#51 - Mel Hall

Not much to say about this card. Boring, and slightly peculiar shot, nothing interesting going on in the background. Even Mel's name is boring. That said, Hall is one of those *somewhat* obscure players I'll never forget, mostly because he is inextricably tied to a period of Yankee futility. (He played for the Bombers from '89-'92, a time when they never finished better than 4th in the AL East.) He's a perfect example of what was wrong with those Yankee teams. He was paid like a star but the only place he produced like one was in his own head.

Plus, he was a colossal idiot. I've heard/read a bunch of stories similar to those chronicling his torture of Bernie Williams, who, by most accounts is a pretty decent guy. And let's not even mention the allegations of sexual assault.

I'm not trying to associate his assholedness solely with the Yankees, he did play for the Cubs and Indians (and the Giants for bit after he came back from Japan), but I remember him mostly as a Yankee.

#11 - Indians Leaders

Here is the first of the individual team cards. We'll start with Cleveland, who had a pretty decent year in '86, finished at 84-78, which was a lot better than most of their seasons in the '80s. I never understood the whole white fog thing that's going on with the team cards. Why? To make them seem like some sort of wonderful dream? OK, I can buy that, but who the hell is dreaming of an Indians mound conference? At least we get a shot of HOFer Phil Niekro, who is clearly older than the pitching coach.

On the back of these cards Topps listed the team leaders for a few relevant categories. On this particular one, I learned that Joe Carter had 200 hits in 1986! I actually didn't believe it, so I looked it up, only to find it was true. I'm still in disbelief about that. Joe Carter was a tremendously overrated hitter who struck out a ton, never walked, and ended his career with a .259 batting average and OPS+ of 105. He built his reputation on a few big hits and some decent power numbers. But you have to hand it to the guy, he did have a good '86. .302 with 29 homers, 121 RBI and a 130 OPS+. I won't mention that aside from that one season, he never had one when he reached even 175 hits.