Dennis Lamp 1990 Fleer

On December 14, 2018 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: A few days ago I received this illuminating card from the BCB. If you aren’t a fan of the 1985 Toronto Blue Jays, you might not remember Dennis Lamp. However, that was the year he put it all together and allowed him to have a career that spanned three decades. 

2019 Notes: "Illuminating", I've never met a pun I didn't love. I'm shocked that I didn't use the Brick Tamland quote, "I LOVE LAMP!" in this entry. I don't care what anyone says, "Anchorman" is still really funny.

I usually hate doing this because what does any profession really look like, but Dennis Lamp doesn't look like a ballplayer. He looks like a fireman or a driving instructor. I bet that, even now, he could kick my ass in anything athletic.  

In 1977 he made his debut with Cubs as a starter and was traded across town to the White Sox. Funny thing is that the Cubs and White Sox worry less about intercity trades than other franchises — hell, the Sox sent the Cubbies Sammy Sosa for a broken down former member of the 85 Blue Jays, George Bell. 

Tangent: I bet it would be cool to be traded from one side of the city to another. So much less work. You can keep your own house!

Anyway, Lamp went to the White Sox, started a bit and moved into the bullpen. After the 84 season he moved on from the Sox only this time it wasn’t across a city but from one country to another. 

This is when he had his career year going 11-0 with three saves and a 3.32 ERA. Yes, wins are a dumb stat especially for someone coming out of the bullpen, but 11 straight wins is pretty impressive. And it got him some MVP votes, ultimately finishing 20 spots behind winner Don Mattingly. 

The 1985 was the high water mark for Lamp and he never approached those numbers again. Already a journeyman, Lamp bounced around to four different teams before calling it quits in 1992. 

I’m not sure how Lamp had such a magical season in 85. He didn’t have overpowering stuff or a funky delivery. I don’t remember a devastating curve or a wackadoo slider. He was just the best Dennis Lamp he could possibly be that year. 

And when he was with the Red Sox, he was fine. He didn’t inspire dread like Calvin Schiraldi nor did he bring confidence like Lee Smith. Sometimes he’d extinguish the fire but other times, he’d make it worse.

That was Dennis Lamp. And he was okay. 

Sports is unlike most other professions in that one's worth can be measured in neat time capsules. If you have enough good years, people will think you’re good. Have enough bad years and you’re out of a job. But an outlier year like 1985 makes people scratch their heads. And it provides hope for GMs to offer you another job.

“Can he catch lightning in a bottle again and go 11-0? I don’t know. Let’s find out!” 

Lamp played 16 season and finished with a 96-96 record which means that without 1985, he’d be 11 games under .500. And maybe without that amazing year he doesn’t hang on for another seven seasons. 

The moral is all you really need is one really good year to stay employed. And that seems like enough.

2019: Like yesterday's Tom Bolton entry, I don't have a heck of a lot to add. During the last few entries, I guess I was more wordy on the Facebook entries. Aside from the two Sox, Cubs and Jays; Lamp also found his way into the Athletics and Pirates organizations. 

Lamp never made an All-Star team (and if he was, it would be 1985) or pitched in a World Series. 

I know that I spent a lot of words talking about how must've looked at Lamp and wondered if they could recapture his 1985 record, but I wonder when that stopped (aside from 1992 -- his last year in the Majors)? At some point it had to dawn on everyone that Dennis Lamp was who he was, a below .500 pitcher who got really lucky one year. I wonder if in 1985 Lamp thought that he was fooling the league and waiting for the other shoe to drop or whether he thought that he was finally reaching his full potential. 

Knowing that baseball is a game obsessed with pessimism, my thought is that while 1985 looked like a lot of fun for Lamp; I bet that it wasn't. And then spending all winter wondering whether he could keep it going, I bet it drove him nuts. 

