Sherry Magee 1992 Sporting News

Last week the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB) threw me a changeup and sent me this card:

 

 

If baseball--and all sports--are to continue into the future, there is going to come a time when all of the sports heroes that we loved and worshiped are going to be nothing but a collection of random letters that mean nothing to futuristic people. It's weird but it happens now. 

As I've said dozens of times, one of the best things about baseball is that games are played every single day. You don't have to wait until Saturday like in football, Sunday like in other football, or get a few games a week like in hockey or hoops. Day-in, day-out with baseball you're probably getting a game--maybe two if you're lucky. 

In that way, you start to "know" the players. For some guys if you passed them on the street you'd be able to recognize their faces but at the very least you know their names. Like if I said "Trevor Story" you'd say, "Oh yeah, he's the guy who plays shortstop for the Sox when he isn't hurt."

The point is, you know their names, they take up space in your brain. But brains are funny things, once you don't see someone every day you might forget who they are--no matter if you saw them every day for three seasons. This blog is littered with guys that fit that description. The one exception are our stars, you might not have thought about Wade Boggs in a long time, but you know who he is. You know what he looks like. You probably even know most of his statistics--even in a vague sort of way. Stars never dim.

But they do. At some point in the future, there's going to be a person who loves baseball but isn't familar with Boggs. Or Jim Rice. Or Roger Clemens. Or Pedro Martinez. Or David Ortiz. Or Manny Ramirez. Those are going to be funny sounding names from long ago. Their stars are going to take precedent in their skies. 

That's the way life goes. 

Which brings us to today's card of Sherry Magee. I'm a member of the Boston Braves Historical Association and I'm embarrassed to say that while I've heard of Magee's name (it's hard to forget a dude named "Sherry"), I don't know much about him. According to the biography on the back of this card, Magee was the Philadelphia Phillies leftfielder for 11 seasons, before coming to the Braves in 1915*, played two-and-a-half seasons before finishing his career in Cincinnati in 1919.    

* I was going to say that it sucks for Magee that he came to the Braves a year too late to be on the 1914 Miracle Braves squad. But he made up for it by playing two games in the 1919 World Series and winning a ring with the Reds in his last year. If the 1919 World Series is familiar to you, that's because that was the Black Sox Series. I guess Magee was happy that these rubes sold out to gamblers to fuck owner Charlie Comiskey over. He should send a cigar to the Old Roman--though maybe Magee and Commie aren't in the same place now. 

Anyway once he was done with playing baseball he became a big league umpire in 1928. According to this card*, Magee could have had a long career in blue but he died of pneumonia the next season. 

* Look at this card, he was in his early 30s when this picture was taken. That face looks like it's seen some shit, doesn't it? Why does every old picture seem that way. No one looks rested or relaxed or healthy. They look like they all came out of a mine somewhere and are seeing daylight for the first time since they were nine. Are we going to look like that to future generations? I bet the answer is yes. 

The question on the card says, "Why Not in the Hall of Fame?" and I can't tell you why. He lead the league in a bunch of hitting categories but not a ton. He looks like one of those Hall of Really Good dudes that you read about. My guess is that once the Hall got up and running, Magee was just one of those players who got lost in the shuffle. Maybe if he started his playing career ten years later and lasted a little longer as an umpire, he'd have gotten the call. But he didn't and he's forgotten to history. 

Well at least until weirdos find his card and send them to unsuspecting, good looking people like me. Pour one out tonight for Sherry Magee, his name might suck (it's short for Sherwood, I think that I'd rather be called that) but his career was decent. And like I said, that's about all you can hope for when you shuffle off this mortal coil. 

Deion Sanders 1992 Score

 Two weeks ago, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

When he first broke into the Major Leagues, Deion Sanders didn't appear to fit in with baseball culture. This is not a criticism of Sanders, baseball culture is often closed-minded, exclusionary, overly conservative and administered by a collection of red asses who rule on whether players break the hallowed and oftentimes hypocritical "unwritten rules of baseball". 

This "respect the love of the game" crap isn't a new thing. The unwritten rules of baseball have always performative bullshit that has made the game unpopular with the younger generations going all the way back to the 70s. 

Every once in awhile a player comes up, usually a minority, who has a little flash in his game. Smiles a little too much. Takes a bit more time to get out of the batter's box when he hits a homerun. Is a little too demonstrative when he strikes out a key batter in a big situation. The Lords of the Game don't like that stuff, young players need to know their place. They need to shut up and watch how these old bastards play. 

Deion Sanders wasn't going to deal with that crap. He didn't need to deal with that crap because he had a second job that afforded him a lot more money and notoriety. After dominating the NCAA as a Florida State Seminole on the gridiron, he was a starting cornerback for the Atlanta Falcons and he had two nicknames: Prime Time and Neon Deion. He also played a little baseball for FSU and if Bo Jackson can play two sports, why couldn't Deion Sanders?

Baseball players like their routines and Sanders was no different. Before Wade Boggs would step into the batters' box, he'd draw the Hebrew symbol for luck, Chai (it looks like the Greek character Pi), in the dirt with the barrel of his bat. Then he'd get in the box and bang out a double. Sanders had his drawing routine too, only he didn't draw a Chai (Deion didn't need luck) he'd draw a dollar sign in the dirt. 

