Deion Sanders 1989 Upper Deck

Sometime in the last year or so I received this card but I'm not sure if it was from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

To me, this doesn't even look like a baseball card. It looks like the photographer was at Atlanta Falcons practice and snapped a pic of Deion Sanders without his helmet. 

It was always strange to me that Deion Sanders debuted with the Yankees. Strange might not be the right word, because Yankee owner George Steinbrenner really wanted to sign Bo Jackson, so drafting and promoting Sanders wasn't a crazy idea. What was weird--to me at least--was how much Sanders wasn't a typical Yankee. He was cocky as hell, but so was Reggie Jackson and practically any other person that wears the interlocking NY, right? Yes, but Reggie and his ilk came with a pedigree and was considered a winner. 

But when Sanders came to the majors, he was full of jheri-curl and gold and that's about it. His flash was seen as part of new generation and something that a Yankee would never do. Before every plate appearance, he'd draw a dollar sign in the dirt; something that bugged Carlton Fisk so much that he got into a shoving match with the brash outfielder that set off a mini-revolution of old school versus new. 

A Yankee could be brash and cocky, arrogant and dismissive, but in order to be those things AND be a Yankee, it had to be done the right way. In other words, there had to be two things to back that attitude up: either that person had to be a part of a winning team or that person had to put up huge numbers. 

Sanders did neither. And, unlike Jackson, it was obvious that baseball wasn't his number one sport--he even said as much referring to football as his "wife" and baseball as his "girlfriend". I think that the Yankees were at some sort of a cross road with Sanders, which was to either agree with the player that there is a new, very untraditional Yankee way of doing things and that Yankee baseball wasn't the number one thing in everyone's life or let him go. Sanders didn't hit very well in his year and a half in the Bronx, so that--plus his request for $1 million--an easy decision for General Manager Gene Michaels, and the Yankees let Prime Time expire. 

Sanders found a baseball home in the same city where he played football: Atlanta. He famously did double duty with the Braves and Falcons, even (trying) to play football and baseball on the same day -- something that hadn't been done before. Sanders played a 1:00 game against the Dolphins in Miami then flew to Pittsburgh to help the Braves defeat the Pirates in the NLCS. Atlanta General Manager John Schurholz and manager Bobby Cox weren't crazy about this idea and kept Sanders on the bench for the game. 

Which kind of sucks, because that would have been a cool thing to see. But I understand their reluctance to allow Sanders to do this. 

Sanders always had sparks of brilliance on the baseball field, but it never translated into a consistent success that he had in football. Aside from the Braves and Yankees, he toiled with the Reds and Giants too. Never much of a power hitter, his speed was his main weapon. When that went, so did Sanders' career. 

Sanders lasted longer in the NFL than he did in Major League Baseball, playing with the 49ers, the Cowboys (winning a Super Bowl with each of those teams) before finishing up with the Redskins and the Ravens. 

I'm not sure whether it was because he was the second person to play two sports, but I never thought that Deion Sanders captured the American public's imagination like Bo Jackson*. And it's unfortunate for Sanders to be compared to Jackson because Bo was the first, though one could argue that Sanders was probably better. 

* Before he went to Florida State, Sanders was originally drafted by the Royals. Can you imagine Bo and Deion in the same outfield?

I think primarily because he was the first and also because of his raw power, both on the football field and baseball diamond, Bo was lauded more than Sanders. Sanders would scratch out a single, steal two bases and then score on a sac fly. Bo would hit a mammoth home run. They both count as one run, but one had better optics. Same thing in football, Bo would knock over Brian Bosworth and score a touchdown. As a defensive back, Sanders would hang back and then pounce on an unsuspecting receiver, snatch the ball away and score a touchdown. 

I guess Sanders made things look easy, effortless. Bo was a gifted athlete, and he was hurt a bunch, but that worked for him. People thought that Bo gave more to the games than Sanders did, that he somehow worked harder. I don't think that's fair. Yes, Sanders, whether he was Neon Deion or Prime Time, was way flashier than Vincent Jackson, but to do what he did, you can't convince me that he didn't work harder. 

In subsequent years, guys like Brian Jordan and DJ Dozier would try their hand at dual sports, but they never made the impact that Bo and Deion did. Jordan came close, but couldn't do it like these two did. And if you think about it, playing two sports at a professional level is insane. It's hard enough to be good at one thing, never mind two. Former Patriots receiver and Red Sox outfielder Greg McMurtry couldn't do it. Michael Jordan couldn't do. Tim Tebow is having a tough time.

So while Deion wasn't the first, he was still one of the best of all times. He also dumped a bucket of water on Tim McCarver's head, which was pretty great too. 

