2:24am, awake , the mystery Expo and some thoughts

I don't intend for this to be a mutiple post per day kind of thing, but it's 2:24am, I'm awake and have a few things on my mind.

First, if you read the comments from the previous post, you'll see that Expert Expo Spotter Andy from 88 Topps noticed an Expo in the background of the Steve Bedrosian Highlight card.

The only time a Phillie and an Expo should be on the field as defensive players at the same time is during an All Star game. As Andy correctly points out, if we assume that this photo was taken during the 1987 All Star game (juding from the green fence of Oakland Coliseum it seems like a pretty good guess), the only two Expos were Tim Raines and Tim Wallach.

Digging around through Baseball-Reference I've come up with this:

Steve Bedrosian replaced John Franco in the bottom of the 9th and was then pinch hit for in the top of the 10th. Now's where it gets tricky. Both Raines and Wallach came into the game as replacements in the bottom of the 6th. Both stayed in for the remainder of the game, with Tim Raines eventually driving in the only two runs of the game in the top of the 12th. So this photo had to have been taken in the bottom half of the ninth inning, because at no other point in the game would these players have been on the field.

Andy guesses, judging by the skin tone, that the mystery Expo is Tim Raines. For this to be the case, he's playing very very shallow. But for it to be Tim Wallach, the infield would have to be shifted drastically towards the right side with the thirdbaseman positioned where the shortstop usually plays.

So what do you think? A shifted, shadowy Wallach, or a confused Raines?

And some thoughts as it nears 3am. This no sleeping thing has got to stop.

I've got a second box of '87 Topps sitting on the shelf waiting to be opened and it will after these 88 Score are finished. But I don't think I'll be done with this website when the box is empty. I want to finish the set and maybe do a page by page run down of nine cards at a time. I'd thought about doing the same for the '87 Topps, but that's been done before, and done very well at Awesomely Bad Wax Packs. So I don't want to take anything away from that site.

What I really want to do, and I mentioned this a few days back, is try to put together a set of 1981 Topps. But, having been away from the hobby for fourteen years, I don't know how difficult that task may be. And right now, I can't justify spending $100 for a box of wax.

Any thoughts on how to go about this?

And now I think I'm off to bed.