#118T Pat Tabler

Tabler's got his lunch under his cap.

IMPACT FACTOR 4/10: Tabler was decent in parts of 3 years with Kansas City. They didn't get great value in trading away Bud Black, but when they traded Tabler, they got Archie Corbin. Corbin appeared in just 2 games for the Royals, and was traded with Sean Berry for Bill Sampen and Chris Haney. Berry ended up being a stud for the Expos, while Sampen didn't do much for Kansas City. But Chris Haney was a starter for the Royals for parts of 7 years, and although he missed a lot of time with injury, he pitched pretty well. Haney was eventually sold to the Cubs.

#115T Kurt Stillwell

Even after being traded to the Royals, Kurt still, well, sucked. (HA HA, SEE WHAT I DID THERE? 'still well sucked'?)

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Stillwell was a decent shortstop for the Royals for 4 years although he came over in that expensive trade.

#89T Ted Power

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Power pitched poorly in part of one season for the Royals and was then traded for two young players who did very little for KC. The only reason he gets a 2 instead of a 1 is because he was involved in the trade that brought Kurt Stillwell to KC, not that Stillwell was a wonderful player or that it didn't cost KC a lot to give up Danny Jackson.



I imagine He-Man holding this card and yelling "I HAVE THE POWER!!!!"

#63T Scotti Madison

This is the very first card I've posted on this blog of a player I've never heard of before. How weird. Madison's real name is Charles Scott Madison. How he got the nickname of "Scotti" with an "i" is beyond me.

IMPACT FACTOR 1/10: Madison did virtually nothing in the majors for anybody.

#62T Mike Macfarlane

IMPACT FACTOR 5/10: Macfarlane features here as a rookie, often overlooked from this set. He was a good player for the Royals mostly as a backup catcher. Especially when he got more playing time in 1991-1993, he had a lot of pop. I'm not even counting here his later return to the Royals as a free agent.

#8T Floyd Bannister

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Bannister had two pretty average years with KC, including one shortened by injury. It ended up being a bad trade for KC who, aside from a few other low-impact players involved, gave up two decent starting pitchers in the deal: Melido Perez and Greg Hibbard.

#777 Lonnie Smith

Why this card is awesome: Bceause of Skates' cool necklace. He's in the club. It looks like his initials "LS" but I'm not sure.

My thunder was stolen back on Don Baylor's card about this, but Lonnie Smith was member of a whole bunch of different World Series teams. This guy was in the right place at the right time, and overall he was quite underrated.

Cool stat: I think that Smith is underrated because of TBS. When the Braves games went national on TBS, they were a bad team, and Lonnie Smith was often cited as the best player on a crappy team. Since they were bad, Smith looked bad too. But this had a good career and did a lot of great things in baseball. For example, he's 4th in stolen bases from 1980 to 1986. He's far behind Henderson and Raines, of course, but near the top of the pack compared to the rest of baseball.

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.

#750 Bo Jackson

Why this card is awesome: Because this is the last great card of the 1988 Topps set. It's another beautiful blue Royals card, too. Bo Knows Pretty Much Everything, if I recall correctly. This card was never worth a ton, but it was still a great pull in 1988.

Cool stat: Jackson is among 11 players to have 4 or more seasons with 20 HR and 10 SB among their first 5. Imagine what he could have done if hadn't hurt his hip.

#724 Danny Tartabull

Why this card is awesome: Because, hell yeah, there are more Expos in the background. No team is safe from the intruding background Expos! Also, Tartabull is demonstrating how to properly drop your bat so you don't get saddled with an automatic out in Tee ball. Last time we saw that was all the way back on teammate Argenis Salazar's card.

Tartabull's father, Jose Tartabull, also played in the big leagues.

Cool stat: Tartabull's career was ruined by injuries. In addition to missing lots of time during the middle part of his career, the Phillies got a terrible shock when Tartabull fouled a ball off his foot in just his 3rd game with the team and never played again. This guy had massive potential. From 1987 to 1993, he registered 4 different 100-RBI seasons, tied for most in baseball behind Mr. Overrated.

How on earth Tartabull didn't get a better card number is beyond me. He had a very good 1986 and a monster 1987 and was one of the best young players in the game at this point.

#700 George Brett

Why this card is awesome: Because although I love George Brett, this card shows him with creepy zombie eyes, which always scared me a little bit. This card also has a nice sense of motion though, and looks particular good next to Eddie Murray's card--an all-blue Royal next to an all-orange Oriole.

Cool stat: Brett had at least 2 triples every year from 1974 to 1993, as did Robin Yount. Brett had nearly as many triples over that period as Willie Wilson. When I think of triples, I don't think of Brett or Yount, but both guys had tons. In 1990, Brett also had one of the highest seasons of OPS+ for a guy 37 or older with at least 600 PAs.

Simply put, Brett was awesome. He remains the only guy to win batting titles in 3 different decades (1976, 1980, and 1990.)

Hall of Fame count: 44

Hey, that's two cards in a row with a HOFer.