Mike Boddicker 1989 Topps

Sometime in the last year or so I received this card but I'm not sure if it was from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On July 29, 1988; Lou Gorman made a trade that worked out well for both teams sending Red Sox prospects Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling to the Baltimore Orioles for veteran right hander Mike Boddicker. Anderson was a big time prospect and broke camp with the big-league at the beginning of the year and was sent back to Pawtucket by May. Schilling was a wild righty with good stuff, but a five-cent brain. At the time, no one really expected Schilling to do anything but Boston fans were nervous about losing Anderson. 

Anderson didn't have his breakout year until four season later in 1992 and became a three-time All Star with O's for the rest of the 1990s. Curt Schilling has a very good shot of making the Hall of Fame (if he can shut his mouth for more than five minutes) but didn't reach his potential until after the Houston Astros (who acquired him from an exasperated Orioles club) sent him to Philadelphia. In the City of Brotherly Love and with the Arizona Diamondbacks and back to the Red Sox, Schilling took off and became a perennial All-Star as well as one of the more dominant pitchers for the next 15 years. He lead his teams to four World Series, winning three of them -- including two all timers in 2001 and 2004. 

Mike Boddicker played with the Sox for two-and-a-half seasons compiling a 39-22 record before signing a free agent deal with the Kansas City Royals in the winter of 1990 and played for the Brewers in his last season. 

Why did this deal work out for both teams? The Orioles received two players that had they used patience with BOTH former Sox prospects would have seen a better return on their investment. But they only stuck with Anderson and he proved to be a player to wait for. Anderson had one of the strangest home run years in 1996 when he 50 round trippers, he never hit more than 24 before or after that year. When the O's began a mini renaissance in the Charm City, Anderson was one of their better players. 

Boddicker was the perfect fit for the Sox needs from 1988 through 1990. In July of 1988, the Sox were hot as hell flushed with Morgan Magic. They had Roger Clemens and Bruce Hurst to lead them, but after that, the pitching staff was pretty bleak. Gorman got Boddicker and he was the perfect third man in the rotation, going 7-3 with a 2.63 ERA for his new team. Not too bad. 

And with Hurst departing for San Diego that winter, he fit in nicely behind Clemens as the number two man on the staff winning 15 and 17 games in the next two seasons before taking off to KC. 

The reason why this trade works out for both teams is because where they were at at the time. The Sox were in the middle of a pennant race and couldn't afford to waste time on players that might be good in two, three or in Schilling and Anderson's case, four to five seasons down the road. Baltimore, on the other hand, had nothing but time. That year they started 0-22 and were in the midst of a full-fledged rebuild--wasting Cal Ripken's prime in the mean time--they had nothing else to do but see if the kids they had in their minor league system would hit. And some did. 

Most of the time, baseball trades aren't that big of a deal, they really don't change a team too much. Every once in awhile there will be a steal of a deal (like when Gorman sent Jeff Bagwell to the Astros for Larry Andersen in 1990) but those are few and far between. Even more rarer are the trades that help both teams, like this one. 

Joe Morgan 1991 Topps

Sometime in the last year or so I received this card but I'm not sure if it was from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

This is a cool card of Morgan. I like the design, I like the shot, everything is just great about it. 

Until Terry Francona showed up, Joe Morgan (not that Joe Morgan) was probably the best Red Sox manager of my life as baseball fan. That lineup includes, chronologically:

1. Ralph Houk -- I don't remember much about him, but from what I've read he was pretty much on autopilot from the moment he showed up in his first spring in Winter Haven. 

2. John McNamara -- seemed like an asshole who got swallowed up in his biggest moment. 

3. Butch Hobson -- so out of his league, that his firing was almost a mercy firing. 

4. Kevin Kennedy -- thought he was the smartest, coolest guy in the room. He was not. 

5. Jimy Williams -- the exact opposite of Kennedy and was incredibly confounding with rules, line-ups and starting pitching. Was pretty good with his bullpen though. 

6. Joe Kerrigan -- lasted about three months and was so over his head as a manager, that it wasn't funny. 

7. Grady Little -- like McNamara, except without being an asshole. 

Morgan was named interim manager after McNamara got the gate in 1988. He was supposed to last a day or two at the most, the Sox were negotiating with Bob "Buck" Rodgers* I believe (for some reason I want to say Whitey Herzog was also in the mix, but that has to be wrong), but Morgan brought a breath of fresh air to the team and they kept winning. And winning. And winning. They ended up winning 12 games in a row and were practically unbeatable at home. Red Sox GM Lou Gorman had no choice but to name Morgan the permanent manager for the rest of the season. 

* Wikipedia said the Sox were looking at Joe Torre and Lou Piniella as their skippers. Which would have changed the course of baseball history.

