#97T Al Leiter

Leiter's got some nice flying gold chain action on the front of the card. On the back, there's an odd white spot in the orange border around his head shot. I wonder if that's a misprint on this particular card or if they were all like that.

The back of this card is one of the cheesiest in this set, and the oddest word is quite clearly "elan."

#60T Richard Dotson

Another uniform number mismatch.

And who is that in the background? Clearly it's someone standing in front of the 408 marker in center field at the (now old) Yankee Stadium. It's damned difficult to know for sure, but it looks like the guy has darker skin. That makes it most likely Claudell Washington, who played about 60% of the Yankees games in CF in 1988. But it might be Gary Ward (wrong body type I think) or Roberto Kelly. Even Rickey Henderson played 22 innings in CF for the Yankees that year. Two of his 3 games appearing in CF were road games, though, so it's pretty unlikely!

#54T Rafael Santana

We've got a 1960's Batman card here, with a crazy camera tilt angle for no reason at all. I wonder if the camera was tilted or if they just tilted the photo on the card.

Also, for some odd reason, the photo on the front looks a lot like Mel Hall to me, even though I know it's Santana.

"Lengthy minor league apprenticeship" indeed!

#47T Steve Shields

Shields has just about the most invisible mustache I've ever seen. You need to look pretty closely at both photos to see it.

Can anybody figure out what either of the ads visible on the back is for?

Don't confuse this guy with current major leaguer (and relief ace) Scot Shields.

#40T John Candelaria

The photo on the back of the card is one of the least flattering I have ever seen. The Candy Man's hair is a total mess and he's covered in sweat. And, let's face it, he isn't the best-looking guy to start with. Nice, too, that there is a Bud Light add just to his right.

#19T Don Slaught

CARD

Holy cow...there is a lot of cool stuff going on with this card!!

Firstly, we have red, white, and blue bunting in the background, suggesting that this photo was taken on a special day. Perhaps Opening Day, or Independence Day?

Secondly, we have Slaught's back pocket going inside-out on his swing.

Thirdly, we can see most of the on-deck hitter. Who is that likely to be? Let's see if we can figure this out. Check out the Yankee batting orders for 1988. Slaught was in 87 games for the Yankees, comprised of 39 batting 8th, 27 batting 7th, 16 batting 6th, and 5 batting 5th. The guy hitting after Slaught appears to have somewhat darker skin and is likely either black or a darker-skinned Latino player. Looking through the lineups, possibilities include Gary Ward, Luis Aguayo, Willie Randolph, and Rafael Santana.

I'm going with Randolph. Know why? Because the Yankees are wearing road greys, and on the 4th of July, they played in Texas, with Slaught batting 7th and Randolph batting 8th. So there ya go.

Fourthly, check out the photo on the back. Thanks to help from Kevin, we've determined that's Mike Morgan back there. Pretty rare to see another player on a headshot photo like that.

STAT

Since 1901, only 31 catchers have amassed 4500 PAs and managed an OPS+ of at least 104. Of course, Sluggo is one of them, and his career BA puts him in the top half of that bunch.

CAREER

Slaught had the misfortune of being in the wrong places at the wrong times in a lot of his career. He left KC right before they got good. He was in Texas when they were (still) no good. He passed through the Yankees organization during one of their rare wasteland periods. Then he landed with Pittsburgh, who won their division 3 straight years but couldn't get out of the playoffs.

One of the things I remember about those Pirates taems is that they didn't sell out their home playoff games. I'm frankly surprised that Pittsburgh still has a baseball team, considering that fans didn't care about the team then, and they've been horrible ever since.

#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.