Ranking Topps 1980's Baseball Card Sets: #9 - 1988

With much aplomb, we move to the second edition of our ten-part series ranking Topps baseball card sets from the 1980's. If you are unfamiliar with this groundbreaking series, allow me to direct you here for the first episode, which features an introduction to the series and a brief divergence into juvenilia. As I mentioned at the time, we intended this to be a weekly column. So, two weeks later, here is the second edition.

#9 - 1988

1988 was a simple time. Body Glove was cool, NBA shorts were short, Bob Ross and Remote Control ruled the airwaves and DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince made us get jiggy before we knew what getting jiggy really meant. In the world of baseball cards, the momentum from 1987 was immense. The bubble was fully in effect and prices were inflated. So the highly anticipated 1988 Topps set was fairly disappointing. Visually, there wasn't a whole lot going on with the cards. We had bland font on top and a name banner on the bottom right. I would've preferred something spectacularly tacky that fit with the ethos of the period.

Pros
Here are the things we like about the 1988 set. First, it featured a 7 card "Record Breaker" series. The players featured were Vince Coleman, Don Mattingly, Benny (nee Benito) Santiago, Mark McGwire, Phil Neikro, Eddie Murray and Nolan Ryan. Not too bad a list here. Second, it acknowledged Dennis Boyd only as Dennis Boyd. No Oil Can. I found that slightly comical. Third, it featured Jay Baller (picture below). I have no idea if this is an actual player, or if some plumber's son in Ashtabula doctored a photo of his coked-out Dad from back in the day. All I know is that I don't want to do research and possibly become disappointed by the truth. I just want to think that this guy, and/or his chest pelt, was the inspiration for Kenny Powers. Seriously, did anybody ever hear of this guy? And could his name be any greater? No. No it could not.

While we're on the topic of 80's hair and mustaches, look at this hirsute disaster...

...and look at Dave Palmer's form. We now know who Tim Robbins mimicked when coming up with Nuke LaLoosh's pitching motion.


Cons
One big con was the Olympic team set from this year. Not a lot of the featured players became stars in the majors. Notable 1988 Olympians included Tino Martinez, Jim Abbott, Robin Ventura, Charles Nagy and Ed Sprague. Mehh. Another problem with the set is that the rookies from this year were pretty weak, and featured a lot of steroid-era figures. Here's a list of likely dirty rookies from 1988: Ken Caminitti, Brady Anderson, Matt Williams, Ellis Burks and Roberto Alomar. Other rookies included Tom Glavine and Al Leiter. A third hit on the set was the inclusion of manager cards. Getting those in a pack was about as lame as it got. For every Tommy Lasorda or Sparky Anderson, you'd get a John Wathan or a Jim Fregosi. But in all fairness, I will admit there was a stellar crop of managers in 1988: Lasorda, Sparky, Lou Pinella, Dick Williams, Davey Johnson, Tom Kelly, Pete Rose, Larry Bowa, Bobby Valentine, Jim Leyland, Whitey Herzog and Gene Mauch. Not bad. But getting a manager in a pack of baseball cards still sucked, almost as much as when you got a checklist card. A final complaint is that Topps was still sticking to its theory that putting multiple names and faces on one card was a good thing. Topps included a "Team Leaders" card for each team. So you can remind yourself that Spike Owen was one of the best hitters on the 1987 Red Sox. A lot of the pairings still hold up - Ripken Jr./Murray, Brett/Saberhagen and Bonds/Bonilla, but we don't need to celebrate Vance Law''s1987 season, when he hit .273 with 12 HRs. Leave Hubie Brooks on that Expos card by himself.