David Cone, 1989 Donruss Diamond Kings (Medical Emergency Diamond Kings Week No. 4)

Name: David Cone
Team: New York Mets
Position: Pitcher
Value of card: One piece of sugar cone, picked up off the floor
Key 1988 stat: 14 times yelled at Keith Hernandez to stop farting so much
Is David Cone having a medical emergency? David is definitely pale in this image; in fact, he may be an albino. But that's a lifelong condition, not really a medical emergency. The back of his hair appears to be streaming into the New York sky, but that could just be an optical illusion caused by his supersonic speed. What's more concerning is that he looks like he's attempting to speak, but unable to fully open his mouth. I think what we've got here is a classic case of lockjaw. Better get to the ER, buddy; you don't want to mess with tetanus.

David Cone, 1989 Donruss Diamond Kings (Medical Emergency Diamond Kings Week No. 4)

George Alusik, 1962 Topps

Name: George Alusik
Team: Detroit Tigers
Position: Outfield
Value of card: Neck lumps
Key 1961 stat: Was 26 years old; looked 46
By George: What nickname did Mr. Alusik's teammates use for him in 1962?

A) Throat Bulge Alusik
B) George Are-You-Sick
C) George Alu-Sit-On-The-Bench
D) That Weenie Who Can't Hit
E) All of the above

George Alusik, 1962 Topps

Darryl Talley, 1991 Pro Line Portraits (Shameful Sunday Portraits No. 11)

Name: Darryl Talley
Team: Buffalo Bills
Position: Linebacker
Value of card: One shirt, half off
Key 1991 stat: Much to be ashamed of
Darryl Talley's train of thought leading up to this photo shoot, June 17, 1991: "All right, photo time. Let's run down the checklist. Mustache finely groomed? Check. Bare-midriff shirt that I borrowed from one of the cheerleaders yesterday? Check. Most crotch-hugging pair of shorts I could pull on? Check. Belly button out? Check. Ability to put my hands on my hips, making it look like I have weird dents in my forearms? Check. Yes, let's do this!"

Darryl Talley, 1991 Pro Line Portraits (Shameful Sunday Portraits No. 11)

Goran Prpic, 1991 NetPro (Wimbledon Week No. 2)

Name: Goran Prpic
Country: Yugoslavia
Value of card: Two broken VHS copies of "The Terminator"
Key 1991 stat: 4,000 buckles
We can rebuild him: Tragedy struck Yugoslavian tennis star Goran Prpic in 1986 when he was involved in a high-speed donkey cart accident, nearly costing him his leg and severing almost all the vowels from his surname. Inspired by "The Six Million Dollar Man," which had finally premiered in Yugoslavia, the nation's heads of state called in their top physicians, not just to heal Prpic, but to make him faster, stronger and better at tennis. But, being Yugoslavia, the doctors didn't have much money to work with. So, instead of being fitted with a bionic knee, Prpic was given a gigantic leg brace made of masking tape, cardboard, velcro and dog collars. And while it didn't make him any better at tennis, it did provide him with a couple extra places to store tennis balls.

Goran Prpic, 1991 NetPro (Wimbledon Week No. 2)

Kirk Gibson, 1989 Donruss Diamond Kings (God-Awful Diamond Kings Week No. 5)

Name: Kirk Gibson

Team: Los Angeles Dodgers

Position: Outfield

Value of card: An empty beer bottle with a paint brush in it

Key 1988 stat: Caused some guy to disbelieve what he had just seen

Fun facts that can be gleaned from this wonderful illustration:

• Kirk Gibson's nose was broken. Badly.
• His nose was so lopsided it took his mustache with it.
• Kirk Gibson apparently played for the "Dods," whoever they are. Either that or the Dad's Root Beer softball team.
• Kirk Gibson was usually getting struck by lightning.
• Kirk Gibson's neck was thicker than his head.
• This Donruss Diamond King may be the god-awfulest.

Kirk Gibson, 1989 Donruss Diamond Kings (God-Awful Diamond Kings Week No. 5)

Terry Steinbach, 1990 Score Dream Team

Name: Terry Steinbach
Team: Oakland A's
Position: Catcher
Value of card: One VHS of "A Nightmare On Elm Street," broken
Key 1989 stat: 18,301 cases of night sweats given
We'd prefer insomnia: In 1990, the cardmakers at Score had an idea for a special subset featuring the game's best players. It was dubbed the Score Dream Team. The powers that be decided to create illustrations designed to make each player selected look as he possibly would in someone's actual dream. Chalk this one up to bad idea, worse execution. Look at Terry Steinbach, for example. He looks like a mascara-wearing vampire with fetal alcohol syndrome. His head is the size of an apple, and the finger sticking out of his mitt looks like a mint-covered Vienna sausage. Thankfully, Score would get it right the next year, when they decided to just make all the players selected get half-naked.

