the last card

i saw a reference to a blog bat around initiated by john's big league baseball blog when i was preparing a different post, and figured i would contribute to the cause.

the last major release base card of steve garvey's career came in 1988 via score:

it was the only card issued that year for garvey, my favorite player, as donruss, fleer, and topps all left him off of their respective checklists. it's understandable, as garvey played in his last game in may of 1987 due to a biceps injury. he didn't formally retire until january of 1988, however, so i guess we know that score had a checklist deadline of sometime in the fall of '87 and that they were perhaps more optimistic than the other card manufacturers. while score could have also produced the last base card of ron cey if they had added him to this checklist instead of omitting him, they did come through again for dodger fans in 1989 with a card for don sutton.

as this is the only true final tribute of garvey's career, i am ever thankful to score for producing the card. i really enjoy seeing his full career stats on the back

even if he is wearing padre colors.

thanks for the bat around john!