On April 17, 2017 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):
On Facebook, I wrote: The BCB takes no holidays! I came home from my parents' house yesterday and found this waiting in my doorstop. And the BCB is so current too.
You may remember that Otis Nixon was in the news last week because he went missing from his Atlanta home. He was found safe and sound a few days later.
Home is an interesting concept to Nixon as he bounced around to nine different organizations in his 18-year career, including one year in Boston. It was the strike-shortened season of 1994 and he swiped 42 bags and was caught ten times.
The Sox had no idea what to do with him (they batted him lead off because he was fast but his OBP was atrocious: .360) and was shipped to Texas as part of the Jose Canseco deal.
Canseco was a dude the Sox knew and loved. A tall right handed power guy well past his prime.
Nixon never won a World Series but played in three Fall Classics (all with Atlanta). He also made north of $19M in his career, though if he stayed away from the Bolivian marching powder he would have made more. But he was better than his brother Donnell and that's what matters.
2019 Notes: Despite playing for the Red Sox, Nixon was the type of player who didn't play for Boston a lot. Like I said above, he was fast, good defensively, no power and no arm. You can look through the years and the Red Sox don't have a lot of players like that.
The thing about Nixon is that he looked older than he was. How old do you think he is in that baseball card above? Assuming that that photo was taken in 1989, he's 30-years-old. In any event, he played 17 seasons in the bigs, which is pretty impressive considering he made his money with his legs. And the legs are usually the first to go, see Ellsbury, Jacoby.
I would've bet that he was an All-Star at least once, but he didn't. I realize that I'm hung up on who was and who wasn't an All-Star. I'm not sure why, but I am.
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