Terry Steinbach, 1990 Score Dream Team

Andy Van Slyke, 1993 Fleer Ultra

Name: Andy Van Slyke
Team: Pittsburgh Pirates
Position: Outfield
Value of card: One burned baseball
Key 1992 stat: 1,930,217 times uttered the word "Whoa!"
Clearing up some rumors about Andy Van Slyke:

• Van Slyke was not killed by a falling meteor during a game. He was merely injured by one.
• Van Slyke's face did not freeze that way after making this face.
• Van Slyke did not start all 162 games in 1992. He did, however, start all of his games falling-down drunk.
• Van Slyke does not have gills. It just looks like it in the above photo.
• Andy Van Slyke is, in fact, an anagram for naked navy sly.

Andy Van Slyke, 1993 Fleer Ultra

Lenny Webster, 1993 Upper Deck

Name: Lenny Webster
Team: Minnesota Twins
Position: Catcher
Value of card: A used piece of gauze
Key 1992 stat: One new scar
We've got questions, you've got a pop quiz:

What just happened to Lenny Webster?

A) Drilled in the ear hole by Nolan Ryan
B) Punched in the neck by Tom Brunansky
C) Judo chopped in the jaw by Alan Trammell
D) Got in the ring with Mike Tyson
E) Got an earful — literally — after sitting too close to Kent Hrbek's spit cup

Lenny Webster, 1993 Upper Deck

Jim Abbott, 1993 Upper Deck Community Heroes

Name: Jim Abbott
Team: California Angels
Position: Pitcher
Value of card: Two. That's all, just two.
Key 1992 stat: One inappropriately placed microphone
Double or nothing on this quiz: Other than hands, what does Jim Abbott want two of?
A) Tacos
B) Girls, but just one cup
C) Tickets to paradise
D) Hours (OK, minutes) with Chuck Finley's smokin' hot wife
E) All of the above
F) None of the above. He just desperately wants two hands.

Jim Abbott, 1993 Upper Deck Community Heroes

Frank Thomas, 1992 Fleer Pro-Visions

Name: Frank Thomas
Team: Chicago White Sox
Position: First base
Value of card: 20 years to life in federal prison
Key 1991 stat: Zero explosions
The case against Frank Thomas being voted into the Hall of Fame:

Exhibit A) He used three bats while at the plate, clearly a violation of some rule or other
Exhibit B) That weird dent in his elbow
Exhibit C) At least one of his bats contained dynamite, thus endangering himself, his fellow players and the fans
Exhibit D) He only played outside of stadiums, on clear nights while the moon was eclipsed
Exhibit E) He just looks so darn mean!

Frank Thomas, 1992 Fleer Pro-Visions

Sandy Alomar Jr., 1993 Score Select

Name: Sandy Alomar Jr.
Team: Cleveland Indians
Position: Catcher
Value of card: One case of gingivitis
Key 1992 stat: Removed mask zero times
Mr. Alomar goes to the orthodontist: Sandy Alomar's teeth were so bad, he used to be known as "The British Puerto Rican." They were misaligned, stained and riddled with plaque and cavities. The only action his toothbrush saw was when he used it to clean his cleats. This all changed in 1992, when the Indians, realizing Alomar was the budding face of the franchise, invested thousands of dollars in cleaning up the backstop's bicuspids. But when Alomar was told he would have to wear corrective headgear all season, he balked. The catcher's chompers seemed destined to be forever hideous — until teammate Jim Thome had an idea. An expert metallurgist, Thome fashioned the headset into a catcher's mask worthy of wearing in a game. Alomar agreed to the contraption, even though it meant wearing his mask at all times. In fact, the photo above was taken at Cleveland's famous Shakespeare-in-the-Park festival that June.