#672 John Davis

Why this card is awesome: Because this is a very interesting rookie card. Davis had a nice 1987 season with the Royals, but that came after a quiet unimpressive minor-league career (see back of card below.) I guess Topps knew something not making him an all-star rookie, because 1987 was his only good year.

Cool stat: Check out this list of pitchers who had at least 40 IP and an ERA+ over 200 in their rookie season. (As always with B-R.com, it misses guys who might have had a cup of coffee before their true rookie season, such as Jonathan Papelsmear Papelbon, who definitely should be on this list.) Davis was the only guy to do it over a 14-year period, although that probably has more to do with September call-ups than anything else. That list is a real mixed bag.

#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.

#597 Gene Garber

Why this card is awesome: Because of the great shot of Garber, looking like he's pitching softball. Also who's in the background..Seitzer I think?

Cool stat: Scanning Garber's stats, I noticed a weird thing. In 1974, he racked up 24 intentional walks in just 76 IP. That's the most IBBs in any season with 100 or fewer IP. Wait a second, upon further research, that's the most IBBs in any season since 1901 (regardless of IP!)

There must be some explanation for this...anybody?

Maybe Garber just liked issuing IBBs. After all, for career IBBs since 1901, he's 4th overall, with about the same number as Steve Carlton had, in more than 3,000 fewer innings. Kent Tekulve is #1 all time with even fewer innings than Garber.

#595 Frank White

Why this card is awesome: Because, Frank, which is it...#20 or #8? Under the cap is says #20 (which was White's number) but the knob of the bat appears to say #8. That's interesting because in 1987, the Royals didn't have a player who wore #8. But in 1988, Mike Macfarlane did. I guess this photo was taken then? Probably not. It appears that Macfarlane started with #28 in 1987 but he probably switched to #8 at some point.

Cool stat: Sure, White is in the 2000 hit club, but he's got the lowest OBP of all the members. I wrote something about Frank White recently for an A Pack a Day post that I'll repeat here: White was very overrated by Kansas City fans, and underrated by everybody else. He's a totally forgotten guy in history, except in K.C. where he's remembered as a great player, which he wasn't. He was a decent, steady middle infielder at a time when those guys weren't supposed to give much offense.

#569 Charlie Leibrandt

Why this card is awesome: Because this whole card is tilted to the right. I wonder why they did that? Maybe Leibrandt didn't have his V8 that morning and he was tiling to his left, so the photographer turned the camera to compensate.

Cool stat: Leibrandt was one of the most solid starting pitchers of the mid-80s and finished with an above-average career. From 1985 to 1987, he was one of just 6 starters to get at least 8 complete games each year.

#540 Bret Saberhagen

Why this card is awesome: Because of bright futures. At the time this card came out, Saberhagen was perhaps the brightest young pitching star behind only Roger Clemens. 1989 would be Saberhagen's Cy Young year, and his career was hot and cold after that.

Also, I believe I may need to add a tick to the HOF counter but I wanted your opinion. I believe that's George Brett playing first base in the background, as he did almost exlusively in 1987 and 1988. Kevin Seitzer and Steve Balboni also put in a little time at 1B, and a few other guys (Bill Pecota, Bill Buckner, Pat tabler and others) put in a tiny bit of time there, but odds are this is Brett plus it looks like him. Do folks agree or disagree? If it is Brett, then this is the second card in the set featuring both Saberhagen and Brett on the front.

Cool stat: Saberhagen has the third most-recent season with at least 23 wins and an ERA+ of 180. That's been done just 15 times since 1919. Saberhagen is probably going to end up as one of the best pitchers not to make the HOF, being left out mainly due to his injuries that prevented him from making 30 starts in all but 1 of the final 10 years of his career. His actual W-L is 167-117 (.588) but his neutralized W-L is 177-112 (.612.)

#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.

#507 Mark Gubicza

Why this card is awesome: Because you gotta love this late 80s card. Gubicza is rocking the Jordan-esque number 23 as well as the super cool blue glove. Oh, and he looks 12 years old.

In case you don't know, the "C" in his last name is essentially silent and his name is pronounced "GOO-bih-zah."

Cool stat: Gubicza was absolutely slammed by being on some mediocre (or worse) Royals teams. Actual lifetime record: 132-136 (.493.) Neutralized lifetime record: 140-113 (.553) with 4 different 16 win seasons.

#477 Jamie Quirk

Why this card is awesome: Because I find this photo hugely ironic. Those of you who were baseball fans in the mid-90s and early 00s will recall that Jamie Quirk was so often referred to as a future major-league manager. I understand that he was really into the mechanics of the game and, as a catcher, had a strong knowledge of how to call games and manage pitchers. But he never did become a manager (at least not yet, although he is currently bench coach for the Rockies.) I can't tell you how many times I heard or read a comment about Quirk becoming a manager.

So, what makes this card ironic? He looks like a manager. Since this is a posed shot, he's not wearing his batting helmet despite holding a bat. It's usually managers or coaches who look like this when they are hitting infield practice.

Cool stat: Over the years he played, Quirk has by far the most seasons with 221 or fewer at-bats. He was truly a back-up.