Jim Rice 1988 Fleer

 Sometime in January 2023 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

 

 

Jim Rice was my first favorite baseball player. This is strange mainly because I don't ever recall him doing anything really awesome in my formative years as a baseball fan. I became a huge baseball fan in 1986, mostly because Roger Clemens went super nova that spring and summer and the Boston Red Sox were streaking their way to the pennant. 

Prior to that year, I liked baseball, I just wasn't obsessed with it. I played Little League, I watched the Baseball Bunch, I vaguely remember watching the San Diego Padres/Detroit Tigers World Series at my grandparents' place in 1984 and of course, I'd watch a few innings of the Sox when there weren't any cartoons on. 

When I think back to those years, I remember thinking about Jim Rice and how awesome he was. I just can't tell you why I felt that way. I can tell you how mad I'd get when my father would say that his license plate should be: "6-4-3". I can tell you I'd get even more furious when he had to explain the joke. 

Maybe it was because Rice was the de facto star of those early 80s teams and the club seemed to revolve around him. Though it's more likely that to a ten-year-old, Rice seemed impossobly big--almost like a superhero--but one who could hit home runs over the net in Fenway and onto the street. 

 There are human beings that can hit a ball entirely out of a Major League park? And they play for the team that I root for? I thought that he was awesome. 

By the time that this card was released, Rice wasn't hitting that many home runs any more. And the ones he hit were arching parabolas that landed on Lansdowne Street. His last really good year was the aforementioned magical year of 1986 when he finished second in the league's Most Value Player voting to Roger Clemens. 

In 1987 when he was 34-years-old, he was an average ball player. In 1988, below average and in 1989, even worse than that. Baseball is a game where if you aren't downing or injecting enough drugs to power the 1972 East German weightlifting team, the fall from the cliff is swift and far--especially if you were a star. 

There were a lot of whispers that Rice wasn't really motivated to stay in baseball shape (the dude was always pretty cut, so I'm not sure where that was coming from) and preferred to golf rather than work on his swing. Another rumor was that Rice really, really needed eye glasses to pick up the ball and his ego wouldn't allow him to put them on. 

Whatever the reason was Rice was no longer "the most feared hitter in the American League"--a moniker he had in the late 70s through the 80s. In 1987, that entire Red Sox team got a facelift; veterans like Don Baylor, Bill Buckner and Dave Henderson were either traded for parts or released. Kids like Ellis Burks, John Marzano, Sam Horn and Todd Benzinger took their spots in the lineup. New left fielder Mike Greenwell took Rice's position, exiling the former slugger to part time Designated Hitter, a role he shared that season with Horn.

In 1988 the Sox made a surprise run after manager John McNamara got the gate at the All-Star break. Working-class hero Joe Morgan took over the team on an interim basis and the Sox did so well that they found themselves at the top of the AL East standings and Morgan was named full-time manager of the Sox. 

During this streak, every move Morgan made seemed to turn to gold so when he sent up light-hitting shortstop Spike Owen to hit for Rice during a tight ballgame, Rice was pissed. They got into a shoving match in the tunnel to the clubhouse, which was caught by TV cameras and Morgan is quoted as yelling, "I'M THE MANAGER OF THIS NINE!" which is both kind of a badass thing to say to a guy that is strong enough to rip you apart with his bare hands, but also kinda corny too. 

Since Morgan was winning, a local guy (he drove a snow plow during the winter which made the people around here absolutely love him) and was white, Rice got a lot of shit for not being a "team player", playing the game "gracefully" and not following Morgan's orders. BTW, I can't remember what Owen did in that at bat, that 88 team was bananas, so Owen could have taken the guy deep and the Sox might have won. I have no clue. 

BTW, I'm not saying the Morgan was wrong here. Rice should have handled this much better, but the reaction from the fans was a little insane. 

From that point on, Bostonians were done with Jim Rice. He made too much money, he was too old and he was a bit too mouthy. He hung on for another year and during the last weeks of the 1989 season it was announced that Rice was hanging up his cleats. The Red Sox asked him to share a retirement ceremony with long-time teammate Bob Stanley which made Rice angry. 

 I wrote about this in my last entry on Bob Stanley that that was a shit thing for the Sox to do and if I was Rice, I'd be angry too. Hell, if I was Stanley, I'd be pissed. You can have two retirement ceremonies, no one is going to give a shit. Especially for that dead ass team. 

When he was a player, Rice didn't talk too much. He was described by the almost entirely white Boston press corps as "sullen and rude", the guy didn't make their jobs easier. And why should he? As the star of the club (pre Clemens and Wade Boggs), Rice was a lightning rod. Everything he said became 50-point headlines. The amount of unconscious and conscious racism was huge during that time, dating back to when he and Fred Lynn both made their debuts together as the Gold Dust Twins. He was a quiet kid from South Carolina who was thrown into a racial tempest that was Boston in the 1970s. By the 80s, he probably just got sick of the whole thing and it's hard to blame the guy. 

When he retired Rice became the Sox hitting coach (honestly, he wasn't really great -- I don't recall any hitter saying that Rice helped them) and then in a surprise to many he went to NESN and became a Sox commentator. Before and after games he'd talk about what the Sox did and didn't do and he was actually kind of decent. He spoke with a lot of cliches but he looked like he was having some fun and, hey, I still like the guy a lot; so that was cool by me. 

It took Jim Rice 15 years to finally make it into Cooperstown. And for as much as I love the guy, he probably shouldn't be in there. His numbers are good, but are they really good? Compared to other Hall of Famers--as well as guys on the outside looking in like fellow 1978 MVP Dave Parker--he's on the low end of the HoF spectrum. But I'm okay with that. I'm a big Hall guy to begin with, so you can add another 25 guys to the hallowed halls of Cooperstown and I'd be fine with that. 

