1988 Score

In conjunction with Wax Heaven, here's a pack rip of classic 1988 Score. I remember being bewildered by these cards when I first saw the box at Eckerd's drug store. The box was bright as the sun and screamed "Photo Quality!". The packs were in plastic, not wax. And the cards were mind bending. They had to be associated with Sportflics somehow with the magic motion insert and the amazing backs, but these were just regular ol' cards. Cards that blew every other set out of the water as far as how they looked. '89 Upper Deck supposedly ushered in the era of Premium cards, but '88 Score beat them to the punch. Here's a sample pack:

58 Ken Gerhart
62 Gary Gaetti
113 Ruben Sierra
127 Curt Wilkerson
133 Larry Andersen
Great Moments 35 Don Larson's perfect gme
302 Jim Lindeman
318 Mike Fitzgerald
322 Jose Guzman
335 Mike Scott
340 Paul Molitor
332 George Frazier
445 Bill Madlock
450 Dale Murphy
442 Gerald Young
653 Kirby Puckett
658 Don Mattingly
655 Juan Nieves

17 cards and a little insert thingy, not bad for one pack. Score separated the set into 6 different sections of 110 cards, each with a different color. Since there was 17 cards in a pack you always had one color with one less card than the others. This would eventually even out but it was a real pain in the butt when you bought half a box and were short all blue cards. The fronts of the cards were pretty good looking compared to the competition, but the backs were simply amazing. A big color portait, career stats and a very detailed write up on the player. The picture on the back was better than the one on the front on a lot of cards from the other manufacturers. The "Great Moments in Baseball motion card was gimmicky to be sure, but had some great history on them. This one here had a write up of Don Larson's perfect game.

This pack was pretty loaded, I got lucky with this one. Dale Murphy is obviously my favorite out of the pack. Murph shows off a nice cut on a bright, colorful card. The stats on Molitor's card shows the point where his career really took off. He gets moved to DH and goes on to hit .353. There's a few big stars of the time there too. Mike Scott was a big time pitcher for the 'Stros. Ruben Sierra was an extremely hot player in the late 80's. Gaetti and Madlock were solid players for their teams. The orange series (cards 551-660) had all the rookie prospect and highlight cards. I got three highlights in this pack and no rookies, but Puckett and Mattingly are better than 95% of the propects in this set anyway. Plus there's a no-hitter card by Juan Neives that a certain fellow Pack-A-Dayer will appreciate.