Scott Fletcher 1990 Upper Deck

On December 23, 2016 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: Is the BCB really Santa? That's what some people are saying. Postmarked from Salt Lake City too. Perhaps the BCB is Mitt Romney?After many moons, the BCB dropped a Scott Fletcher card on me with a note asking "Why can't we get players like that?"

This question was often posed by erstwhile Channel 4 reindeer/sportscaster Bob Lobel (not his nonunion Mexican equivalent Pablo Bell) when a former Bostonian did well in another uniform. 

2019 Notes: Hey! I refer to Bob Lobel here and I didn't need to do it in the last entry. I guess that just goes to show that I should probably read the next entry so that I'm not doubling up the work. 

Today's card features Fletcher in a different pair of Sox, White to be exact, getting upended on a double play. Fletcher was the prototype Dirt Dog that Boston fans have grown to love: scrappy, no power, no speed, and did the "little" things. He was one of the many who manned second base prior to the arrival of Dustin Pedroia. 

You should praise Zeus every day that you get to watch Pedroia instead of Scott Fletcher.

2019: I know that I wrote a bit about this a few days ago when I was talking about the Red Sox and their shortstop problems of the 1980s and into the 90s, but that also extended to the second base. I mean, Tim Naehring played pretty well but he was always hurt. Luis Alicea was okay for a little while and Todd Walker and Mark Belhorn were both good too, but once Pedroia showed up, that was the second baseman you wanted in your lineup every day. He hit for average and power, he was fast, he had great range and could throw too. 

Pedroia hasn't played in over a year (and in 2017 he was slowed down by a bunch of injuries) so I think that people forget how good of a player he is; but when he's on, he's one of the best in either league.  

This is a really cool shot of Fletcher jumping over Angels infielder Jack Howell to turn a double play. If I was him, that would be hanging in my living room. 

Fletcher played for 15 seasons in the big leagues and that's nothing to sneeze at. He did okay for the Red Sox when he showed up in 1993 (95 OPS+) but the most important thing is that he stabilized the second base position. The Sox had no idea who to put there after Jody Reed left, so Fletcher was the guy. The following season, he fell off the cliff and he spent his last year in Detroit before retiring. 

Fletcher only made it to the postseason once in his career (1983 when he was with the White Sox the first time), never made an All-Star game or win any awards (MVP, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, etc). He just was Scott Fletcher, professional baseball player. And I think that for most people who never made the majors, that would probably be an okay lot in life. But I wonder if it gnaws at him that he was just a fine major leaguer. 

Getting to wear a big league uniform for 15 years is no easy feet, but I wonder if Scott Fletcher feels differently? 

Steve Lyons 1990 Upper Deck

On October 7, 2016 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: Another card from the BCB. This time with a taunting message, "Why can't we get players like this?" Not from the left coast but from the heartland of this great county, Milwaukee, WI. 

2019 Notes: The quote above comes from long-time Boston sports TV reporter Bob Lobel. Whenever someone who once played in Boston did well for another team, Lobel would look into the camera and sigh, "Why can't we get players like that?" It's actually a pretty decent line. 

Steve "Psycho" Lyons was a terrible ball player and is currently a terrible announcer. He's lucky that he pulled down his pants in Tiger Stadium because I don't think anyone would remember him because although he played a lot of positions, he didn't play any particularly well. Fun fact: once traded straight up for Tom Seaver. 

My list of suspects grows:

Alice Cooper (knows a lot about Milwaukee)
Anthony Perkins (he's dead but he was Psycho)
Arthur Lee Allen (also dead but may have written taunting letters if he was the Zodiac)Paul Herman (spends a lot of time in Milwaukee now)Tim O'Neill (went to school in Milwaukee)
Donnie Most (put Milwaukee on the map as funny man Ralph Malph on TV's Happy Days and doesn't like me taking his name in vain.)

Who knows? It could be YOU!

2019: Again, I spent a lot of time wondering who could be the BCB and not too much on the player. Two of those names are friends of mine who spent time in Wisconsin, one is a suspect's name of the Zodiac Killer, the other are famous people -- one of which is dead. 

There isn't much to say about Lyons other than he was a backup infielder who got a lot of mileage out of talking a lot and accidentally pulling down his pants in Detroit during the 1990 season. 

He was a member of the 1986 Red Sox team until he was on second base in the ninth inning of a game that the Sox were losing by one run with Wade Boggs up and he attempted to steal third. He was thrown out by a mile. Sox manager John McNamara buried him (rightly) on the bench and before long he traded in one pair of socks for another, going to Chicago for Tom Seaver. 

The Red Sox didn't hold any grudges and he came back to the team three other times, after spending time in Atlanta, Montreal and in Spring Training with Cubs. 

He currently works for the Red Sox cable company NESN and wasn't fired after he was arrested for domestic batter in January 2017. He also got canned from Fox Sports in 2006 for making some derogatory remarks about Spanish-speaking people.

Steve Lyons is a bit of a dipshit.