BY MARK A. LARSON
Editor & Publisher
Never assume.
In other words, do not come to any conclusions without the facts.
Well, the copywriters at Score should have been reminded of that when they were preparing Dave Winfield’s 1988 card. They either made a bad assumption or simple mistake. We may never know.
Score was putting together their first national baseball card set in the fall of 1987 – becoming the fourth major company to enter the market. But they jumped the gun with Winfield’s biography on the back of card #55.
Through the first five months of season, the tall Yankee slugger was putting together another big-stat year. In fact, on August 30, 1987 he garnered his 90th RBI. With 32 games to go, he was on a pace to end up with over 110 Ribbies. Naturally, barring a serious injury, he seemed like a shoo-in to at least get to the century mark. Score’s writer may have thought so too.
Winfield’s card biography states in part: “ … He went over 20 home runs for the 10th time and had 100 RBIs for the sixth season in a row. …”
(See enlarged version of card back below)
Uh, oh. … Winfield did indeed finish the season with 27 homers, BUT he only managed 97 RBIs – a paltry seven Ribbies in the Yanks’ final 32 games of the season. Since he played in 156 of the team’s 162 games, he obviously wasn’t out of the lineup for an extended period during the final weeks of the season.
Someone at Score might have already been working on the Winfield write-up in September before the season ended. They either incorrectly assumed Winfield would make it to 100 RBIs or just mistakenly didn’t look carefully at his stats (unlikely).
There’s a strong chance the folks at Score should have heeded the age-old advice: Never assume.
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