Ron Davis, 1987 Topps

Name: Ron Davis
Team: Chicago Cubs
Position: Pitcher
Value of card: Less than the VHS tapes at Goodwill
Key 1986 stat: Ate his weight in deep-dish pizza
Here's what Ron Davis stands for:

Really had us fooled with the airbrushing, there, Topps
Open-mouth stare is a good look for a baseball card photo
Nice 8.59 ERA in '86, Ronnie

Dealt twice in two years...
A player to be named later? That was Mr. Davis
Visually, this card is the equivalent of a yawn
Is it so difficult to find a barber in the Midwest?
Stats like his truly belonged with the Cubs

Card submitted by Davey Meyer

Ron Davis, 1987 Topps

Yogi Berra (Astros Leaders), 1987 Topps

Name: Yogi Berra
Team: Houston Astros
Position: Bench coach
Value of card: "Ninety percent of the value is half of nothing," Berra said.
Key 1986 stat: 1 bench coach featured on a baseball card (all time)
Some of the leading Yogiisms that Berra used when helping coach the Astros in 1986:

• "You could observe a lot by watching this group. Well, maybe not."
• "It ain't over till it's over, unless we're talking about our World Series chances, which are over."
• "Watching this team lose is deja vu all over again."
• "Nobody comes to the Astrodome anymore. It's too crowded."
• "This team is a bunch of overwhelming underdogs. Make that underwhelming overdogs."
• "They made too many wrong mistakes."

Yogi Berra (Astros Leaders), 1987 Topps

Bruce Bochy, 1987 Topps

Name: Bruce Bochy
Team: San Diego Padres
Position: Catcher
Value of card: Even trade for a 1988 Bruce Bochy Topps card (or, just discard it in the garbage)
Key 1987 stat: Size 8 head
It's time for a future-manager pop quiz:

Just how big is Bruce Bochy's head?

(A) It's so big, Baskin-Robbins used that helmet in a promotional giveaway and filled it with all 32 flavors.
(B) It's so big, he avoiding getting haircuts because he'd get charged double.
(C) It's so big, he has three brains crammed in there.
(D) It's so big, this card weighs 11 pounds.
(E) All of the above.

Bruce Bochy, 1987 Topps

Eric Dickerson, 1987 Topps (Football Friday No. 192)

Name: Eric Dickerson
Team: Los Angeles Rams
Position: Running back
Value of card: 12 pounds of ram dung
Key 1986 stat: 46 opponents juked out of their pants (on the dance floor)
Transcript from Los Angeles-area TV commercial for NFL-brand Windshields, circa 1987: "Hello, football fans. Eric Dickerson here, All-Pro running back for your Los Angeles Rams. Whether you want to see the whole field or the whole road, you need to get your hands on a pair of NFL-brand Windshields. (Dickerson straps glasses on his head, squeezing his cranium.) One pair of Windshields will have you covered — literally — when you're zigzagging past defenders or zigzagging in and out of traffic. You see, NFL-brand Windshields can be peeled off your face and attached to the front of your car. You're getting two products in one. So forget about NFL-brand Windshields cutting off the circulation to your brain or making your head look like a mushroom, and start thinking about the protection you need on the gridiron and on the highway. NFL-brand Windshields: the No. 1 choice when you need head-on-collision protection for your ride and your face."

Eric Dickerson, 1987 Topps (Football Friday No. 192)

Mike Loynd, 1987 Topps

Name: Mike Loynd
Team: Texas Rangers
Position: Pitcher
Value of card: An expired Hamburger Helper coupon
Key 1986-87 stat: Zero attractive photos taken
Here's what Mike Loynd and this winner of a card stand for:

Major league pitcher     no, really!
Impossible for this photo to be any worse
Kelp-colored photo backdrop was a nice touch
Eyebrows offered more heat than his fastball

Looks like someone could use a lesson in skin care
Only source of light in the room appears to be reflecting off his greasy forehead
Yes, that's his smile...
No, he's not just grinding grain with his teeth
Didn't get a chance to see Mike pitch in the bigs? You must have been busy that month.