Sandy Alomar Jr., 1993 Score Select

Mark Langston, Jim Abbott, Chuck Finley, 1993 Upper Deck Teammates

Names, from left: Mark Langston, Jim Abbott, Chuck Finley
Team: California Angels
Positions: Pitcher
Value of card: Four red shoes, two gray shoes
Key 1992 stat: One triple pitch
Party of three for — The Matchup:

Round 1: Best mullet (Winner: Tie)
Round 2: Hands (Winners: Langston and Finley)
Round 3: Sternness (Winner: Abbott)
Round 4: Bulge (Winner: Langston)
Round 5: Smokin' hot ex-wife (Winner: Finley)
Round 6: Jauntiness (Winner: Finley)
Round 7: Ability to overcome adversity (Winner: Abbott)
Round 8: Hands, again (Winners: Langston and Finley)

Score: Finley 4, Langston 3, Abbott 2 (Ties: 1)

Synopsis: Sure, they have the same haircut, but in the battle of "Lethal Lefties," Chuck Finley outmullets the competition — to death.

Mark Langston, Jim Abbott, Chuck Finley, 1993 Upper Deck Teammates

Mike Jeffcoat, 1992 Upper Deck

Name: Mike Jeffcoat
Team: Texas Rangers
Positions: Pitcher, receiver
Value of card: Three gauze pads
Key 1991 stat: 28 broken knuckles
Falling from grace: Coming off a solid 1990 season, Mike Jeffcoat was firmly entrenched in the Rangers' starting rotation. That was, until he got into an argument with manager Bobby Valentine about the Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix movie "My Own Private Idaho." Jeffcoat's assertion that Reeves was talentless and Phoenix was a junkie who would be dead in five years didn't go over well with the skipper, and before Jeffcoat knew it, he was playing football catch with fireballer Nolan Ryan. Of course, the Ryan Express didn't just play catch; he fired the ball in as hard as he could, John Elway style. Soon, all of Jeffcoat's knuckles were fractured and his fingers were pointing in 10 different directions.
The moral of the story: "My Own Private Idaho" is overrated.

Mike Jeffcoat, 1992 Upper Deck

Mike LaValliere, 1992 Topps Stadium Club

Name: Mike LaValliere aka Spanky the Blind Catcher

Team: Pittsburgh Pirates

Position: Blind catcher

Value of card: "I would give anything to see the world, if only for a moment, one more time."

Key 1991 stat: Zero seconds of sight

A tale of triumph: This is the story of Mike LaValliere, better known around the land as Spanky the Blind Catcher. Spanky was born to a French father and Polish mother in a log cabin in the North Carolina wilderness. As a child, his resemblance to a "Little Rascals" character earned him the nickname "Spanky." A few months later, he went blind, earning him the nickname "Blindy." Blindy soon developed a love for baseball, and his future as a catcher was cemented at age 9, when he tried to eat a catcher's mitt, thinking it was a pork chop. He soon started playing catch with his father, though this mainly involved his father throwing the ball at him, the ball hitting him in the chest or face, and Spanky rooting around on the ground like a legless pig searching for the ball. But these joyful games of catch toughened up Spanky, and because of that and his tireless training and eating habits, he earned a spot on his high school baseball team. He played second base. The actual base, not the position. But Spanky practiced and practiced and soon started playing catcher, developing a knack for hearing the rotation of the pitch and positioning his glove accordingly. He was drafted and worked his way to the major leagues. Off the field, he used a cane. But on the field, his play was uncanny.

Mike LaValliere, 1992 Topps Stadium Club

Walter Payton, 1991 Pro Line (Super Bowl Week No. 2)

Name: Walter Payton

Teams: Chicago Bears (retired), Team 34 Racing

Positions: Running back, race car owner

Value of card: One Rolex knock-off

Key Super Bowl stat: 23 surgeries on hands

What is the most disturbing part of this card?

(A) Payton's thumb

(B) Payton's index finger

(C) Payton's middle finger

(D) Payton's ring finger

(E) Payton's pinkie finger

(F) The price football heroes of yesteryear paid for glory

(G) All of the above

Walter Payton, 1991 Pro Line (Super Bowl Week No. 2)

Alex Cole, 1993 Topps

Name: Alex Cole
Team: Colorado Rockies
Position: Outfield
Value of card: $5 off at LensCrafters
Key 1992 stat: One disability
An enterprising generation: Tragedy befell Alex Cole after the 1992 season when he was blinded during a freak sausage-grinding accident. It appeared the young outfielder's career was over — until technophile Tim Wallach stepped in. Wallach, who had developed a time-traveling device that doubled as a rad sports car, took Cole into the future, where the speedster was fitted with a Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement, or VISOR, much like the one on that "Star Trek" show. The device allowed Cole to see many different visual spectra and even provided him the advantage of X-ray vision. Commissioner Bud Selig originally wanted to ban Cole's device, but, upon seeing it, changed his ruling on the grounds that it was so bitchin'.