For as long as I've been aware of baseball, I've liked Jim Rice a lot. For a guy who was so excellent at baseball, he always seemed to me to be a bit of an underdog. Even when he was the unquestioned star, it seemed that the press and the fans were always looking for someone (usually whiter) else to hang their hat on. And I liked those dudes. As far as I'm concerned Jim Rice fucking ruled.

Steve Crawford 1988 Fleer

Sometime in November 2021 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

I don't know Steve Crawford personally, but if you were to ask me who he was I'd know who you meant. Mustachioed guy who pitched out of the bullpen for the Boston Red Sox in the 1980s. As my brother Jay would say, "I don't know him, but I knooooooow him."

As you can tell, my credentials regarding Steve Crawford are solid.

If you were to ask me how many seasons he pitched in the Majors for, I'd say, "Three, probably. No more than four." But I'd be wrong. Steve Crawford pitched in parts of 11 Major League seasons, starting with a cup of coffee with the Sox in 1980 (two games) and finishing up with 33 games with the Royals in 1991.

That's not bad, he maxed out his Major League pension, which is a success. But was his career a  success? If you're going strictly by the numbers, probably not. When he was in Boston to stay (1984-87) he usually made more than 30 appearances and his ERA hovered around the 4.00 mark, which in the 80s wasn't great. 

But 11 seasons in the Majors is nothing to sneeze at. You don't get that many seasons by being a charity case or completely sucking.

On the other hand, if you look at the numbers Crawford gave up a bunch of hits, he gave up a bunch of walks and he didn't strike too many people out. When the Red Sox went to the World Series, Crawford was mostly used in mop-up duty and got crushed. His World Series 6.23 and gave up two home runs in four innings. He pitched in one game against the Angels in the ALCS that year.

After he bottomed out in 1987 (he was really bad: 5.33 ERA, 91 hits, 32 walks and only 43 strikeouts over 72.2 innings) he was released by the Sox. He was picked up by the Dodgers in 1988 and languished in AAA for the entire year while the big league club won the World Series. He spent his last two season in the Bigs with Kansas City.

I know that I talk about this a bunch in this blog, I'm probably a little obsessed, but I wonder what goes through the minds of players who are stuck on the Albuquerque Dukes (like Crawford was) knowing that you are a big leaguer who can help, but watching as the Dodgers are kicking ass all year. Do you hope they lose? Are you glad they won? Do you root for an injury?

I'm sure it's a bittersweet feeling when your team wins without you. Actually, it's not bittersweet, it sucks. I know that when I see a team that I was once on start to win, I get depressed. "Maybe they won because I was holding them back," I reflexively think. But the professional athlete doesn't think like that. The  professional athlete has confidence to spare. I would bet that they aren't sad, but that they think, "If I was there, we would have swept, not won in five games" or "We would have won 100 games instead of just 99."

For the pro athlete those slights turn into the fuel that they burn for the next year. "I'll show them. I'll be so good that they'll beg for me to come back ... and then I'll stick it up their asses!"

To be a professional athlete you need that chutzpah, that arrogance, than mentality that you--and you alone--can lead your team to victory. I'm sure years and years of being the no-doubt best player on every team you've been on, countless league MVP awards, Player of the Game trophies for every big game you played have stoked this flame (and it's probably why so many athletes are conservative Republicans or Libertarians). My guess is that Steve Crawford felt the same way.

When the professional athlete lets those hobgoblins of doubt creep in--like they do to every other mortal on this planet--that's when they lose their edge. Suddenly the batter didn't get lucky when he hit that homer off you, you start wondering if your fastball was good enough. And that's when you're sunk. You need a short memory and a lot of confidence to perform on the highest level and if you start gaining the former and losing the latter,  forget about it. You may as well start looking for a new job because you're done in the Bigs.

Aside from what I think I know about Crawford and his psyche, about the only other thing that I know about him is that his nickname was"Shag". It's not because he was a lady's man, but because he looked like he always needed a haircut. And with his bushy hair, his equally busy mustache and the reddish-brown color, Crawford also resembled the shag carpeting found in most 1970s dens and rec rooms. On this card, his looks screamed 1970s, despite it being the late 1980s. That's not what you want.

Another thing you don't want is to be part of Wade Boggs' Delta Force. When Boggs' paramour Margo Adams decided to tell all of her secrets, it wasn't just the Boston All-Star third baseman that were parts of her kiss-and-tell article in Penthouse. She talked about other members of the team, one of which was Crawford who along with Boggs and another teammate or two wanted to go back at pitcher Bob Stanley.

Apparently Stanley didn't fool around on the road and stayed loyal to his wife. This bugged Boggs for some reason and so him in the rest of the Delta Force got him hammered and paid a woman to seduce him and bring him back to his room. As Stanley and his lady were getting undressed and ready to rock, Boggs, Crawford and others broke in and started snapping pictures.

I'm not sure what they attempted to accomplish with this "mission" but I guess Stanely was pretty embarrassed. So great job, guys!

Crawford hung up his cleats after the 1991 season. He didn't pitch a ton, but when he did, he got hit hard. I bet those hobgoblins were bugging him big time by this point in his career. 

I'm not sure what the guy has done in the subsequent 30 years, but whatever it is, I'm sure he's doing fine. Whenever he's at his low point, Shag Crawford could always say that he was a Major Leaguer for ten year who got to pitch in the World Series and there is no way that you ever could think about doing that on your best day.