Card submitted by Sean Griffin

Mike Loynd, 1987 Topps

Mike Laga, 1987 Topps

Name: Mike Laga
Team: St. Louis Lovely Ladies Cardinals
Position: First base
Value of card: It's in the red
Key 1986 stat: One butt chin
A colorful rant: Folks, please put your hands together for the Topps photography and design departments. What we have here is another iconic example of the pre-Photoshop era, when men were men and jerseys were pink — or some such thing. Mike Laga, whose chiseled good looks and million-dollar butt chin make him ideal for the "mugshot" treatment, was traded from the Tigers to the Cardinals in 1986. Apparently, the photo above was either (A) taken during his Tigers days or (B) he was sporting his favorite Morey Boogie hat while striding around spring training shirtless and Topps figured they needed to make Laga appear more ballplayer than surfer dude. We'll take option A, and we'll note that the Topps designers did a pretty impressive job pasting on that red hat. But we have to ask: What in the name of Bob Gibson's gonads is going on with that pink jersey? Well, maybe the designers were infatuated with a certain team in a certain 8-bit Nintendo game called "Baseball Stars."

Mike Laga, 1987 Topps

Bruce Hurst, 1987 Topps

Name: Bruce Hurst
Team: Boston Red Sox
Position: Pitcher
Value of card: Frostbite
Key 1986 stat: NA
Here's what Bruce Hurst stands for:

Bundled up against the cold?
Right, Brucie, we all know you're just hiding a hickey
Unless that's your favorite blankey that your gam-gam made you
Cold weather never made Roger Clemens look like such a wuss
Eh, the steroids probably had something to do with that, though

Hmm, maybe that's some sort of knock-off ascot?
Unfashionable, but warm
Rookie hazing doesn't make people look this silly
Sure, we know it's chilly, but that doesn't change this fact:
Towels as scarves aren't nearly as fun as chicken and beer

Card suggested by Tyler Kepner

Bruce Hurst, 1987 Topps

Dwight Evans, 1987 Topps Record Breaker

Name: Dwight Evans
Team: Boston Red Sox
Position: Right field
Value of card: Coffee grounds from the garbage can
Key 1986 stat: Got the worm
Opening Day overachiever: As noted on the above card, Dwight Evans holds the record for the earliest home run in a season, hitting one out on the first pitch of the first game of the year. Here are some other records and achievements that belong to Evans:

• Earliest bulge, season
• Most times called "shotgun," lifetime
• First beer chugged, Roger Clemens' 23rd birthday party
• First person to touch Mookie Wilson's 10th-inning grounder, Game 6 of the '86 World Series
• Caused the most collectors to say, "That deserves a card?" all time

Dwight Evans, 1987 Topps Record Breaker

Darrell Porter, 1987 Topps

Name: Darrell Porter
Team: Texas Rangers
Positions: Catcher, designated hipster
Value of card: A pint of porter, spilled all over your pants
Key 1986 stat: Worked rather hard on that mini-mullet, thank you very much
Clearing up some rumors about Darrell Porter and his glasses:

• Darrell Porter did not have an exceedingly tiny head. Even Barry Bonds' noggin would look minuscule behind those glasses.
• Darrell Porter would not have needed tape had his glasses been broken. The two halves would have still been so huge that they would have been held together by their own gravitational pull.
• That is, in fact, Darrell Porter's real nose. It just looks like he's wearing Groucho Marx specs without the mustache.
• Darrell Porter did not actually need those glasses to see. Rather, he just wanted to look smart for the ladies.
• Darrell Porter's glasses are, in fact, proof that everything is bigger in Texas.

Card submitted by Douglas Corti

Darrell Porter, 1987 Topps

Gene Nelson, 1987 Topps

Name: Gene Nelson
Team: Chicago White Sox
Position: Pitcher
Value of card: A homeless guy's cardboard "Will work for food" sign
Key 1986 stat: One full nelson
Top 10 things found in Gene Nelson's beard:
10) A mountain goat
9) The leavings of said mountain goat
8) Gene's genes
7) Half a can of chew
6) Half a can of Ranch Style Beans
5) The sexiest damn chin in the American League
4) White socks, none of them clean
3) Steak sauce
2) Gene Nelson's pet sparrow, Chico
1) Two tickets to paradise

Gene Nelson, 1987 Topps

Tom Hume, 1987 Topps

Name: Tom Hume
Team: Philadelphia Phillies
Position: Pitcher
Value of card: 2 ounces of palm sweat
Key 1986 stat: 3 square feet of eyeglasses
Here's what Tom "Toxic" Hume stands for:

