#75T Joey Meyer

Meyer has been captured here in all his meatball glory, looking quite hefty as he lunges for the pitch. I guess Meyer was given card #75 because he had a bunch of success in the majors in 1988, at least producing a fair number of runs in a little over half a season. Meyer got only 53 more games in the majors after that, though.

The quote on the back, from an anonymous teammate, has GOT to be a dig at Meyer, suggesting that he couldn't play defense.

By the way, I once saw a Denver Zephyrs game at Mile High Stadium and saw the star marking the massive home run mentioned on the back of the card.

Best word on the back? "Monstrous."

#55T Don Baylor

Wow, here's another great photo! Baylor (number 12 in the photo but number 18 on the back) appears about to mash the ball, totally unfazed by the Angels batboy in the background playing fiddlesticks. On the back, they captured a headshot of Baylor right before he got smashed in the back of his head with a bat.

#46T Steve Balboni

The beauty of having two photos on a single baseball card is the yin and the yang of it all. An action shot, then a posed head shot. It's a great combo. Here we have two extremes. On the front, we have one of the strongest guys in the pre-steroids era of baseball looking like he's about to totally pulverize a baseball. I don't know if that ball is going to hit the sweet spot or not, but it's a great photo. Now flip over to the back. Balboni looks like such a sweet little puppy!!

As an aside, I noticed that on the front, Balboni's helmet has his number on the bill. That was also true on the last card (Dernier) but not the one before that (Kittle.) Did some teams put numbers on the bill and some not?

#44T Ron Kittle

So, exactly how many shirts is Kittle wearing? Inside his uniform top, he appears to be wearing something like a gray tank top over a gray t-shirt. Wha..???

Interesting that Kittle's 35 homers were within 2 of the then-record for AL rookies. These days, that record is 49 HR.

#36T Bill Buckner

Buckner adds class and punch wherever he plays? I find that commentary to be a sort of dig at Buckner, pointing out that he's moved from team to team quite a bit. That's kid of stupid given that in 1988 he joined only his 4th team in 20 seasons.

#28T Chili Davis

CARD

Another rubber bat, and this time it's a swing and a miss. Look carefully and you can see the baseball right behind Chili's ass. This is a Comiskey Park photo, of course.

STAT

Twelve players finished their careers with between 340 and 360 homers, including Johnny Mize, Yogi Berra, Ellis Burks, Dick Allen, George Foster, and Ron Santo. Oh, and Chili Davis.

Well, one caveat, Luis Gonzalez is still active and could move out of this group.

CAREER

Chili Davis is waaaay underrated in my book. He played for 18 seasons and finished with an OPS+ of 120. He did that without ever topping 150 and was never below 108 after his second full season. This guy reminds me of Harold Baines--very solid year after year, just without eye-popping HR and RBI numbers. But he was consistent and reliable, and won 3 World Series titles.

#22T Pat Tabler

CARD

Nice shot of Tabler here. An action shot with visible jersey number is O.K. in my book. Plus there's the bonus mullet on the back.

STAT

Indeed Tabler drove in a lot of runs. Check out this list of most RBI by guys since 1980 with fewer than 50 career HR. He's way up on that list, but notice how many fewer games and PAs he had than most other folks on there.

CAREER

Tabler was known as Mr. Bases Loaded for good reason. In 109 career PAs with the bases loaded, he had 108 RBI despite homering only twice. He batted .489 with 43 hits in 88 ABs.

I picked two guys at random for comparison:

Reggie Jackson, 235 PAs, 187 RBI, .296 BA (60-for-203), 11 grand slams

Don Mattingly, 163 PAs, 127 RBI, .292 BA (38-for-130), 6 grand slams

Unfortunately for Tabler, his performance with the bases loaded is pretty much all you can say about the guy's career.

#1T Jack Clark

CARD

There is a lot to like about the 1988 Score set. Rather than list all the great attributes here on the first card post, I'll mention them as we go along in the set. This particular card happens to be an awesome photo, capturing Clark's gazed fixed on the incoming pitch

STAT

The text on the back mentions Clark's streak of games with a walk. Here is a link to such streaks, showing that Clark tied Toby Harrah's mark of 16 games in the A.L. and fell one shy of Willie Randolph's A.L. mark of 17.

Unsurprisingly, that record has since been broken. Here is a link to such streaks occurring 1993 to 2008, and Barry Bonds had 2 streaks longer than 16 games. Nick Johnson had one too.

CAREER

Clark is actually underrated, I think, for a few reasons. One was that although he was a power hitter, he didn't amass very large HR or RBI totals in many individual seasons, topping 30 HR just once and 100 RBI just twice. Another was that he didn't go to the playoffs very often. And another is that his big free-agent contract with the Yankees was perceived by many as a bust even though the numbers suggest he performed pretty well in his last several seasons. Don't let those factors fool you, though. Clark had a career OPS+ of 137, and was over 125 every season from 1978 to 1991 (except for injury-lost 1986), a period that includes his final years with the Yankees, Padres, and Red Sox, barring his last half-season in 1992. He walked nearly as much as he struck out and was a pretty productive player.

I remember him more for stuff that happened after he retired, such as going bankrupt while owning many cars and allegedly begging for the Dodgers hitting coach job because he needed the money.