Morgan's team -- and it was truly Morgan's team that year, he got in Jim Rice's face when he sent Spike Owen to pinch hit for the beleaguered slugger, yelling "I'm the manager of this nine!" -- ended up winning the American League East only to get demolished in the ALCS by the Oakland Athletics 4-0. 

People liked Morgan because he was from the area, he hailed from Walpole drove a snowplow in the offseason, but he also weird things, "Six, two and even" -- which I guess is a sign off from the Dick Tracy radio programs, often managed on hunches and didn't kiss anyone's ass, see the Rice example above. 

He ended up finishing third in 1989, winning the AL East in 1990 (where they were again swept by the A's in the ALCS) and finishing second in 1991. The 1991 season was an underrated heartbreak as Jeff Reardon gave up a late season, game winning homer to New York Yankee Roberto Kelly that sent a previously surging Boston team into a tailspin for the last two weeks of the year. Sox brass had seen enough as he and his career win-loss record of 301-262 were shown the door. In one of his exit interviews, he told reporters that the team wasn't very good and he was right, they finished last in 1992 under new manager Hobson. 

Morgan played with the Kansas City Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals where he was a no-hit gloveman who bounced around the field. He was also a member of the Milwaukee Braves and would often come to the Boston Braves Historical Association's (BBHA) annual get togethers. I work with the BBHA and from what I've been told, he was awesome. A lot of times, he acted as the emcee for the dinners and was really cool. He told great stories, was funny and would hang around to talk to the fans. He truly seemed like a good guy.

For most of the 90s and into the 00s, many current Sox managers were compared to Morgan. Fans would call up Sports Radio begging for Morgan to be given his job back. I think that a lot of that had to do with him being a local guy. Even though New England is known as a place where a lot colleges are and has a reputation for being liberal and educated, there are a lot of people who like that blue-collar, no bullshit kind of guy. And Joe Morgan was definitely that. He would very matter-of-fact tell people his assessment of a player or the team and if it wasn't what they wanted to hear, so be it. 

I think that kind of honesty wears on folks you work with after awhile and maybe that's why Morgan got the gate. I know that Gorman said that Hobson was an up-and-coming minor league manager and even invoked the unholy boogey man that the Yankees were thinking of hiring him, but I think that was bullshit. My guess is that the front office just couldn't deal with a manager who didn't give a shit to what they wanted him to do and was incredibly popular with the fans. 

Six, two and even, indeed. 

Joe Price 1990 Fleer

On December 24, 2018 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: A new BCB came on Friday and my brother in law John Manasso has the privilege of opening up the envelope. 

Today’s card is Joe Price, who is not to be confused with his name doppelgänger David Price. Joe hasn’t made the amount of money in his whole career as David gets in a quarter of the season, but he also hasn’t has the same success either. 

I don’t recall much about Joe. He was with the Sox for a little more than half the season and he was just there. He wasn’t anything special at all. He wasn’t really good and he wasn’t really bad. He just was. 

He finished his decade-plus career with the Orioles the following year. 

What’s interesting about Joe Price is the philosophical debate he encapsulates. Price was released by the Giants in May 1989. San Francisco went on to the World Series five months later—this is one of my favorite teams BTW. Kevin Mitchell, Will Clark and Matt Williams made up a killer middle of the order. 

I digress. 

When Price settles in to watch the Series, who did he root for? The team that he once belonged to, the one with some of his friends still on the roster? Or did he root against the team that rudely released him on the way to a special season?

We’ve all been fired or dumped or told that you aren’t worth it and it sucks. No matter how much you want to take the high road, there’s a gnawing feeling that you want to see that organization or person fail without you around. And no matter how strong of a relationship you have with the person/people who left you behind, it can be tough to see them succeed without you. 

Did you hold them back? Was it your fault they didn’t reach these heights? Thoughts like that run through your head. 

But these are guys you competed with day after day. You sat in the bullpen with them and swapped stories, learned about their families and spit sunflower seeds at them. They didn’t release you, upper management did. Why should you root against them? They didn’t do anything to you. 

It’s a quandary. 

Joe Price, a really ordinary pitcher but a nice Rorschach Test on how one feels about rejection and putting things behind you. 

Merry Christmas, everyone.

2019 Notes: This is the last card that I received from the BCB. It's been about two months and I'm not sure if I'll ever get another one. But fear not! I found four more cards that I've picked up that I'll write about as if they were sent to me by the Baseball Card Bandit. Just know that they weren't. 

As far as Joe Price goes, every time I think of him (which isn't too much) I think of one of the last Spider-Man stories that Steve Ditko drew. It was called, "Just a Guy Named Joe" and that's kind of how I look at Price. He played for the Reds for a while, the aforementioned Giants and Red Sox before finishing his career as an Oriole. 

