Daryl Irvine 1992 Fleer

Sometime in the last two or three months, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

 

 

I don’t recall anything about Daryl Irvine’s days in Boston. According to the back of this card, Daryl was “one of the top closers in the minor leagues [and] will try to graduate to the big leagues in 1992.” He played three years in the Bigs (1990, 1991 and 1992) and was the exact opposite of what you want in a closer.

 

In 63.1 career innings, Irvine gave up 71 hits, 33 walks and only struck out 27 batters. Not surprisingly, his ERA was astronomical: 5.68; so not only did he put runners on base, but he let them score too. No matter how good he was in the minors—not good, actually he pretty much had the same kind of issues down there—he wasn’t going to close for anyone unless he missed some bats.

 

When I wrote about Dana Kiecker a few weeks back, we talked about that 1990 team and Irvine was a part of that team, he pitched in 11 games. But the other two years he pitched, the Red Sox weren’t great. They had their moments in 1991, but in 92 the Red Sox were so bad. Tom Brunansky led the team with 15 home runs. Bob Zupcic led the team in batting average: .276, over Wade Boggs who managed to hit .259!

 

The team finished with 73 wins, but if you look at their roster, they should have been able to put something together: Boggs, Mo Vaughn, JodyReed, Tony Pena, John Valentin, Ellis Burks, Mike Greenwell (the latter two were apparently hurt) plus Brunansky. Add in older dudes like Billy Hatcher, Jack Clark plus young kids like Phil Plantier, Scott Cooper and Tim Naehring and I mean, they could have been league average or better, if they hit.

 

The pitching was kind of a mess with solid years from RogerClemens and Frank Viola heading the rotation and Jeff Reardon closing, but everything after that was a complete disaster. Plus they had Butch Hobson managing, who was clearly way, way over his head.

 

Fun fact: 1992 was the only year since 1986 that I haven’t seen a game live at Fenway. I’m not sure why, but I decided to sit this year out; which is odd because I’ve seen some really shitty Red Sox teams play baseball. I wish that I saw the Sox play at least one game that season because it’s easier to say, “I’ve been to Fenway for 37 straight years” instead of “I’ve been to Fenway for 37 straight years, except for 1992. So I guess I’ve only been to the park for 30 straight years.”

 

That’s right, if I had a time machine, I wouldn’t go back and kill baby Hitler; I’d go back and watch the 1992 Red Sox in Fenway Park so that uninteresting personal anecdotes would be easier for me to relay.

 

Anyway Boston was apparently unimpressed with righthander and Irvine was sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 1992 season. This was year one of the Pirates annual depths-of-the-division league tour that they’ve been perpetually on since Barry Bonds took his talents to San Francisco. Andy Van Slyke was still there, as was Jay Bell and Jeff King but other than future Red Sox Tim Wakefield and Stan Belinda, the staff was a complete and total disaster. Irvine should have been used to the chaos.

 

Ultimately it didn’t matter as Irvine was never able to put his chaotic team experience to good use as he never got a call up to Pittsburgh. Through the very perfunctory research that I’ve done, I can’t tell when he retired, but I bet it was pretty soon after that. According to Wikipedia, he lives in Harrisonburg, VA.

 

What does Daryl Irvine do all day? I’m not sure, but the way that his baseball career went, I’d be surprised if he thought about his days in the Major Leagues. I prefer to think about how he was drafted by the Red Sox three times over a couple of drafts—I guess the Sox liked him very much at one point. He probably thinks of his dominance in high school and college and how at one point everyone he knew wanted to be Daryl Irvine.

 

I think that’s what I’d think about as I’m relaxing on my porch in Harrisonburg, VA. I wouldn’t be thinking about the boring-ass drive from Pawtucket to Boston, sitting around in a cramped, sweaty bullpen waiting to get my brains beat in. That’s for god damn sure.