This photo appears to have been taken at a municipal park
Obsessed with keeping the baseball warm at all times
Maroon: Good description for the color of the uniform and the man himself

Hard to tell whether that's stubble, shadow or dirt under his chin
Upturned nose resembles a pig's
Metric ton of glass on his face
Electric stuff       not his fastball, the gear for his ham radio hobby

Tom Hume, 1987 Topps

Dave Schmidt, 1987 Topps

Name: Dave Schmidt
Team: Chicago White Sox
Position: Relief pitcher
Value of card: One not-quite-white sock from Goodwill
Key 1986 stat: 419 bouts of gas pain
It's time once again to choose your own adventure: You are Dave Schmidt, a reliever for the Chicago White Sox. It's the second inning of a game at Detroit, and you're not feeling so hot, thanks to those two beef 'n' bean burritos you scored from the 7-Eleven for lunch. The pressure is greater than anything you've ever faced on the mound during your unremarkable career, and just when you think you're about to pass out, you instead pass gas       an incredible silent but violent bomb that brings you great relief but will soon have nearby teammates scrambling for the clubhouse. What do you do next?

To sit back knowingly and smirk like a bastard, look at the card above and then click here.
To admit responsibility and apologize to your colleagues, click here.
To flee the scene of the crime and microwave another burrito, click here.

Dave Schmidt, 1987 Topps

Pat Sheridan, 1987 Topps

Name: Pat Sheridan
Team: Detroit Tigers
Position: Outfield
Value of card: 14 drops of tiger blood piss
Key 1986 stat: Four sides of faux woodgrain in one of Topps' greatest sets ever
Conversation between Pat Sheridan and a young fan, Sept. 18, 1986:
Young fan: "Hey, mister. Can you sign my program?"
Pat Sheridan: "Sure, kid. Let me see that."
YF: "Thanks, mister!"
PS: "Wait a cotton-picking second here. This isn't a program."
YF: "Just sign it. Just sign it."
PS: "This is a Detroit-area Auto Trader from 1984. I'm not signing this."
YF: "Please, please, mister. It'll be a collector's item. Sign it next to that Pinto."
PS: "Pinto? Why a Ford Pinto?"
YF: "Well, mister, I believe, decades from today, that a subculture of young people who are transfixed with irony and 1980s cliches will rise up from the middle 50 percent of the nation's small, private liberal arts colleges and spend, spend, spend on baseball-slash-automotive kitsch that smartly matches a clunker of a car with, well ... you understand, right?"
PS: "I'm going to go ahead and make this out to Dirtbreath."

Pat Sheridan, 1987 Topps

Tom Nieto, 1987 Topps

Name: Tom Nieto
Team: Montreal Expos
Position: Catcher
Value of card: 22 hairs plucked from eyebrows
Key 1986 stat: 42,000 yards of fake wood grain produced by Topps
So, what does Tom Nieto stand for?

Top "catcher face" in the National League, 1986
Only wore a bathrobe on the baseball field
Manager could always count on him for doughnut runs

Nose had been broken a couple of times by foul tips
Inside those eyes you could find love
Eyebrows were furrier than a couple of chinchillas
Took squatting to a whole new level
Obviously sat on his hat for a few hours a day

Tom Nieto, 1987 Topps

Phil Niekro, 2001 Topps Archives (1987 Topps)

Name: Phil Niekro
Team: Cleveland Indians
Positions: Old man, pitcher
Value of card: "At least we had values back then, sonny."
Key 1986 stat: Arthritis
We could go on all day: How old was Phil Niekro in this card? Phil Niekro was so old, he napped through the seventh-inning stretch. He was so old, he didn't know there was a New Mexico. He was so old, this was the lowest his belt got all season. He was so old that when he first came up to the bigs, the American League was called the British Colony League. He was so old, if his big-league career was a person, it'd legally be able to drink. He was so old, he called the bullpen car a "horseless carriage."  In fact, Phil Niekro was so old, he didn't need a rosin bag — he needed a colostomy bag.