He debuted with Cincinnati after the Big Red Machine broke up, yet he played with a lot of the guys that dominated that team, only they were shadows of themselves. Johnny Bench, Dave Concepcion, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, among others were all teammates of Price. I wonder what that was like, playing with men who you expect to be great but because of age, just weren't the same as they used to be. 

And imagine being a pitcher managed by Rose when he was heavily betting? I'm surprised there hasn't been a class-action suit against him. 

Price was as ordinary as his first name, he never led the league in anything, didn't appear in an All-Star Game and got into two games in the 1987 National League Championship series, winning one. It appears that he stuck around long enough to get a pension, which is something pretty cool. But his career was just okay. 

And like I keep saying in these blogs, a mediocre or even poor career in the big leagues is a huge success. To be able to compete with the best of the best at a high level with the scrutiny of your team, the press and the fans; that takes a lot of mental toughness to finish four games below .500 in the win-loss column (Price's career record is 45-49). 

Joe Price was a major league pitcher for ten years. That's a pretty incredible thing to say. 

Kevin Romine 1990 Fleer

On December 21, 2018 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

The BCB sent this bad boy a few days ago.

2019 Notes: This card is the definition of a "bad boy". Look at Romine there, the start of a mullet, mustache (even though by that time a mustache is passé) the squinted eyes staring off into the distance. Romine had all the swagger of a late 80s pro ballplayer. When someone asks you what a late 80s/early 90s back up outfielder looks like, show them this card. 

The passage of time is often times subtle. One day you notice gray hairs, wrinkles on your face and a little more cushion around the stomach. Time has a way of sneaking up on you and screaming “You’re old!” loud enough so that everyone hears. 

Sports is different. Sure there are still subtleties, like your favorite outfielder can’t quite catch up to a fastball anymore or your team’s quarterback can’t throw the ball more than 20 yards at a time. But, like life, then there are the big signs like when age sneaks up and yell at you, like when a player you remember as a rookie has two kids in the major leagues. 

Kevin Romine was a fourth or fifth outfielder for the Red Sox for most of his career. I remember him fighting Randy Kutcher for playing time for a majority of his career, which isn’t how he probably thought his career would end up. But his two kids, Yankee Austin and Tiger Andrew have each played in the league since 2011. 

That’s a long time.  

Anyway, Kevin didn’t have much of a career filled with notoriety. About the only real moment he had was in 1988 he hit a walk off dinger—his first major league homer—off Royals reliever (and future Red Sox) Steve Farr in the midst of Morgan Magic. 

I remember exactly where I was when this happened, when I was a kid I worked for my church. I was an altar boy and I opened the church. When I didn’t have to serve I usually sat in back of the sacristy and listen to my Walkman. Usually Kiss or Poison would be in the tape deck but this day I was listening to the ball game. 

When Romine hit his homer, Mass was still being said and I recall letting out a loud “YES!” which may have disrupted the celebration. 

As far as I know that’s about the only real obvious net positive effect that Romine had on a Sox game even though he played with them four more than four seasons. Yet every time I hear about him or his kids, I think about being an altar boy and then it hits me: that was 30 fucking years ago. 

Time flies, my friends. One day you’re cheering for Kevin Romine and the next your rooting against his kids.


2019: I was talking with my friend the other day and I said that if you ran up to me and asked me what year it was, I'd reflexively say that it was 1998 or something. It actually takes me a moment or two to remember that 2000 was 19 years ago. That there is a generation of kids who don't remember 9/11 or when the Patriots were horrible. Time passes by fast, more quickly than my mind can process sometimes.

I wonder what Romine is most proud of: his career in the majors or that two of his sons have had long careers in baseball? I bet that if push came to shove, he'd say the latter. Wouldn't you?

Dennis Lamp 1990 Fleer

On December 14, 2018 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: A few days ago I received this illuminating card from the BCB. If you aren’t a fan of the 1985 Toronto Blue Jays, you might not remember Dennis Lamp. However, that was the year he put it all together and allowed him to have a career that spanned three decades. 

2019 Notes: "Illuminating", I've never met a pun I didn't love. I'm shocked that I didn't use the Brick Tamland quote, "I LOVE LAMP!" in this entry. I don't care what anyone says, "Anchorman" is still really funny.

I usually hate doing this because what does any profession really look like, but Dennis Lamp doesn't look like a ballplayer. He looks like a fireman or a driving instructor. I bet that, even now, he could kick my ass in anything athletic.  