 

Maybe I’d show some neighborhood kids my baseball card if they asked, but I’d say, “that was a long time ago” and dramatically stare off into the distance. That wistful drama is almost cooler than having a lot of success at the Major League level. 

 

Almost. 

Ed Romero 1988 Fleer

Sometime in the last two or three months, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB). By the way, this is a great look at the 75th anniversary patch of Fenway Park  that the Sox wore in 1987:

 

 

 

Even when I was a kid, I knew that not everyone on a baseball team was drafted and brought up through the minor leagues by the team that they now played on. There were agencies to improve teams, like free agent signings and trades.

 

Trades were always the cooler of the two options, any moron could splash a pile of money in front of a guy and say, “Play for us, you disgusting Hessian here’s your filthy lucre.” And nine times out of ten, that player would take the cash. BTW, there is no judgement or shame in the preceding sentences, every single one of us would (and do) the same things every day in our lives.

 

Who doesn’t want to get paid?

 

But trades were a gentlemanly pursuit of excellence, a General Manager needed a bit more deft and cunning to outsmart his cohort. The ability to watch a team other than your own and say, “That chap there looks like he can certainly help our outfit!” and then contact his employer with a proposal to bring him to your team—without sacrificing too much—that takes the steady nerve of riverboat gambler.

 

The ability to really want something, let someone know you really want something and then not give everything you own to have that something—often in a time of extreme need—is a skill that most people don’t possess. If you’ve played cards with me before, you already know that I don’t have it.

 

This is a long road to saying that former Red Sox infielder Ed Romero was one of the first players that I remember seeing in the day’s current set of baseball cards (not this one) pictured for his old team while watching him on TV with his new team. I was well aware that the Red Sox got Don Baylor from the Yankees for Mike Easler in a seldom-seen swap between the two franchises Also add in that it was one-for-one position-for-position trade and this was a landmark deal that weighed heavily for Boston.

 

But Ed Romero? When did we get him? (December 11, 1985) Who did we give up to get him? (Workhorse, but oft maligned, reliever Mark “Big Foot” Clear – I have no idea why they called him that) What is he going to do for us, we already have Marty Barrett and Glen Hoffman plus future shortstop Rey Quinones is rocketing through the minors? Why do we need him? (Because Quinones flopped, Hoffman wasn’t much better when he wasn’t hurt and you need backup infielders because players get tired; though Manager John McNamara might not agree with that last statement)

 

Romero came over to the Sox from the Milwaukee Brewers, the only franchise he had ever known, and was kinda not great for his three-and-a-half years with the team. His totals were .236/.287/.280 with two home runs and two stolen bases (and four caught stealings). For a guy that played 12 years in the bigs (no small feat) but couldn’t really hit (.247/.298/.302) or run, Romero must’ve been a really good glove man.

 

I have no recollection of that. But I mean, he must’ve been. Why would you keep Ed Romero around for more than a decade if he couldn’t do at least one thing well? So let’s assume that he was a versatile (he played every defensive position—including DH!—except pitcher and catcher, according to Wikipedia) glove first ball player.

 

He played on two World Series teams, 1982 with the Brewers (he didn’t play in the Series) and 1986 with the Sox, and lost both of them. I wonder if he thinks about that a lot? I mean it’s cool to say that you were in the World Series, and doubly cool to say that you were in two World Series but the next questions are always: how did your teams do? We lost both. How did you do? I got one at bat in one game and didn’t get a hit.

 

Maybe it’s not something he brings up too often while at dinner parties.

 

The one thing that I remember most about Romero was the Gatorade bucket incident. I didn’t recall all of the particulars, but the Athletic did. Apparently the Sox were playing the Yanks in June 1989 and were getting beat 7-2. All of a sudden things started clicking for the good guys and the score was tied. Romero came to the dish with the winning run on first, facing Dale Mohorcic.

