Word: fleer
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Last year's Fleer cards color-coded a strike zone to show where batters connected with or pitchers threw a fastball, a breaking ball, and an off-speed pitch. Baseball purists hated it because it was so subjective (ratings were performed by "the Scouts"), but it was corny like baseball ought to be. This year the Fleer color graphic isn't as corny: each player's batting average or ERA is given for day, night, home and away games. These are cards you can sit down with for the Game of the Week...
...front of the Fleer card isn't as good as it could have been. Fleer was the best overall card last year, but this year's design of scattered blue and red diagonal stripes behind the photo complicates a good idea. The photo itself fades out near the top, so that a player's head sticks out into the background. It's a creative variation on last year's Fleer design, and it could carry the card without the complication of the stripes...
Topps has the second-best set of cards this year, even though their backs are unimpressive and their photos often aren't as sharp as Fleer's. Topps' front is traditional enough to enlist my nostalgia, and though the overall effect is to make the card look like the cover of a cheap sports magazine, at least the player, and not the background, is the center of attention. They're not as good as last year's Topps, but all of this year's crop of cards is generally weaker...
Their backs are as colorful as a political rally; the stats are printed in color and go back as far as Fleer's cards do. And the prose underneath gives you the smell of a pennant. Of the Oriole's Eddie Murray, Score pontificates, "Eddie is a remarkable power hitter who crushes the ball equally well from both sides of the plate. In 1987, he bounced back from his '86 power shortage with his accustomed big bundle of homers and RBIs." Shakes peare pales...
...problem with Score and Topps is that their fronts are incomplete. Score doesn't print the team name on the front, and Topps doesn't give the player's field position, the second year in a row they've made that mistake. Both bits of information should be there. Fleer and Donruss effectively put the team logo on the front with the player's name and position...