In 1977 he made his debut with Cubs as a starter and was traded across town to the White Sox. Funny thing is that the Cubs and White Sox worry less about intercity trades than other franchises — hell, the Sox sent the Cubbies Sammy Sosa for a broken down former member of the 85 Blue Jays, George Bell. 

Tangent: I bet it would be cool to be traded from one side of the city to another. So much less work. You can keep your own house!

Anyway, Lamp went to the White Sox, started a bit and moved into the bullpen. After the 84 season he moved on from the Sox only this time it wasn’t across a city but from one country to another. 

This is when he had his career year going 11-0 with three saves and a 3.32 ERA. Yes, wins are a dumb stat especially for someone coming out of the bullpen, but 11 straight wins is pretty impressive. And it got him some MVP votes, ultimately finishing 20 spots behind winner Don Mattingly. 

The 1985 was the high water mark for Lamp and he never approached those numbers again. Already a journeyman, Lamp bounced around to four different teams before calling it quits in 1992. 

I’m not sure how Lamp had such a magical season in 85. He didn’t have overpowering stuff or a funky delivery. I don’t remember a devastating curve or a wackadoo slider. He was just the best Dennis Lamp he could possibly be that year. 

And when he was with the Red Sox, he was fine. He didn’t inspire dread like Calvin Schiraldi nor did he bring confidence like Lee Smith. Sometimes he’d extinguish the fire but other times, he’d make it worse.

That was Dennis Lamp. And he was okay. 

Sports is unlike most other professions in that one's worth can be measured in neat time capsules. If you have enough good years, people will think you’re good. Have enough bad years and you’re out of a job. But an outlier year like 1985 makes people scratch their heads. And it provides hope for GMs to offer you another job.

“Can he catch lightning in a bottle again and go 11-0? I don’t know. Let’s find out!” 

Lamp played 16 season and finished with a 96-96 record which means that without 1985, he’d be 11 games under .500. And maybe without that amazing year he doesn’t hang on for another seven seasons. 

The moral is all you really need is one really good year to stay employed. And that seems like enough.

2019: Like yesterday's Tom Bolton entry, I don't have a heck of a lot to add. During the last few entries, I guess I was more wordy on the Facebook entries. Aside from the two Sox, Cubs and Jays; Lamp also found his way into the Athletics and Pirates organizations. 

Lamp never made an All-Star team (and if he was, it would be 1985) or pitched in a World Series. 

I know that I spent a lot of words talking about how must've looked at Lamp and wondered if they could recapture his 1985 record, but I wonder when that stopped (aside from 1992 -- his last year in the Majors)? At some point it had to dawn on everyone that Dennis Lamp was who he was, a below .500 pitcher who got really lucky one year. I wonder if in 1985 Lamp thought that he was fooling the league and waiting for the other shoe to drop or whether he thought that he was finally reaching his full potential. 

Knowing that baseball is a game obsessed with pessimism, my thought is that while 1985 looked like a lot of fun for Lamp; I bet that it wasn't. And then spending all winter wondering whether he could keep it going, I bet it drove him nuts. 

Dennis Lamp had to look at himself every day and think, "I'm not an 11-0 pitcher. Nowhere close. Why is this happening to me?" And then the following year when he ended up 2-5, with an ERA almost two runs higher than it was the previous year, he probably had to talk more and more about how 1985 was an anomaly and that he was always who he was. That's a monkey paw wish that must've been maddening. 

"I don't know why people are hitting me so hard. I don't understand why I'm not undefeated. I'm doing all of the same stuff."

Success can be a curse, you guys. 

Tom Bolton 1989 Topps

On December 7, 2018 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: New BCB came on Tuesday all the way from the last place the Red Sox played this year, La La Land. 

2019 Notes: In pictures, Tom Bolton always looked nervous to me. Like he somehow conned his way on to the Red Sox and was about to get found out. He never looked relaxed or confident. I will say that the coolest thing about this card is the giant Ferris wheel in the background. You don't see too many Ferris wheels in the background of baseball cards. I don't think that this shot was taken at Winter Haven, so I wonder where it was snapped? 

BTW, back in the day in the background of a lot of Red Sox Spring Training shots there was this gigantic orange dome. I can't remember what its purpose was, but I always imagined that there was some weird orange growing expo happening in there. Like a bunch of Floridians gathered every day to sell their wares beneath the orange dome. "Grab a tasty orange before you watch the game," they'd yell. 

I wish that I had a picture of it. But I don't. 

This entry is about a very forgettable pitcher that toiled for the Sox, Reds, Tigers and Orioles: Tom Bolton. You may not remember Bolton because,quite frankly, he wasn’t very good. And he wasn’t a member of any special teams (someone had to win the AL East and be roadkill for the A’s in the late 80s/early 90s ALCS) that make deities out of the most ordinary players. 

