1988 Topps Big Card #79 Willie McGee

I loved Willie McGee and he was a great player and one of the rare non-power hitters of that era who could change the momentum of a game. He got clutch hits and could run the bases. Given that everyone he was playing against was on steroids, he maybe should be a Hall of Famer. I believe he won a couple of batting titles. He played for the Red Sox for a year or two, I was glad they picked him up. 

The best thing about him though was his facial expression, he always looked like he'd just smelled something bad.  

1988 Topps Mini Leaders #71 Willie McGee

I loved Willie McGee as a player. He was fast and could hit and field like an all-star. What I loved most about him though was that his facial expression always looked as if he smelled something really, really bad. Loved this guy.

1988 Topps Mini Leaders #72 Ozzie Smith

Ozzie Smith, The Wizard, really was an amazing baseball player to watch. You may not ever see a better shortstop than Ozzie Smith in his prime.

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.