This drove the old heads in baseball insane. Who does this young punk think he is? He's a Yankee! Why doesn't he respect the game like the Babe did (who'd often play very hung over)? Or Joe D. (who was a colossal prick)? Or Mickey Mantle (another drunk)? Who was this Neon Deion Prime Time character and why was he fucking with baseball and how it's meant to be played?

Former Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk was in his customary spot behind the dish in 1990 when Sanders strolled to the plate against the White Sox. He drew his dollar sign and settled into the box. Fisk called time, went to where the dollar sign was and brushed it away during his first at bat. In his second AB, Sanders did the same thing and then supposedly said*, "the days of slavery are over." The two started jawing back and forth, the benches emptied, no punches were thrown but the game's gatekeeper (Fisk had been in the league since 1969 and was probably the game's oldest player--Sanders was one year younger than Fisk's MLB career at that point) made his point: "Don't fuck with the game."

 * Sanders denies saying this. 

Tons of ink was spilled over this argument with many sportswriters taking Fisk's side (surprise, sur-fucking-prise), Sanders was public enemy number one with conservatives and since he never seemed to have time for sportswriters, they sharpened their knives and were looking to feast. It didn't help that Sanders sorta sucked for the Yanks and unlike Jackson, when NFL Training Camp opened in the summer, Sanders left the baseball world. 

He often said that "Football was his wife and baseball was his girlfriend" which, again, didn't sit too well with early 90s baseball writers who believe that a late season clash between the Mariners and Angels was an ode to the trepidation of summer mixed with a navel gazing that only a Boomer can provide. Guys who like football better--especially guys who like football and rap--need not apply. 

Sanders was released by New York at the end of the 90 season, the Bombers were so bad during this time and many people felt that the only reason Sanders was on the team was because they needed publicity. In the winter of 1991, he signed with the Braves and appeared to learn to be a better ballplayer in the Majors. His batting average still sucked but his OBP and slugging percentages rose his first year in Atlanta. He still took September in October off, but no one was really pissed because the Braves were good that year and he was still a bench player. 

The following year was probably Deion's best year in the Bigs as he lead the league in triples (14) and played well enough that he was added to post season roster. The girlfriend interfered a bit with his wife a bit during this season, but Sanders was the first person to play baseball during the week and football on Sundays. It was pretty wild, not even Bo did that. Braves manager Bobby Cox didn't love that, he was a red ass baseball dude of course, and felt that it was a "distraction" to the team. But what could he do? 

Deion was only warming up, that year the Braves played the Pittsburgh Pirates in the playoffs. Game 5 was set for Sunday night October 11 and Deion was planning to play. Only problem was the Falcons had a game against the Miami Dolphins that afternoon (1:00 pm) and he was planning to play that game too. After Atlanta's win on Saturday night, Deion flew from Pennsylvania to Georgia, got some sleep and then was at the stadium to play the Dolphins. 

After that game was over, he hired a helicopter to take him from Atlanta Fulton County Stadium to the airport where he jumped on a plane to get him to Pittsburgh. He showed up at 8:16 pm, which meant he wasn't going to be in the starting lineup. No problem, he was ready to play. The Braves lost 7-1 and Cox never put him in the game. Which was a complete bummer. Why wouldn't you put Deion in to get a rally going? But Cox wasn't having any of it and another red ass kills another fun time in baseball. 

Sanders played a few more seasons in Atlanta, was traded to Cincinnati, played a half year in San Francisco, retired from baseball for a few seasons and then came back to the Reds in 1997 and 2001. His baseball skills never matched up to his football skills, but he could still play. 

Unless you were former St. Louis Cardinals and CBS lead baseball color guy Tim McCarver, Sanders kind of chilled out. Apparently Sanders didn't like some of the stuff that McCarver was saying about him so after the Braves clinched a trip to the 1992 World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays (where Sanders was on fire), Deion dumped a whole bucket full of water on McCarver on live TV. McCarver was embarrassed, angry but the only thing he could say was, "You're a real man Sanders! A real man!" Which made me and a lot of wise ass baseball fans laugh--McCarver wasn't ever considered cool. 

But like I said, he chilled out. He no longer drew the dollar sign before he stepped into the batter's box. When he was with the Reds in 1997, MLB celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line*. Sanders wanted to honor Jackie by getting the Red's sleeves to be hemmed real short because that's how he thought that Jackie wore his sleeves. Jackie did, it just looked like he did in old pictures. But it was still a pretty cool tribute by Deion Sanders, who got the whole team to wear their sleeves like Jackie. 

* Baseball is really good at patting themselves on the back for "fixing" something that they broke decades prior. African Americans should have been playing in the Majors since baseball started, there's no reason why they shouldn't have been, only MLB was run by idiotic racists. 

Playing one professional sport is hard, playing two is almost impossible and playing two at the same time is bonkers-time crazy. I still can't believe that Sanders did it. In this era of specialization, I doubt that we'll ever see anything like this again--which is why Bobby Cox sucks so hard. But it was cool that people my age got to live through an era of athletes that might never be seen again. 

To quote Tim McCarver, "You're a real man Deion."