Over eight seasons, Bolton did his job to the best of his ability and more often than not got his head kicked in, his career ERA was 4.56. But there were also games that he pitched well and gave his team a fighting chance. In 1990 he actually pulled it all together for one year going 10-5 with a 3.38 ERA. 

Bolton was traded straight up to Cincinnati for a month long Boston hero (and former World Series MVP and superball supporter) Billy Hatcher. Hatcher stole home in his first couple of games as a Sox and fans acted as if the team won the World Series and got Rickey Henderson at the same time—it was a dark time in the Nation. 

But Bolton and other players like him play an important part in the fabric of all sports. Bolton’s best season was a pretty good first half for teammate and superstar Roger Clemens. I know that using wins and losses to determine a pitcher’s usefulness is primitive and gauche, but I’m making a point here. 

Superstars need the Boltons of the world to make them look good, to make them seem otherworldly. Put it this way, if you faced Tom Bolton in high school, he’d have been the best pitcher you were ever going to face. By a mile. You’d talk about him over beers with your buddies forever. In the majors, he’s just another guy. Less than that, he’s about average (on a very good day). 

The star pitchers of his day, Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Dwight Gooden, Orel Hershiser made it look effortless. And sometimes I don’t think that we all appreciate that, especially in the moment. We like our stars to sweat a bit. But here comes Tom Bolton, beating the odds, making the majors, working his ass off, hanging around for almost a decade and the best he could do was a sub 3.50 ERA and five games over .500. 

That’s something. But it’s also not much of anything. 

To be honest Bolton is more relatable to most of us but at the same time, he’s also more forgettable. That says something about the Everyman. We say we appreciate them but we really don’t. 

But they have their parts to play. 

No. We can’t all be superstars at the highest level. Sometimes our lot in life is to make the truly special shine brighter. Through his inadequacies on the mound, Bolton was able to do that exceptionally.

2019: I don't have a heck of a lot to add to this entry. Tom Bolton was just a dude. A very talented dude in the grand scheme of things, but just a regular dude in his world. I recall reading an interview with a player who said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "the Majors are great for superstars. For the rest of us, it's agony because we're always thinking that we're about to be replaced."

The thought behind that is that whether they get traded or released or benched or sent to the minors, unless you're a superstar (and there are few true superstars), you're job is always in jeopardy. You can't relax, you're always looking over your shoulder. Your boss is telling everyone that he can replace you with someone younger, cheaper and in some cases better. If the job you're in right now was like that, how would you perform?

Yes, the money is better. But for the majority of ballplayers, it's not life changing. And many never reach that pinnacle where they get a ton of money to play ball.

With this much pressure on you, I would think that it would be difficult to do well. But Bolton did pretty well for himself. As good as he wanted to? Probably not. I am sure that when he viewed himself, he saw himself as Roger Clemens with a mustache. But reality is different. So he dealt with his reality and did the best that he possibly could. 

And that will just have to do. 

Eric Hetzel 1990 Fleer

On October 17, 2018 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: After an extended vacation, the BCB returned with an Eric Hetzel 1990 Fleer card yesterday. 

To be blunt, Eric Hetzel sucked. This isn’t just my opinion, but that of the good people at Fleer who pretty much said the same thing on the back of his card (it actually said he had the worst ERA on the team). But I remember that even though Hetzel stunk and his numbers in the minors were poor, people were kind of excited about him. 

This is during a time when the Sox couldn’t develop a pitcher to save their lives and dudes like Hetzel and Tom Bolton and Rob Woodward and Jeff Sellers and Steve Ellsworth were considered the next big things. 

In the 80s, Sox minor league system cycled. In the early part of the decade they developed a ton of pitchers: John Tudor, Roger Clemens, Oil Can Boyd, Bruce Hurst and Bob Ojeda. Aside from Wade Boggs and Marty Barrett, no real position players. But after Clemens, the pitching pipeline dried up. From then on, it was all hitters. 

It was in the middle of this fallow pitching period when Hetzel debuted and people thought he might be something. He wasn’t. Though I assume his arm injury that caused him to miss an entire year also had something to do with his poor performance other than just plain ineptitude. 

Too bad Eric Hetzel, if you did well you could have endorsed some knotted bread and we’d all be eating Hetzel’s Pretzels today.

2019 Notes: I think that I was a little rough in my initial post on Eric Hetzel. 

Unfortunately, there isn't much to say about Eric Hetzel. I looked him up on Wikipedia and his entry (yes, he has an entry -- I'd wager that there aren't many professional athletes who do not) said that a shoulder injury forced him out of MLB after two seasons. 