 

The right-handed Mohorcic started the right-handed hitter off with three straight balls when Yankees manager Dallas Green felt like he had seen enough. He summoned another right hander, Scott Nielsen, to try and get the dangerous Romero out. At this point Red Sox Manager Joe Morgan decided it was time to put his genius into action and sent up the left-handed Rich Gedman (who was probably hitting as bad or worse than Romero at the time) to win the ball game!

 

I mean, this is a move straight from Monty Burns. It’s called playing the percentages! It always works—just like telling Daryl Strawberry to hit a homer. Gedman walked, Jody Reed grounded out and the Yankees won after getting a run in the eighth inning.

 

But the big incident was Romero going insane and throwing a Gatorade bucket on the field. He was incensed that Morgan would show him up like that. I remember columnists lit into him and whenever TV stations ran sports bloopers, that was always on one of the reels. 

 

From what I've heard Romero, was a pretty mild-mannered guy, so I wonder what his teammates thought? I know that they called him "Gator" for a bit, which must've made Mike Greenwell mad as that was his weirdo nickname. But I think that they had to have sided with him because that was a bullshit move that Morgan pulled. And I bet Morgan would agree. 

 

Morgan, who was interviewed for the Athletic piece, said that he understood why Romero would react that way but that he (Morgan) “made crazy move (like that) once in a while”, which would’ve have driven today’s baseball fans insane. Morgan said that Romero paid the $50 fine right after the game and they never spoke about the incident again.

 

I recall that Romero was released like a week later, but it was a little longer than that. His employment with the Red Sox ended on August 5, 1989. From there he played with the Braves, the Brewers (again) and the Tigers. Finally retiring in 1992.

 

Romero is a baseball lifer and has been bouncing around various leagues with various jobs, I would assume that he’s retired. But you know who’s not? His son, Eddie. Eddie Romero has been in the Red Sox front office since 2006, currently an executive vice president and assistant general manager.

 

Not a bad deal at all.

Jody Reed 1988 Topps

On May 20, 2016 I received this Jody Reed card. This is what I wrote on Facebook that day:

"Another day, another mystery card. 

Today's edition: Jerry Remy's younger doppelgänger in both looks and stats plus financial dipshit (which inadvertently paved the way for the Sox to land Pedro): Jody Reed. 

Mystery card leader, whomever you are I applaud that you are leaving cards from different years."

In 1984, Red Sox second baseman Jerry Remy sustained a career ending injury. He worked hard for over a year, but the Sox cut him in December of 1985 and he never played again. He got a job in the team’s minor league system as a roving instructor, but for a number of reasons, Remy didn’t take to it. In 1988, the Red Sox made him their color guy teaming him up with broadcasting legend Ned Martin on some broadcasts and newbie Sean McDonough on others.

Almost 30 years later, Remy can still be heard on Sox broadcasts, when he’s not battling serious medical issues. Whether you love him or hate him, he’s an entrenched part of the Sox fabric now . Unless he wants to leave, nothing (and I mean nothing – including his son butchering his girlfriend) is going to remove him from Sox telecasts.

Unlike his minor league instructing gig, you can say that Remy took to this job.

You wonder what Jerry Remy’s reaction to Jody Reed was when the latter won the starting shortstop job in 1988. I wonder if Remy felt as if he was looking into a mirror, the two were practically twin: dark haired, mustachioed, diminutive middle infielders. According to baseball-reference.com, Reed checked in at 5’9” and 170 pounds, while Remy is listed as 5’9”, 165 pounds. Over his 11 seasons, Reed had a little more pop: 270/349/350 than Remy’s 10 at 275/327/328. But Remy was much faster and made an All-Star team.

Reed final WAR was 15.7 and the Rem Dog’s was 14.4.

By and large, they were the same player which must have been strange  for the Sox rookie play-by-play guy to essentially watch himself for four years.

(Look at these two guys, it's uncanny!)

