1989 Topps Major League Debut #86: Dan Murphy

Dan Murphy

PHOTO: Looks like he's about to toss a hammer.

Cards like this really make me wonder what Topps was thinking. They chose 3 colors for this card: the name banner color (sky blue) and the two colored stripes that frame the photo (orange and red.) The orange I understand--there's orange on the Padres' uniforms. But why didn't they make one of the two other colors a brown that also matched the unis? A brown name banner with white font for the text would have been great, or changing the red stripe to brown would also have been great. The cards would've looked a lot nicer.

STAT: The 6 guys who got a hit off Murphy were a motley bunch. Darryl Strawberry had the only extra-base hit.

ANAGRAM: Watch your back, Mr. Ready! Dan Murphy = Hump Randy

CAREER: 1/10

Just 7 appearances, all in relief, for Dan Murphy.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #15: Andy Benes

Andy Benes

PHOTO: That's a weird washed-out photo of Benes.

STAT: In the 1990s, Benes had the most seasons with at least 10 wins and 10 losses.

CAREER: 5/10

The stat tells you all you need to know about Benes. He was reliable, sure, but was reliably average. His ERA+ was within 10 points of average just about every year of his career, but he did that while posting 200 innings or close to it most of the time, which is definitely valuable in this day and age.

His score would have been higher except for the fact that he was pretty bad in just about all of his 9 post-season starts. He was 1-1 in those games, but with a 5.47 ERA.