The Best Baseball Card Set of 1988
What was new in 1981, three baseball card sets to choose from courtesy of Topps, Fleer, and Donruss, had grown old. The year was 1988 and the game-changing Upper Deck set had yet to arrive on the scene. Still, one could make a case that what did arrive was even better: premium quality without the premium pricing. Welcome to the Hobby, 1988 Score!
Remembering 1988 Score as the year's best offering may seem preposterous to today's collectors well aware that complete factory sets routinely sell (or more commonly, don't sell) for $5 at card shows. Then again, value has never been the Hobby's only metric nor its most important. Setting aside dollars and cents, here are just some of the reasons 1988 Score was and still is a Hobby classic!
Gregg Jefferies
However poorly the man's cardboard legacy has aged across the decades, Gregg Jefferies was THE guy in 1988. Back when batting average was still a big deal, here was a kid whose card back already looked like Wade Boggs and posted a .400 clip through his first 15 games of 1988. (Granted that's not a ton of plate appearances, but the hype machine didn't need much fuel back then.) More importantly, Jefferies had no Topps card and his Fleer/Donruss cards were pretty ho-hum. Smart collectors knew in 1988 that the Gregg Jefferies card to hoard was Score.
Find the Reggie
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Upper Deck would hog the Hobby headlines in 1990 with its "Find the Reggie" treasure hunt, but the real ones know Score got there first with a five-card Reggie Jackson tribute set in 1988. True, the Score version didn't come with hand-numbered signed copies, but Score did have something Upper Deck shockingly managed to whiff on: Reggie on the Orioles! While Reggie managed some O's cards earlier thanks to a handful of oddball sets, this was the first time Baltimore Reggie crashed a genuine flagship set with something other than a team card or ridiculously rare proof card.
Upper Deck Before Upper Deck
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In today's day and age when just about every baseball card photo captures players in peak action, it's easy to forget just how revolutionary the 1988 Score images were back in 1988. Plenty of revisionists out there will cite 1989 Upper Deck as the first truly modern card set where photography is concerned, but the cards don't lie. Put your favorite 1980s players' Score cards side by side against the Topps, Fleer, and Donruss cards of 1988, or even the Upper Deck cards of 1989, and more than likely you'll begrudgingly admit it's Score for the win. Throw in the tamper-proof packs, cover up the price tag, and you're truly looking at Upper Deck before Upper Deck.
Skittles!
In today's Hobby, it takes genuine "hits" to collect a variety of border colors. Back in 1988, however, just about any pack of Score would net you five or more border colors, making the set the Hobby's most colorful since 1975 Topps. Not only that but the border coloring scheme also facilitated sorting since each color had its own 110-card series.
Now many, just maybe, you've made it through this entire article, looked at the various 1988 Score beauties pictured, and still remain unconvinced that this set truly ranks among the best of the decade. Hey, each to their own, but can we at least agree these are hands down some of the best looking worthless cards in the history of the Hobby?
Jason A. Schwartz is a collectibles expert whose work can be found regularly at SABR Baseball Cards, Hobby News Daily, and 1939Bruins.com. His collection of Hank Aaron baseball cards and memorabilia is currently on exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, and his collectibles-themed artwork is on display at the Honus Wagner Museum and PNC Park.