#56 - Brewers Leaders

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates. But with a trip to Wrigley, an engagement, and a 30th birthday under my belt and I'm ready to start posting again. And what better way to resume than with a dreamlike leaders card.

Let's see who have here chattin' it up during this mound conference. First, Charlie Moore, who split the signal-calling duties with Rick Cerone that year for the Brew Crew. At the mound looking distraught, it's a tougher call. I'm not too familiar with '80s Brewers faces, but the number is either 42, 43 or 47. Of course, all three of those numbers were taken that year by hurlers, so I'm going to guess it's #47 Jamie Cocanower. With his face in the shadow it's tough to tell, but that's my guess.

I'm guessing that's Bamberger (one of my favorite names ever) chatting up Cocanower. But who's the other guy? It's either a 3B, SS or 2B, but it looks like he's wearing glasses, so it can't be Molitor. He's white, so it can't be Riles. Did Gantner wear glasses? I know he wore shades sometimes. Anyone know? I could be batting .250 on this card for all I know.

#31 - Braves Leaders

Wow. I, um, wow.

So here we have our second "leaders" card of the set, and it's the Braves. I put "leaders" in quote here because, as I mentioned, it's the '86 Braves, who didn't lead much of anything. On the front we have Glenn Hubbard putting his arm around Rafael Ramirez as both are clad in those awful powder blue pants the Braves wore in the '80s. I know it's the Braves, but come on, Topps. You're telling me you couldn't have chosen to better players than these two? Dale Murphy? Bob Horner? Ken Griffey? Gene Garber? Somehow Topps managed to choose the two LEAST productive Atlanta regulars for their "leaders" card. Hubbard (76 OPS+) and Ramirez (64 OPS+) didn't exactly rake that year.

Maybe this was the only photo with two Braves that looked like they were actually having fun. I have no idea.

#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.