Preformanced Enhanced 40-40 club?

Yesterday I opened a pack of '88 Fleer, and one of the cards got me thinking. This card remembered the outstanding 1987 season that Eric Davis and Daryl Strawberry had. They both entered the 30-30 club in 1987 and both made a run at 40-40. As I lay awake last night I began to think about Jose Canseco and his 1988 42 HR and 40 SB season. I began going down the list of 40-40 club members: Canseco, Bonds, A-Rod, and most recently Alfonso Soriano. Did any of these guys reach 40-40 without the juice? Well we know Canseco pierced the skin with a needle, Bonds has never tested positive but the cream and the clear certainly didn't hurt his quest for membership into the club, A-Rod tested positive in 2003, so that leaves only Alfonso Soriano and his 46 bombs and 41 steals in 2006 for the Washington Nationals.

Since I believe testing started in 2004, Soriano may be the only performance enhancing drug free member of the 40-40 club. We have seen a decline in his overall production over the past few years, and the injuries and missed games are starting to pile up but at 6'1" and about 180 lbs he does not fit the template for juicer. His swing has always been a picture of violent beauty, and as of this post he does have 19 HR in 98 games but he only has 8 stolen bases. Could he have used too? Lets hope not. We may never know. Here is a list of some guys who came close to 40-40, but just fell short:

1922 Ken Williams of the St. Louis Browns
39 HR and 37 SB in 153 games
Ken was the very first member of the 30-30 club


1956 Willie Mays
36 HR and 40 SB in 152 games


1973 Bobby Bonds
39 HR and 43 SB in 160 games


1987 Eric Davis
37 HR and 50 SB in 129 games


1987 Daryl Strawberry
39 HR and 36 SB in 154 games


2002 Vlad Guerrero
39 HR and 36 SB in 161 games


2004 Carlos Beltran
38 HR and 43 SB in 159 games


The Card Addict

Supply and Demand

I am going to try to post here as often as possible, but I am feeling lazy tonight after my road trip, and do not want to expend to much power from the grey matter, so I am going to do another pack break. This is going to be an actual WAX pack. Back in the late 1980's when the baseball card boom was happening, my mother decided to put a few boxes of wax away as an investment. In hindsight, this was really silly. You see this was before I knew about the laws of supply and demand. In the late 1980's millions of the same cards printed on cheap wonderful cardboard, and hundreds of thousands of people were slipping them into protective sheets it was EXCESS SUPPLY. In the late 80's and early 90's we loved it. Beckett and all of us collectors artificially inflated the prices of all of those Jose Canseco, Mike Greenwell, and Gregg Jefferies cards. I consider myself one of the guilty ones. I wanted to have three of every card, one for my collection, one to trade, and one to sell at some point in the way off future. The only problem is when there are that many collectors saving that many cards the supply far outweighs the demand, making most of the cards from this era pretty much worthless. You see, card prices are directly related to the number of cards produced and the number of people who want the card. Many many cards were produced, and not to many people want them any more. Well anyway, tonight I am going to break into one of these near worthless packs. Hopefully I will remember a time in my life that I really enjoyed. When nothing was better then getting a Don Mattingly, or a Rickey Henderson to complete my set of three of every card. I present to you a Wax break from the famous 1988 Fleer Baseball Set.


Here is the extremely valuable back that I have been carrying with me for the last 21 years. You can see back then each pack cost $.40 plus tax. In the 1988 Fleer you received 15 cards and 1 Sticker.

One to the cards. Here are the first six cards:


Paul Assenmacher, Glenn Braggs, Leon Durham, Ron Hassey, Dave Smith, and CRUNCH TIME w/ Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis back in August of '88 I would have been pretty happy with this start. In '88 my friends and I could not get enough of Eric Davis, this guy was a STUD! In '87 this guy hit .293, had 37 HR, 100 RBIs and stole 50 bases making him a 30-30 club member. Straw was no slouch either, hitting 39 HR, driving in 104 runs and swiping 36 bases.

Here are the next 6 cards:


Buddy Bell, Cory Snyder, Todd Frohwirth, Joe Niekro, Randy Myers, and Rick Cerone so the pack has cooled off a little, it is really amazing to me when I open a pack and one of the cards has a player that has passed away. We lost Joe Niekro back in Oct. of 2006. The thing I remember most about him besides the knuckle ball was when he got caught scuffing baseballs with the emery board. It was classic the way he tossed it to the side and gave a "what me?" kind of pose. He of course was suspended for 10 games because of it.

Here are the last three cards and the sticker, please let there be a Henderson......


Kevin McReynolds, Mike Greenwell, and Eric Nolte no Hall of Famers in this pack, but back in '88 I probably could have gotten a couple of bucks for the Greenwell, so I cannot complain. As always if you see something here you need, which I highly doubt, shoot me an email or leave a comment. Maybe we can work a deal.

The Card Addict