the same old sob

in this case, sob refers to superstars of baseball, as in kaybee superstars of baseball.  you see, if you compare this 1987 kaybee superstars of baseball pedro guerrero card

 to this 1988 kaybee superstars of baseball pedro guerrero card

you will find a whole lot of repetitiveness in the design.  and they didn't stop there, as you will see when you look at this 1989 kaybee superstars of baseball kirk gibson card

at least fleer put in a tiny amount of effort to differentiate their 1988 baseball mvp design (here's fernando in dodger stadium)

from their 1989 baseball mvp design (featuring mike marshall, who was no one's mvp at the big league level)

sure, they basically just flipped the margins, but at least they tried.

all of these cards were sent to me by tom of the angels, in order.  tom also runs the 1995 skybox emotion blog, so there was one of those cards in the package, too.  eric karros is deep, apparently

as we all know, karros kicked off the dodgers' mid-90's run of rookies of the year by winning the award in 1992.  in 1994, a year after mike piazza won the award, raul mondesi was voted the best rookie in the national league.  here's a card of rauuuuuuuuuuuuuuul from 1997 upper deck collector's choice

that also features talking heads keith olbermann and dan patrick.  first direct espn tie-in with cards as far i as know.

i'll finish with the 1995 national league rookie of the year (sorry chipper), hideo nomo on a 2003 mlb showdown card

thanks tom! always a pleasure to trade halos for dodgers.