Recently, while sifting through some old boxes in the basement, I came across some cards from the 88 Score set, and became fascinated in the player bios on the backs. They were written by legendary former Sports Illustrated writer Les Woodcock. Now, other than the divisive woodgrain borders, one of my favorite features of 87 Topps was the little player bio section on the backs which taught me (among many other things) that Howard Johnson was the co-winner of a rib eating contest, and that Moose Haas not only had a blackbelt in tae kwon do, but was also an amateur magician and certified locksmith. What a fascinating guy, I thought as a youngster.
Well, 88 Score took that concept and ran a marathon with it. The player bios here are massive. In fact, the print has to be small to fit them on the backs of the cards, so I have to wear my reading glasses to even make them out sometimes. Beyond the standard bio fare, they often include anecdotes and quotations. It's the kind of stuff that I love reading about.
So after having my interest in the set piqued, I decided to order a factory set as they are dirt cheap nowadays (height of the junk wax era). I had fun sorting through the cards with my daughters, finding my favorite players and Detroit Tigers and putting them in a binder. The set focuses mostly on action shots of the players with very few traditional poses. The backs include not only the bios and stat lines, but also a color photo portrait of the player. This was fairly novel for the time. While I'm not crazy about the multi-colored borders throughout the set, the overall design is still somewhat attractive.
The set also includes a cool little Reggie Jackson subset which covers his career. The writeups on the backs of these cards could fill up a small book.
88 Topps has grown on me somewhat over the years, but 88 Donruss and Fleer remain hideous abominations to my eyes. At the time, Score was kind of an afterthought to me. It was a new set, and I just never got into it. But now, looking back, I realize that I missed out.