1988 Score Baseball

I may have mentioned before that 1988 was a pretty dry year in my personal card collecting journey. I do remember, however, a pack of this very product that my Dad bought at a grocery store. For some reason, he opened it, and then all of the cards were placed on one of the kitchen cupboard shelves. From left to right, the shelf consisted of: A box of Cheerios, a can of Maxwell House, the rotating spice rack, and a pack of '88 Score. That thing had to have been up there for years, before it migrated to the windowsill just above the kitchen sink, and then finally into my collection. I'm fairly sure it had to do with the fact that there was a Juan Nieves No-Hitter card in there. Oh well, stranger things have happened.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:

60 Julio Franco (Big ups to Score: First card out of the pack, first year of production, and they nail Julio's batting stance. Bravo!)
65 Dwight Evans
80 Joe Carter (It appears I've hit a string of multiples of 5. I'm not sure if Score emulated Topps' numbering system, but this looks like three bona-fide stars to me.)
220 Mike Easler
112 Ken Williams
Great Moments in Baseball Lenticular #11: Anaheim Stadium, August 4, 1985; Rod Raps 3,000th Hit
278 Jerry Browne

273 Steve Balboni (Its always great to get a pizza chef in any pack.)
276 Gene Larkin
434 Jack O'Connor
331 Goose Gossage
349 Ernest Riles
476 Ron Robinson
479 Charlie Kerfeld (I feel sorry for the guy on the basis of his back-of-card picture.)
469 Bruce Bochy
558 Juan Agosto

555 Phil Niekro (Looking old as hell.)
560 Dennis Rasmussen

Grade: B- Actually this is a pretty solid pack. One Hall of Famer (er...perhaps in 2008), a Brewer, and some great photography. In its rookie season, Score came out with what was probably the best-looking set of 1988. Most impressive is the copy on the backs of cards. I now know that Dennis Rasmussen played basketball against Larry Bird and Ken Williams played at Stanford with John Elway. The only thing dragging this pack down is the presence of Ron Robinson, perhaps the ugliest and least-effective pitcher in Brewers history.