#49T Tom Herr

What a terrible airbrush job! Holy smokes!

IMPACT FACTOR 1/10: Herr came to the Twins in exchange for Tom Brunansky, and after half a mediocre season was packaged with a couple of guys and sent to the Phillies for Shane Rawley. Rawley was fairly bad for the Twins in one season, his last in the big leagues.

#772 Sal Butera

Why this card is awesome: Because of the mention of assists by a catcher. Exactly when do catchers get assists? It's kind of complicated. A catcher gets an assist on, for example, a dropped third strike where the batter is put out by a throw to 1B. He obviously also gets an assist in a rundown when an out is recorded. And he gets an assist when he throws out a would-be base stealer.

Cool stat: Tough to find much on Butera stat-wise, but he did hit pretty well against Dennis Martinez, Frank Tanana, and Bob Stanley.

#746 Gene Larkin

Why this card is awesome: Because, my friends, love him or hate him, that is actually George W. Bush pictured. Seriously.

Cool stat: Larkin is by far best remembered for the game winning hit in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, widely regarded as The Greatest World Series Game Ever Played, thanks in large part to Jack Morris' 10-inning CG. Larkin had 3 other walk-off hits in the regular season, all singles, including a 2-run come-from-behind job off Gene Garber.

#709 George Frazier

Why this card is awesome: Because here's a bit of a mystery. Check out Frazier's page at The Baseball Cube. According to that, he never played at Holyoke. But digging a little deeper, it seems that Holyoke was an AA-level minor league affiliate of Milwaukee in 1977. The Baseball Cube shows his minor league stats with Milwaukee and A-level and AAA-level, but not AA-level. So I guess they left out those stats for some reason.

Frazier was traded at various times with or for an impressive list of players: Buck Martinez, Rafael Santana, Otis Nixon, Toby Harrah, Ron Hassey, Rick Sutcliffe, Joe Carter, Ron Davis, and more.

This was Frazier's last card.

Cool stat: Frazier had the worst ERA of anyone to appear in at least 100 games between 1977 and 1987 without starting a game.

#697 Steve Lombardozzi

Why this card is awesome: Because like 600 cards ago, some reader named Jeff was counting down until Lombardozzi's card. Well here it is, Jeff!

But seriously, I think this is the only card other than Larry Parrish where the full last name of the player featured on the card is visible on the back of his uniform. I might be wrong about that, but these are the only ones that come to mind.

And mind you, getting all of "LOMBARDOZZI" visible in a photograph while he's batting ain't easy.

Cool stat: Lombardozzi is somewhat remembered thanks to being part of the championship Twins team of 1987 (and hitting very well in that World Series.) In the regular season, he managed a few 4-RBI games and the Twinkies won them all.

#671 Tim Laudner

Why this card is awesome: Because it sure is impressive to have 16 HR and 43 RBI in 288 AB and still bat below .200. Wow.

Cool stat: Of Laudner's 77 career homers, 3 came off Floyd Bannister, and 2 were game-winning shots off Jim Winn, both coming in one of the Twins' magical years (1987 in this case.)

#648 Al Newman

Why this card is awesome: Because I'm pleased to say that Al Newman is not dead. For some reason, when I see Newman's name, I always think he passed away several years ago. If I recall correctly, Newman fell seriously ill while working as a coach for the Twins, and there was some question about whether he would recover. For some odd reason, I always think he didn't recover, but he did and is alive and (hopefully) well.

Cool stat: Since 1980, Al Newman had the most career ABs for a guy who finished with 1 career homer. Doug Flynn wasn't actually that close since he had several homers before 1980. Here is the game Newman homered in. Notice anything else interesting about it? Check out the Atlanta homers.

2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #9 Frank Viola

I don't actually own this card. The scan was graciously provided by dayf at Cardboard Junkie.

Why this card is awesome: Because that guy in the outfield sure doesn't look ready for the play. If I had to guess, I'd say it's LF Dan Gladden, although the complexion might be a bit too dark to be him.

#625 Frank Viola

Why this card is awesome: Because of all the weird things on this card:

• Viola is sort of giving a "thumbs up" to the photographer, but it seems like he was still caught off guard because he didn't really get his hand into the correct position.
• Geena Davis is hanging out in the first row there, right under the "T" in "TWINS."
• Good thing Viola's wearing pants, because this is about as direct a crotch shot as you'll see in this set.

I remember at one point in Viola's career, he was getting smacked around because he was tipping his pitches. Word came out that an opposing team figured out that when he came set, he held his glove in one position for a fastball and in another position for an off-speed pitch. Supposedly, the opposition shared this fact around the league and Viola went quite a number of starts before somebody finally told him that he was tipping.

Cool stat: Viola was a good pitcher who had a great peak from 1987 to 1988 when he tied for the lead with 41 wins. He was also the only guy to pitch at least 230 innings from 1984 to 1992.

