as a righty, but always wanted to get a chance to pitch as a lefty in a real game. If you check out his platoon splits, you can see that he did appear in one game as a lefty. On September 28, 1995, Harris pitched as both a lefty and a righty in the same game. The next day, he appeared in his last major-league game. BONUS: from 1985 to 1992, Harris had 4 seasons with at least 100 IP, ERA+ of 150, and no more than 20 saves. Nobody else in baseball had more than 1 such season over that period.

#345 Scott Fletcher

Why this card is awesome: Because of the awesome dirt cloud shot!

Cool stat: Ten guys had at least one triple every year from 1983 to 1995 and Fletcher was one of them.

#319 Mike Loynd

Why this card is awesome: Because of the weird orange-peach color background. Like the Jose Uribe card, what the heck were they thinking?

Cool stat: Over 1986 and 1987, Loynd had the 4th-highest WHIP among pitchers with at least 100 IP. Interestingly, the top two guys on the list went on to do some good things in their careers. But not Loynd--this was his last card.

#280 Pete Incaviglia

Why this card is awesome: Because of the unusual card back, since Incaviglia didn't play any minor-league ball until the downside of his career. So they had only those ML seasons in 1986 and 1987 to put on there. So then we got not one, not two, not three, but four facts about Pete's career. Surprisingly, they don't mention anything about his first steroid injected.

Cool stat: Incaviglia's 1986 was the second-worst season (ranked by OPS) for a player with at least 185 strikeouts.