Alex Cole, 1993 Topps

Bo Jackson, 1990 special edition (Bo Week, No. 6)

Name: Bo Jackson
Teams: Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Raiders
Positions: Outfielder/Running Back, apparently
Value of card: Half off
Key 1989 stat: Four amputated fingers
More great moments in Photoshop: The makers of this fine special edition card were split over how to present it. Half wanted Bo in baseball attire, while the other half preferred his football photo. A bitter debate divided the room, causing a rift between longtime coworkers and friends. After dissecting the subject for days, there seemed no end to the dichotomy between them. Rather than tearing the project asunder, these masterminds searched the hemisphere for someone — or something — to unite them. In the end, it was a brand-new software that brought them harmony. Sure, it cost Bo four fingers and caused his ears to become uneven, but it did nothing to diminish his bulge.

Bo Jackson, 1990 special edition (Bo Week, No. 6)

Earl Cunningham, 1990 Topps

Name: Earl Cunningham
Teams: Chicago Cubs, Lancaster (S.C.) Bruins
Positions: Outfield, one knee
Value of card: One outfield sponsorship from Lancaster TrueValue Hardware
Key 1989 stat: Reached pinnacle of his baseball career
Top 10 reasons Earl Cunningham never reached the Show:

10) One leg stopped at the knee, making running difficult
9) He never could get out from under the shadow of his brother, Richie
8) He was too intimidated by Rick Sutcliffe's beard
7) He was caught using steroids to enhance his bulge
6) He never could find his other batting glove
5) Manager Dom Zimmer kept getting him confused with basketball star Earl "the Pearl" Monroe
4) His insatiable love for pimento loaf caused him to balloon up to 342 pounds by the age of 20
3) He knew his future baseball card photos would never be as good as this one
2) He was tired of playing for teams named after varieties of bears
1) The Cubs were so awash in talent and wins that they never needed him

Earl Cunningham, 1990 Topps

Dennis Lamp, 1991 Score

Name: Dennis Lamp

Team: Boston Red Sox

Position: Pitcher

Value of card: Six torn lampshades

Key 1990 stat: One amputated hand

The man of one hand: Dennis Lamp posted a career 96-96 record with a 3.93 ERA. These are pretty good numbers, but they're even more impressive when it's taken into account that the handlebar mustache aficionado pitched most of his career with one hand.

True story: On Aug. 13, 1979, Cardinals legend Lou Brock hit a line drive back up in the middle. The ball ricocheted off Lamp's pitching hand, and Brock made it safely to first for his 3,000th hit.

The tragic aftermath: Lamp stayed in to pitch the rest of the inning, but after the game a drunken team doctor concluded that he would have to amputate Lamp's hand in order to save the pitcher's career. Lamp grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels and agreed to the surgery, paving the way and lending a hand to a young player who would use Lamp's story as inspiration and one day make it to the big leagues.

The truth revealed: Upon further examination of this card, it appears the drunken team doctor removed Lamp's hand at the wrist and attached it to his groin, thus explaining the freakish bulge seen above.

Dennis Lamp, 1991 Score

Jim Abbott, Taz, 1993 Upper Deck Looney Tunes

Names: Jim Abbott, Taz

Teams: California Angels, The World Umpires Association

Positions: Ace, umpire

Value of card: Two doodles of genitalia

Key 1992 stat: One nonsensical headline

It's time for The Matchup:

Round 1: Calm temperament (Winner: Abbott)

Round 2: Bulge (Winner: Abbott)

Round 3: Number of hands (Winner: Taz)

Round 4: Double chin (Winner: Tie)

Round 5: Facial hair (Winner: Taz)

Round 6: Looniness (Winner: Taz)

Round 7: Beer gut (Winner: Taz)

Score: Taz 4, Abbott 2 (Ties, 1)

Synopsis: After staking an early lead, Abbott falls in integral categories "facial hair" and "beer gut," meaning Taz wins, hands down.

Jim Abbott, Taz, 1993 Upper Deck Looney Tunes