I've written a lot about wondering how athletes feel about being on the downside of their careers. How they have to retire before they were ready to -- I assume that Hetzel didn't want to stop playing baseball after two years in the bigs. But on baseball-reference, I noticed that Hetzel was drafted four different times: once in the fifth round by Boston in 1983, once in the second round of the January 1984 amateur draft by the Pirates, once in the first round of the June 1984 amateur draft (for awhile, there were two amateur drafts, which seems really weird) and finally in the first round of the 1985 June amateur draft by the Red Sox. 

It's not like Hetzel went to a college baseball factory and this sort of stuff happened all the time, he was at East Oklahoma State University when he was drafted by the Royals and Pirates; so I bet that was big news. He then transferred to Louisiana State University for his last year before he was drafted his last time by the Sox. 

But still, at EOSU Hetzel was a big fish. I wonder why he transferred? He was drafted in the first round while at his old school, why go to LSU? You can't get drafted any higher and there's a lot of downside, like what if you get your ass handed to you by the SEC boys. Your stock will plummet. Though I assume that's not how a high-profile athlete thinks. He probably knows that he'll kill it anywhere he goes. 

When I went to Merrimack College, the hockey team stunk. We played in the best league in the country, Hockey East, and the team routinely got their heads kicked in. But there were a couple of guys on the team who were drafted by pro teams and would go to college to get more seasoned. 

One night I was at a party and I started talking to a couple of guys from the team -- this was something that never happened, the hockey team was royalty on campus and I was never in their social orbit. Anyway, I was kind of drunk and I start falling all over myself talking to these guys about how cool it was to get drafted and how that they're going to be pro athletes and how they'll probably play with the famous names on the big club.  They were like, "Yeah, we can't wait!" or something polite and then they excused themselves to talk to someone who wasn't a complete idiot. Even the next day, I was so embarrassed.

Anyway, I'd like to think that somewhere in the early 80s, Eric Hetzel was at a party at EOSU and some drunken dork said something similar to him. Maybe that made him feel good. Maybe when he gets sad about how his pro dreams didn't turn out the way he wanted them to, that there was a time when he was the best pitcher in his league and everyone knew it. And how he went from the fifth round to the second round to the first round (twice!). Also how he went from a small school to a big time baseball factory and still excelled. That's what I would focus on. 

BTW, the two dudes I was fawning over, one made it to the NHL for a handful of games. The other did not, as far as I know. 

Randy Kutcher 1990 Topps

On May 1, 2018 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: It’s been a little while,but the BCB dropped off another card a few days ago. This time it’s from Hong Kong and it’s for former Red Sox backup backup outfielder Randy Kutcher. 

If you don’t remember Randy Kutcher, I don’t blame you. I’d always confused him with Sox fourth outfielder Kevin Romine. Romine was a bit better though. Kutcher was dreadful. 

2019 Notes: in a few days you'll read a bit about Kevin Romine. For some reason the Sox were really intent on keeping two back-up outfielders in the late 80s. Kutcher played five years and finished with a 228/285/377 slash and 10 homers. Romine played seven years at 251/306/325 and seven dingers. These two players are practically the same, I'm not sure why one of them were on the Red Sox, never mind two. 

For some reason, I want to say that Kutcher was always whispered as the team's third-string catcher. And according to baseball-reference, he did catch! In 1989, Kutcher played one game (2.2 innings) as a catcher in the major leagues. Good for him. 

He didn’t do much for the Sox. He wasn’t fast, he didn’t hit with power—in 1989 he hit more triples (three) than homers (two), which is odd. For some reason he got 160 ABs that year and basically struck out a third of the time. Use that stat the next time someone tells you Joe Morgan was a genius. 

In 1989, that many strikeouts was a big deal. And also he barely walked. All-in-all Randy Kutcher pretty much sucked. However he was:

- traded by the Sox to the San Francisco Giants for Dave Henderson at the 1987 trade deadline, which definitely colored my view of Kutcher. Hendu was my favorite, I was devastated when they let him go. BTW, did you know that Hendu wore a “Fuck Boston” T-shirt under his uniform for the rest of his career? The fuck, Dave?

2019: when I read about Henderson -- and I can't recall exactly where I found this -- it really bugged me. From what I remember, he was beloved in Boston. Even when he sucked in 1987 (and Henderson was not good when he won the starting centerfield job that season) I don't recall anyone booing him. Maybe he was pissed off at Boston management, but then again GM Lou Gorman rescued him from Baseball Siberia, aka the Seattle Mariners. 

- he was born in Alaska. I bet him and Curt Schilling talked a lot about that during spring training before Curt was sent to Baltimore. At least I imagine they did. I sometimes used to make up fake baseball player conversations. 

2019: I can't recall any athlete whose star has fallen faster than Curt Schilling -- non double homicide division. I don't even want to get into his issues, it's just way too depressing. 

