1988 Fleer Baseball Stickers

The design of the 1988 Fleer Baseball stickers is identical to 1987 except for the color of the border. The front of the 1988's look almost the same as the 1987's except for the fact that the border color changed from blue to green:


The backs of the stickers did change however, as the logo backs from 1987 were replaced with pictures of stadiums in 1988.

Once again, the team logos are featured on a baseball on a trophy stand:


Why 2 Dodgers and 3 Twins stickers? For both the Dodgers and the Twins, there are back variations. The Dodgers can be found with the picture of Dodger Stadium in two different directions (the picture on the top is the more scarce of the two as the picture is upside down and was corrected fairly early in the print run):


The Twins also have a back variation related to the information at the bottom of the sticker. The early printings misidentified the first game played in the Metrodome as taking place in 1922. Fleer caught the error fairly quickly and corrected it to 1982.

The Twins have an additional variation on the front.


Take a close look at the stitching on the ball in the logo.

The stitching changed from black to red as the Twins apparently made this very subtle change in their logo in 1988. The 3 Twins variations therefore are Black Stitching front / Incorrect Opening Day back, Black Stitching front / Correct Opening Day back, and Red Stitching front / Correct Opening Day back (the error was fixed before the logo changed so there is no error back for the Red Stitching logo).

The Pirates also have a logo variation as the logo changed for the 1988 season, but Fleer apparently didn't make the change until after having printed some of the stickers with the older logo. The older logo is the much less common version.


Other than the Dodgers and Twins back variations shown above, the trophy stickers do not have any other back variations. Fortunately, Fleer matched up the backs with the fronts with the trophy stickers so that the team that is pictured on the sticker has their own stadium on the back.

Fleer also repeated the "2 on 1" sticker design with 2 team logos sharing the sticker, along with 4 red and white strips with the team names. Unlike the 1987 set which had no back variations however, the 1988 2 on 1's have many stickers which can be found with 2 different stadiums on the back (a result of the stickers being double printed on the sheet and Fleer not trying to match up the backs to the fronts like they did with the trophy stickers) .

In the pictures below, if a sticker shows up twice, its because it can be found with 2 different stadiums on the back (and usually neither stadium is for the teams pictured on the front). For example, looking at the first row, the Braves/Tigers 2 on 1 only has one back whereas the Orioles/Braves sticker has 2 different stadium backs:


One exception - the White Sox/Twins sticker doesn't have a back variation, but it does have a front variation with the black seams & red seams as discussed above.


Things get real interesting with the Twins/Pirates stickers. Not only do you have the old logo/new logo variations on the front for both teams, there are 2 different stadium backs as well which is why I've got 4 different Twins/Pirates stickers shown above.


More fun with the Pirates. We actually end up with 5 different Pirates/Blue Jays stickers because we've got the old logo and new logo (2 variations) and 2 different stadiums (another 2 variations). So what is the 5th variation - well, one of the stadium backs just happens to be the Metrodome which can be found with and without the 1922 Opening Day error, which is why there are actually 3 versions with the old Pirates logo.


Here is a look at the backs with the stadiums:




Reviewing these sticker backs makes me feel really old - 19 of the 26 teams no longer play in the stadiums pictured above.

The stickers were inserts in 1988 Fleer Baseball packs:



as well as Fleer's Factory set:



and Fleer's 2nd annual glossy "Tin" set:


The stickers can also be found in the 1988 Fleer Update Set


and the 1988 Glossy "Tin" Update set


The stickers also came with Fleer's Baseball Star Stickers which would see its run come to an end with the 1988 release (these had been an annual offering for much of the 1980's) :


The Box Set bonanza was still in full swing in 1988 as there were once again 9 different box sets (the same number as 1987) available through different chains like McCrory's, Eckerds, Toys 'R Us, Walgreens, Revco, 7-11, Ben Franklin, and Cumberland Farms which each came with 6 stickers in addition to the 44 card sets:









What a fun time it was to be a collector! As you can see by the number of Fleer releases in 1988, there were a lot of new releases to track down, but it was still somewhat manageable.