#609 Twins Leaders

Why this card is awesome: Because of that interesting building in the background. One of just a few examples in this set of a non-baseball building prominently featured on a card.

In case you don't know, that's Gary Gaetti and Kent Hrbek on the card, pretty much a Twins' fan dream for 1988, except for the omission of Kirby Puckett.

Cool stat: I don't know how to look this up, but I really wonder what the answer is. The 1987 Minnesota Twins were World Series champs despite having only two pitchers in the regular season get double-digit wins or pitch as many as 160 innings. I would be very surprised if there are any other examples of this. Of course, they won only 85 regular-season games, a paltry total for a championship team.

#578 Gary Gaetti

Why this card is awesome: Because Gaetti looks so confused. I assume he's looking at the third-base coach, trying to read the sign.

Cool stat: Gaetti had quite a 1998. For players 39 or older with fewer than 500 PAs in a season, Gaetti makes the top 10 for RBI. Some very nice company on that list. Interestingly, I think that was the best year Gaetti ever had.

#554 Mike Smithson

Why this card is awesome: Because I was very surprised to see that he twice tied for the league lead in game starts. He didn't have particularly good years either season, but at least he made all his starts.

Cool stat: From 1985 to 1989, only Dave Stieb hit more batters than Smithson. And over that same period, Stieb pitched 230 more innings and won 19 more games than Smithson.

Smithson makes the top 10 for most shutouts from 1983 to 1986. My man Bert Blyleven is first, tied with Jack Morris.

#545 Don Baylor

Why this card is awesome: Because this card captured Don Baylor on the Twins, in the middle of a very cool thing he was involved with. He went to the World Series three years in a row, with three different teams! (1986 with Boston, 1987 with Minnesota, and 1988 with Oakland.) Has anybody else ever done that?

Oh, and two huge cotton balls just shot out of his ears.

Cool stat: Trivia time: since 1901, name the 8 guys with at least 300 career HR and 250 career stolen bases. Some are easy, some are hard. Baylor makes the cut.

#526 Juan Berenguer

Why this card is awesome: Because, bear with me on this one: for cards where the entire player's body is shown on the card (or nearly entire body, as we're missing bits of both of Berenguer's feet) I think his body occupies a higher percentage of the card area than anybody else. That's not supposed to be a fat joke--I'm referring to how the photo captures him bent over in a pretty compact position, and they crammed that all onto the card.

Cool stat: Since 1983, Berenguer is one of 23 pitchers to have at least 2 career shutouts and 30 career saves.

#502 Danny Gladden

Why this card is awesome: Because I know there are at least six people who think it's cooler to get a tour of empty seats than it is to check out Dan Gladden. They are in the background of this photo.

Cool stat: Gladden was not a great player, but he did do some things very well. From 1984 to 1991, just 5 players (including Gladden) had at least 4 HR, 1 3B, and 15 SB every year. The other four were some nice company: Juan Samuel, and current or future HOFers Ryne Sandberg, Rickey Henderson, and Tim Raines.

#473 Joe Niekro

Why this card is awesome: Because I love cards with so many years of stats that there's no room for anything else.

Cool stat: Of the 31 pitchers to throw at least 3500 innings since 1950, Niekro's got the 3rd-lowest K/9 rate, beating out only Tommy John and Bob Friend. Niekro also benefited greatly from playing on good teams. Actual W-L, W-L%: 221-204, .520. Neutralized: 189-198, .488.

Deceased players and managers: 15

Geez, that's two deceased guys in the last 3 cards :(

#451 Keith Atherton

Why this card is awesome: Because this is the opposite of all those shadowy-faced cards we've seen. Here the photographer has a light shining right on Atherton's face. Does a great job of lighting it up, and also of making him squint.

Cool stat: Over his entire career from 1983 to 1989, Atheron was the majors' leading mop-up guy. Among those who finished at least 150 games, none had fewer saves than he did.

#425 Jeff Reardon

Why this card is awesome: Because I swear this is a photo of the Unabomber thinking about his next target. Who knew the Unabomber wore such bling, though?

Cool stat: Reardon's got the 6th most appearances all-time for a reliever who never started a single game. Trevor Hoffman is on that list and will pass Sparky Lyle shortly. (Or, by the time most of you read this, he'll already have passed him.)

#391 Kirby Puckett All-Star

Why this card is awesome: Because do you notice in the very bottom right of the back of the card the letter "C"? I just noticed that some of these All-Star cards have a "C" and others have an "E." Who knows what they mean?

Deceased players and managers: 12

Hall of Fame count: 26

#375 Tom Brunansky

Why this card is awesome: Because of consistency--he may not have been a superstar, but he was bullseye precise every year from 1984 to 1987.

Cool stat: Brunansky is fairly underrated thanks in part to never putting up huge RBI numbers. From 1983 to 1989, he had 20+ homers and between 75 and 90 RBIs every year. Nobody else had more than 3 such years.