- in high school, one of my friends Christopher Graham Baird called him “Crater Faced” Kutcher. That was an appropriate and funny nickname. Kudos to you, Chris! Your nickname is more memorable than the player.

Rick Cerone 1990 Fleer

On March 6, 2018 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: A few weeks ago the BCB sent another card. This is of former Red Sox catcher, Rick Cerone. 

Cerone was a backstop who bounced around — he was on eight different teams. You might remember him from his years as a Yankee — he wore pinstripes three different times. By the time he came to Boston, he was nearing the end of his career. 

2019 Notes: Cerone was a member of (in order) the Indians, Blue Jays, Yankees, Braves, Brewers, Yankees (again), Red Sox, Yankees (one more time), Mets and Expos. For some reason I think it's funny thinking of Rick Cerone trying to navigate the streets of Montreal as very funny. I'm sure he's an erudite and sophisticated dude in real life, but he always looked like a doofus Staten Island longshoreman. "Yeah, hey Frenchy, how the fuck do I get to the fucking Olympic Stadium?I gotta fucking game today, asshole. Fucking speak American, fucko. Jesus fucking Christ, this place sucks. Can't even get good gabbagool here. Fughadaboutit."

He probably never said that, but a boy can dream!

Cerone didn’t hit much but by the end of the 80s, the Sox were kinda screwed when it came to catchers. John Marzano (RIP) never panned out, Rich German forgot how to hit and you’d never find a more text book case of nepotism than Marc Sullivan. 

2019:  you guys, I am really quite bitter towards Marc Sullivan. 

So when a dude gets released by your rival, can hit .240 and plays okay defense, I suppose in this case, you have to sign him. That pretty pathetic production would, unfortunately, help that team. So the Sox did just that. 

Like I said, Cerone didn’t make much of an impression on the field, but he did make an impact off. In a Cleveland (or Detroit, I forget which one exactly) hotel lobby Cerone and Dwight Evans got into a fistfight. I don’t recall why or who won, but fighting Dewey? Seriously? Go back to the Yankees, you jackass. 

And guess what, he did just that in 1990 after the Sox signed Tony Pena in the offseason -- who took his number six (since retired for Johnny Pesky).

2019: I don't believe in those "embedded rivals from another team" stories. They're dumb and they're lazy and they're just not true. People used to say it about former Sox and Yankees reliever Ramiro Mendoza all the time. And I know that it was supposed to be fun, but I think after awhile people began to believe it. "Cashman let Mendoza go so that he could sign with the Red Sox and ruin the team from within. How else can you explain why he sucks so bad?"

So went the logic in the summer of 2004. 

It's not remotely true. Professional athletes are Hessians who play for any team that will pay them and allow them the most playing time. Once you sign your professional contract, those feelings are out the door*.

* It's why when people use "evidence" like, "Here's a picture of player X wearing a Yankees jersey when he was a kid, I just know that he's coming to the Bronx!" Yeah, lots of kids wore Yankees gear when they were kids. If the Houston Astros offered a penny more, they'd be an Astro. No one is going to turn down money because they really, really liked a team when they were 12-years-old. I'm sure that kid used to love Dunkeroos too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while there's a lot of lip service, for the most part, athletes see themselves as ballplayers rather than a Ranger or a Laker or a Giant. Yes, there are some very rare exceptions (Tom Brady, Derek Jeter to name a few) but that's just how it goes. No matter what we want to believe, players just don't have the same emotional connection to the team they play for that we as fans do. They just don't. 

Like everything in life, there are exceptions. 

Rick Cerone never looked the part of a Red Sox. With that black mustache and cocky demeanor. he looked as if he just arrived off a commuter boat from Staten Island. He always looked annoyed that he was in a uniform without pinstripes. And while I don't think that many players particularly care which city they find themselves in, Cerone really seemed to. He was born in Newark, NJ, went to Seton Hall and played for the Yankees three different times and the Mets once. He was the team's catcher after Thurman Munson wrecked his plane and even after he retired, settled close to Manhattan, worked for the WPIX and eventually founded the minor league Newark Bears. 

As a Red Sox, he didn't do much. He platooned with Gedman in 1988 and according to Wikipedia, never got into a game in that season's ALCS. That really must have pissed him off -- I know that I'd be mad. He ended up playing for 18 seasons, made it to the World Series once (a 1981 loss to the Dodgers) and spent a bulk of his career with his favorite team. 

I would bet that if you asked 12-year-old Rick Cerone what he wanted out of his life, I bet the answer would be, "I want to fucking play catcher for the fucking New York fucking Yankees." Well, congratulations young Rick, you got your wish.