1988 Topps Mini Leaders #31 Mark McGwire

Here's a controversial one! Mark McGwire, the year before this card came out, set the American League rookie home run record. He and Jose Canseco were "The Bash Brothers." Then McGwire was hurt all the time, and then in late 1990s he became the most feared power hitter in the history of the game, until Barry Bonds became The Hulk and all the home run records fell.

McGwire and Sosa still piss me off. I remember waking up in the fall of 1998 with all kinds of things going on in my life, but wondering if McGwire and Sosa had homered the night before. I was excited for the home run duel going on. Baseball was awesome again. The Roger Maris single-season home run record fell that year to, what we later learned was these cheating, lying douchebags.

To be fair, when they started juicing, Major League Baseball wasn't doing anything about it. None of us knew what steroids could do for player performance. But they denied and denied and denied that they had taken anything to help them hit baseballs so far. I trusted them and they were lying to me.

"Lying, cheating, hurting, that's all you seem to do." -Led Zeppelin, Your Time is Gonna Come.