Phil Niekro, 2001 Topps Archives (1987 Topps)

Steve Young, 1987 Topps (Football Friday No. 107)

Name: Steve Young
Team: Buccaneers NOW WITH 49ERS
Position: Quarterback
Value of card: 2 buccs
Key 1986 stat: 688 holes in jersey
Man, Steve Young looks young in this photo. Just how young was he?

• He's still sporting the Garbage Pail Kids haircut his mom let him choose.
• He's playing for the Salt Lake City High School Buccaneers, a team that won 186 more games than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1980s.
• He's still learning how to control the mutant fingers on his right hand.
• He gets to wear his age for every game. Next season, he's big No. 9. Hooray, Stevie.
• That's not a towel hanging from his waist; it's his blankie.

Steve Young, 1987 Topps (Football Friday No. 107)

Keith Hernandez, 1987 Topps All Star

Name: Keith Hernandez
Team: New York Mets
Position: First base
Value of card: Arrogance
Key 1986 stat: He's Keith Hernandez
Congratulations are in order: Happy All-Star Tuesday, everybody. You know, Keith Hernandez was a five-time all-star, including the 1986 game. Here are some other awards he's earned in his lifetime.

• Runner-up, Best Non-Sports TV Appearance by a New York Met for his cameo on "Seinfeld." (Darryl Strawberry won for his role on "America's Most Wanted.")
• Stubble of the Year, 1976-1990, Vito's Barbershop, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• "Cockiest S.O.B. I ever met," according to several women interviewed for this blog.
• Most provolone eaten in one sitting at 12th Street Deli.
• Participant, Capuchino High School spelling bee, 1969.

Keith Hernandez, 1987 Topps All Star

Kirk Gibson, 1987 Topps Boardwalk and Baseball

Name: Kirk Gibson
Team: Detroit Tigers
Position: Outfield
Value of card: BB (one actual BB pellet)
Key 1986 stat: One 44-minute bat-rubbing session
It's time for another round of The Caption, which, we're told, ran in a Detroit-area newspaper in 1987: "Kirk Gibson ever so firmly yet passionately rubs up and down and up and down and up and down on his favorite bat, Betty My Beauty, more than 750 times at varying speeds but in an almost identical motion Thursday before the Tigers beat the White Sox, which, coincidentally, is what Gibson used to clean up the mess from his bat-rubbing session."

Card submitted by Frank Gronwald

Kirk Gibson, 1987 Topps Boardwalk and Baseball

Mets Leaders, 1987 Topps

Name: Mets Leaders
Team: New York Mets
Positions: All of them
Value of card: 11 drug addicts on team
Key 1986 stats: See below
Full list of the New York Mets' 1986 team leaders:
Most curls in perm: Gary Carter
Most free stays at crappy motels: Howard Johnson
Most practical jokes by a guy with a mullet: Roger McDowell
Most appearances on "Seinfeld": Keith Hernandez
Most darling player: Ron Darling
Most alcohol binges: (Tie) Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden
Most cocaine binges: (Tie) Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden
Most crack binges: (Tie) Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden

Mets Leaders, 1987 Topps

Max Venable, 1987 Topps

(Superhero) Name: Max Venable

Team: Cincinnati Reds

Position: Outfield

Value of card: Max value (3 cents)

Key 1986 stat: Zero dates

Max Venable's dating profile, circa 1987:

Screen name: MadMax69

Age: I'll whisper it in yo' ear

Height: Taller with this hat on

Weight: Half in da butt

Hair color: Dope

Hairstyle: See above

Ethnicity: Reds

Religious views: Sexual Tiger Roar

Want children? Not out of my lady's goods

Marital status: No ring, but bling-bling

Best feature: Ladies love the pencil-thin 'stache

Smoke? Foo's

Drink? Foreva

Seeking: To take it to the max with a tender young 'roni

Location: In da butt

Her body type: Bangin'

Her ethnicity: Whatever it takes to get in those draw's

About me: You need to know: I take it to the max. My muscles? Max. Also, the Venable is venerable. Little babies, look at these glasses. Imagine how I see you, draped in the finest furs, sipping sparkling wine from a box, kissing the wind. I'll take you to the field, host picnics and other crap like that. I'll even let you try on my lucky wristbands. You just have to agree to one thing: Tell me you're ready to Max out — and in. And out. And in again. Yeah, baby.

Max Venable, 1987 Topps