Jody Reed played a handful of games in 1987, the year that the Sox went on a full youth movement with players such as Mike Greenwell, Ellis Burks, Todd Benzinger, John Marzano and Sam Horn. But he made up for it in 1988 when he played in 109 games and finished third in Rookie of the Year voting. Shortstop was his first position, but he looked too small at short to stay there for too long and eventually he slid over to second base.

Reed was a doubles machine. He used the Wall to his advantage as he led the league in two-baggers in 1990 with 45. But by 1992, he stopped hitting and was chosen by the Colorado Rockies in the 1993 Expansion Draft. The Rocks had no use for him, so they sent him to the Los Angeles Dodgers for future Red Sox pitcher Rudy Seanez.

That one season in Los Angeles seemed to recharge his batteries as Reed had a nice bounce-back year. He declined the Dodgers’ offer of a three-year contract extension of $7.8 million and decided to become a free agent. Unfortunately, no one bit and he had to settle for a one-year contract with the Milwaukee Brewers for $350,000. That’s a far cry from the average value of $2.6 million per year*. After playing a season in Suds City, he moved on to two years with the Padres before ending his career in Detroit as a Tiger.

* Reed may have been Remy’s equal on the field, but when it came to maximizing his value, the RemDog blew him out of the water. I don’t know whether Remy is a top-notch businessman, a guy who was simply at the right place and time, incredibly lucky or a bit of all three but he has done a terrific job of being able to wring out every cent of being Jerry Remy. The amount of stuff he’s involved with is completely insane.

The interesting thing about Reed saying no to the contract extension is that not only did it screw Reed in the wallet, but it messed up the Dodgers too. Since Reed decided to split, L.A. had a hole in the infield and needed someone to fill it. General Manager Fred Claire looked north and saw that Delino DeShields was having monster years playing in relative obscurity for the Expos. He asked his GM counterpart Dan Duquette what it would take to get DeShields. Duquette’s answer was that he wanted just one player: Pedro Martinez.

Claire said okay because of a couple of reasons. One, his manager Tommy Lasorda thought that Pedro was too tiny to make any impact as a starting pitcher. Lasorda was adamant that due to his frame, Martinez was always going to be hurt and he didn’t want to deal with that. Plus, Deshields was a stud. He hit close to .300 every year, he walked a bit and man, he could fly. He stole 187 bases in four years as an Expo*.

* It’s amazing that DeShields never was an All-Star during his Montreal tenure. I get that he couldn’t get in as a starter because of Ryne Sandberg, but in 1991, the backup second baseman was Juan Samuel, in 1992 the backups were Craig Biggio and Mike Sharperson and in 1993 it was Robby Thompson. That’s bullshit right there.

You know what happened to Pedro. But DeShields never really had any great years in Los Angeles. He was fine, but he wasn’t Montreal good. He played out the rest of his career in St. Louis, Baltimore (Delino DeShields was from Delaware – 3D!) and the Cubs.

Three things about that trade:

1. I  thought that the Dodgers got a steal (no pun) because all I knew of Pedro was that he was Ramon’s kid brother.

2. I thought that it was cool that Pedro and Ramon were on the same team. How awesome is it to be in the majors and have your brother be on the same team? I thought that was the coolest. And now he got traded, it must’ve been a sad day in the Martinez home.

3. Not as sad as it was at Ash Hall in Merrimack College. I’m not sure how I heard of the trade (this was 1993 before the Internet or texting or having cable in our rooms) but I knew. I was watching a movie with a couple of friend of mine and these two French Canadian goalies, whom I didn’t know at all. I knew that they liked the Expos, so I said to one of them (he understood English the best) that DeShields had been traded. He looked distraught and explained (in French) to his friend about the transaction. All of a sudden that guy screamed, “DELINOOOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” and beat the crap out of a pillow. The two then proceeded to ask me 100 times if I was sure. Yup, I was sure mon ami. 

So because Jody Reed completely and totally misread the market for second basemen in 1993, he changed the lives of a lot of people. And that’s what I’ll remember most about Jody Reed.