Mark Grace - If you haven't heard Gracie and Sutton calling a DBacks game, you've missed out on some fun. I liked Grace as a player. I love him as a color analyst.
Ruben Sierra (P.R.) - He hit 30 HR as a 21-yr old. He never could get his OBP up enough to dominate.Bill Wegman
Steve Balboni
Chris Sabo - Rookie Cup = scan. I would have loved this pack in '89. Gracie plus Sabo already.
John CeruttiJose DeLeon (D.R.)
Dave Dravecky
Atlee Hammaker (Carmel, CA)
Keith Hernandez (San Fran) - Obilgatory Seinfeld link.
Pete SmithTim Burke
Ozzie Smith - Woohoo, a Bama Boy! Just another HOFer from Mobile, Alabama. So what if his family moved to L.A. when he was six? He's still from Mobile. So are Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Willie McCovey, and Satchel Paige. Maybe you've heard of them, too.
Mike Moore - Does this guy look like a baseball player, or like an extra from a movie about itinerant miners?
Oswald Peraza (Venezuela)Mario Diaz (P.R.)
Donn Pall - Birmingham on the Back
Gary Carter (Culver City, CA) - HOF = scan.
Jeff MontgomeryTony Oliva - Turn Back the Clock - I should start a petition to bring this subset back. If it worked for Stadium Club, it can work for...wait, no, Topps would find a way to mess it up. It's best to let it live unmarred in the realm of nostalgia.
German Gonzalez (Venezuela)Luis Rivera (P.R.)
Expos Leaders - I like these so much more than two boring pictures of a hitter and a pitcher side by side.
Checklist #3Luis Aquino (P.R.)
Gene Walter
Darnell Coles (San Bernardino, CA)
Sid Fernandez
Mets Leaders - Strawberry/ McReynods / Hernandez - Challenge: Find the game that this photo is from.
Results:World - 7
Cali - 4
The World closes the gap a bit, but they have a lot of ground still to make up in the last four packs. The score is now Cali 34, World 22. The Bama Boys finally get on the board, and in style, with the Wizard of Oz.
Edited: Added scan of Birmingham on the Back for Don Pall
I call shenanigans. You plugged in a pack from the wrong year just to get someone from Alabama
ReplyDelete;)
Ha! I plead innocent. Here's my proof: check out the picture of the ten packs on the post announcing the contest. Second row, last pack on the right, you can see the '89 Grace on top.
ReplyDeleteGrace, Sabo, Smith, Carter, and Expo Leaders. Can it get any better?
ReplyDeleteHmm, it is not looking good for my World Domination prediction...
ReplyDelete1989 Topps was a better set than most people give it credit for. I love the Grace card.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I'll play. Making these three assumptions: Straw just homered, scoring Keith Hernandez, with Kevin McReynolds up next. It's a road game, as they're wearing the gray unis. Also has to be 1987 or 1988, as K-Mac was acquired before the 1987 season.
ReplyDeleteThat leaves seventeen possible games in which Straw hit a home run and had at least two RBI on the road during those two years.
Looks like a day game outdoors, so let's eliminate the six domed games in Montreal and Houston; that leaves us with eleven.
Let's eliminate these:
4/16/87 he drove in Gary Carter with his home run
5/27/87 followed by Carter, not McReynolds, in the lineup
6/28/88 scored Backman, not Hernandez
8/16/88 scored Teufel, not Hernandez
That leaves us with seven. More research shows that the block lettering on the uniform front started in 1988, so eliminate the three remaining 1987 games. That leaves us with these four:
Sat 4/30/1988 vs. Reds
Sun 5/22/1988 vs. Dodgers
Mon 6/6/1988 vs. Cardinals
Thurs 9/8/1988 vs. Cubs
June 6 was a night game; knock that one off the list. Could have been any of those other three, but my guess is the September 8 Cubs game, as a lot of card photos were taken in Chicago in those days. :)
Absolutely fabulous work, Chris. Is there anything in the visual that would help eliminate a stadium? It looks like the dugout top is blue, but I was thinking the tops at Wrigley are green. Could it be Dodger stadium?
ReplyDeleteI'd rule out Busch because there's almost no red in the stands, and Cards fans tend to wear bright red, don't they?
Ah, I remember that Grace card. I remember the price guides saying that the card was "worth" $1.75, and feeling smug because I had 12 of them. To be 14 again...
ReplyDeleteI remember feeling smug as well when I snagged two copies of the 88 Donruss Grace for $2 each at a card show. The price guide that had come out that same day (this was the old b&w guide, pre-Beckett) said the card was worth $5. I felt like I had pulled a fast one on the dealer.
ReplyDelete