On January 14, 2017 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):
2019 Notes: Hey! That was two years ago yesterday! Crazy!
On Facebook, I wrote: The first BCB showing of 2017 and it's Tom "Flash" Gordon pre-Sox edition. And it's postmarked Las Vegas, NV. Sin City, home of Wayne Newton, the Golden Knights (Trump showers praise on these guys--ha! Political!) and coming soon, the Raiders. Speaking of the Raiders, Gordon is shown wearing Bo Jackson's old number 16! Blasphemer!
2019: Sweet Donald Trump pee tape joke.
Anyway, we have a lot to thank Tom Gordon for. Saving 46 (I think) games in a row in 1998 -- before blowing a save in the first game of that year's playoffs.And for having the yips in 2004 when he was with the Yankees.
Gordon did have one of the best curve balls I've ever seen, going from 12 to 6 and making hitters look really silly. He was also a diminutive man, his card says 5'9", but I bet he was smaller than that.
2019: Gordon was also a member of the Cubs, White Sox, Diamondbacks and Astros. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to name all the teams Tom Gordon was on, I would be dead because his appearances with Houston had been erased from my mind.
But that's why baseball is the greatest sport on Earth; you don't have to be freakishly tall, wide or have exceptional good balance to be a star. You just have to be you. That's the lesson today, kids.
2019: Tom Gordon was a really good ballplayer. He might not be a sure-fire Hall of Famer, but he was a two-time All-Star and if you wanted to build a bullpen in the 90s or 00s, you could do a lot worse than Tom Gordon. However, once the postseason started, you should probably think about leaving Gordon off the roster.
His career ERA in October was 7.06 and he was torched by the Sox in 2004, to the tune of ten hits and six runs in six innings including two home runs. His ERA in that series was 8.10 and if you're a Yankee fan and want to point fingers, Gordon might be the guy you start with. Or maybe Joe Torre, why did he keep running him out there to get a beating? I don't know, I'm just glad he did.
Actually, now that I look at the numbers, Gordon worked nine games in that post season to go along with the 80 that he pitched in during the season. My guess is that he was wiped out come October 1. Torre really put him through the meat grinder that year. BTW, the next year he appeared in 79 games in the regular season and three more in the postseason. That's insane.
To be fair, Gordon was just as bad with the Red Sox in 1998 and 1999 and again with the Phillies in 2007--though aside from 1998 (73) he didn't appear in nearly as many games as he did with the Yankees.
Oh well, the post season is a crap shoot, I suppose. One minute, you're Tom Gordon getting your head kicked in and the next minute your Nathan Eovaldi mowing down Yankees, Astros and Dodgers like he's mowing a lawn. Baseball is a funny game.
Gordon's son Dee has played in the majors since 2011 and like his dad is also a two-time All-Star who hasn't experienced a lot of post season success either. But despite the bad luck in October, that's not a bad career either.
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