Dennis Lamp had to look at himself every day and think, "I'm not an 11-0 pitcher. Nowhere close. Why is this happening to me?" And then the following year when he ended up 2-5, with an ERA almost two runs higher than it was the previous year, he probably had to talk more and more about how 1985 was an anomaly and that he was always who he was. That's a monkey paw wish that must've been maddening. 

"I don't know why people are hitting me so hard. I don't understand why I'm not undefeated. I'm doing all of the same stuff."

Success can be a curse, you guys. 

Rich Gedman 1989 Topps, Lee Smith 1990 Topps and Jeff Gray 1991 Fleer

On September 5, 2017 I received these cards from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: I've been really lax in my BCB updates. I received three cards in the last few weeks -- all Red Sox. 

The interesting thing is that on the Rich Gedman envelope, the return address was "BCB My Hometown". Gedman is from Worcester, it seems the BCB dropped a hint and that eliminates my first suspect. 

Looks like I'll have to rethink who it is. 

Quick hits:

Gedman: famous for his helicopter swing, two-time All Star that was flummoxed by Charlie Hough's knuckleball, victim of ownership collusion who never got his career back on track. Played 150 games a year because his back up was Marc Sullivan. 

2019: Rich Gedman was the local boy made good. He grew up in Massachusetts and the next thing you know, he's the starting catcher for the local nine. As someone who probably idolized Carlton Fisk, this was a big deal. And he did really well too. For a time.

But for Gedman, his career highs where like Monkey Paw wishes. He played in the 1985 and 86 All-Star Game, but Charlie Hough's knuckleball made Gedman look like a Little Leaguer in 1986. He just couldn't catch the things and they rolled all over the place. He was a laughingstock. Then there was his first World Series where Stanley bounced the ball in front of him and it rolled to the backstop putting Ray Knight in scoring position. After the season ended he was poised to be a big time free agent, only with Collusion rearing its ugly head, he didn't get an offer and due to the weird free agent rules of the day, signed with the Sox but could not report until May 1. 

The same thing happened to Tim Raines but while Raines was still awesome that year, Gedman never got on track and had a horrible 1987. And that snowballed into horrible 1988 and 1989. Gedman was a Walt Hriniak disciple and needed precise timing for his helicopter swing to work. I've always thought that missing 1987 Spring Training screwed up his timing and his lost season turned into a lost career. It also meant that Boston fans had to suffer through a month of Marc Sullivan catching. 

Gedman has had a pretty good post career where he's managed his hometown Worcester Tornados for a bit and is working for the Red Sox now. Gedman wasn't a bad guy, I used to like him a lot, he was just really unlucky. 

Lee Smith: hulking borderline HoFer reliever who pitched well in Boston but GM Lou Gorman couldn't leave well enough alone so he signed Jeff Reardon. Was traded for quarters on the dollar for Tom Brunansky. Said he'd literally sleep through the first five innings of every game before waking up, stretching and getting to the bullpen. 

2019: Since 2017, Smith has turned from a borderline Hall of Famer, to a real Hall of Famer as he was inducted by the Veteran's Committee (or whatever they're calling that now) about two months ago. Gorman's trade to get Smith was brilliant: Calvin Schiraldi and Al Nipper to the Cubs. That was it. But like I said above, he couldn't just leave well enough alone. He had to tinker and futz. Next thing you know, Smith is on his way to St. Louis for Brunansky. 

Smith had some really great years after he left Boston while the Red Sox bullpen was always a question mark. Who knows what could have been?

Look at his card, dude looked hulking. How could you not want him as your closer?

I wrote a bit more about this trade twice, in the Reardon pieces here and here. 

Jeff Gray: decent middle reliever most "famous" for having a stroke in the before a 1991 game. He was actually having a terrific year for the Sox before this injury occurred. He tried to come back but never could do it. According to Wikipedia he and Jody Reed owned a restaurant in Sarasota, FL called Beef O'Gradys. I want to go there.

2019: I still want to go to Beef O'Grady's. It sounds like a magical place.