Jeff Sellers 1989 Topps

On April 15, 2019 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

I haven't written anything about this card on Facebook, because I'm writing about it here first. Pictured in the above card is former Red Sox prospect Jeff Sellers. 

Was he a real prospect? I'm not sure if he was really a prospect or just a young pitcher who Boston hoped would be the next big thing. I've discussed this before, but after Roger Clemens came along until Aaron Sele, the Red Sox had a dearth of pitching prospects. All of a sudden they couldn't  find a pitching prospect at all, which is weird because there was a pretty good pipeline of Sox hurlers who debuted in the early 80s and went on to have pretty good careers: Clemens, Bruce Hurst, Oil Can Boyd, John Tudor, Bobby Ojeda and Al Nipper. Just look at the starting four of the 86 ALCS team, it was Clemens, Hurst, Boyd and Nipper (with an aging Tom Seaver). That's not a bad rotation at all. All I know is that the Sox front office seemed to pivot from finding pitching to finding hitting sometime in the 1980s -- don't ask me why they couldn't concentrate on both. 

Back to Jeff Sellers. Before we get into the tragedy that was Jeff Sellers' career, guess where he was born? Compton, California. I wonder if he knew Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, Eazy-E and Yella? Even if you hated rap, wouldn't you buy "Straight Outta Compton" because of civic pride?

Anyway. 

I became obsessed with baseball beginning with the 1986 season, but when I opened packs of 1987 Topps, I had no idea who Jeff Sellers was. I don't recall him pitching for the Red Sox in 1986, but it turns out he pitched in 14 games that season and four in 1985--his first start was a win against the Milwaukee Brewers.  Maybe he was some sort of secret rookie, the kind that comes out of nowhere and has a great career, completely flummoxing those whose job it is to know better. 

But he wasn't a ninja rookie. He was just a guy with a perfectly square head who get would get said head kicked in most times he started a game. He didn't have a lot of strikeouts--he was a sinker baller--and his career ERA was a whisker away from 5.00 (it was 4.97). He probably should have been a back-of-the-bullpen, swingman type; but at least according to the back of his baseball card, the Red Sox didn't think so. He appeared in 61 games and started 51 of them. 

In 1988 he, Todd Benzinger and the always-popular Player to be Named Later were sent to the Cincinnati Reds for Nick Esasky and Rob Murphy. Murphy had a real good year coming out of the pen in 1989, but was awful in 1990. Esasky had a monster year for the Sox in 1989, before signing  big deal with the Braves in December 1989 and then contracting vertigo and never playing again. Benzinger played a couple of seasons with his hometown Reds, catching the final out of the 1990 World Series, before bouncing around the league and retiring in 1995. 

After the 1988 season, Jeff Sellers never threw another pitch in the major leagues. With his new team, he got injured in Spring Training with Cincinnati and his arm never healed right. Like his trademate Benzinger, Sellers spent the next few years trying to hook on with the Yankees, Rangers and Rockies before calling it quits in 1994. Unlike Benzinger, Sellers banged around the bushes and played in the minor leagues for those organizations. 

What really must make Sellers angry is that his last game was by far his best. On October 1, 1988, Jeff Sellers had ten strikeouts and a no-hitter through 7 2/3 innings before Cleveland Indian outfielder Luis Medina launched a homer. That was the only run Sellers gave up, but he lost 1-0, former Red Sox manager John Farrell got the victory. That was Sellers' final major league game ever. 

When I started thinking about this entry, the only thing that I remembered about Sellers is the Cincinnati/Boston trade. As I was thinking about it, I started trying to think of angles of how to approach this blog: imagining what it's like to be the "throw-in" in a multiplayer deal or trying to figure out how I would feel about being the fourth best player in a four-person transaction. But after doing a little bit of research, the Jeff Sellers story is bigger than that one transaction. 

It has to suck to be 24-years-old and on the last day of the year, pitch the best game of your life. You spend your entire winter thinking of that last game and how things are going to start changing. Then you get traded. The Reds wanted him, maybe they thought that they'd catch lightning in a bottle with a youngish guy who had already made some mistakes. 

Sellers probably heard this too. You think about how you're starting your prime now and getting a whole new start with a new team in a new league, this is going to be your year. Then, BOOM!, you get hurt. Of all the things that can happen, that's the worst. Especially when your manager is notorious steak head Pete Rose, who was also going through some stuff in 1989. Things were starting to finally line up your way, you know that baseball is full of stories of guys who go to a new team and get a new lease on life, why couldn't you be the next chapter of that story? But instead you got really hurt. 

I wonder how often Jeff Sellers thinks about that moment in 1989 Spring Training? I wonder how many times he talks about how things were this close to changing for him and then he hurt his shoulder, got sent to the minors, tried to pitch through it, hurt his shoulder more, had surgery and was never the same. 

If it was me, I'd probably think about it every single day. 

Nick Esasky 1990 Fleer

On September 18, 2017 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: Postmarked from Los Angeles, CA, the BCB sent the card of one of the more star-crossed players of the last 30 years. 

During the mid-1980s Nick Esasky was a solid player in Cincinnati but he had the misfortune of having Pete Rose as his manager. Rose was in the midst of his death march toward the MLB hit record and Esasky was at Pete's position of first base. By this point in their respective careers, Esasky was worth more to the Reds than Rose but Rose didn't care, he was going to get that record. The only position Pete could play was first (because he was ancient). 

That meant Nick Esasky bounced from third to first to left field and never really settled into a groove. After Rose got his record, the Reds brought in another blast from their past, Tony Perez. Again Esasky bounced around, as Rose thought it was a good idea to split time with his 44-year-old pal Perez at first. A 34-year-old Buddy Bell was at third and Eric Davis and Dave Parker were at the corner outfield positions. Lesson? Pete Rose is an asshole. 

In 1988 he was traded to the Red Sox with Rob Murphy for Todd Benzinger and Jeff Sellers. With a short left-field porch, the following year was a huge one for Esasky as he reached career highs in a lot of hitting categories. After the 1989 season he left Boston and signed with the Braves for big money. He lasted nine games before he was felled by vertigo. 

He never played again. 

Had he stayed in Cinci, he might have been the starting first baseman for the World Champion Reds. By then Rose was gone and Benzinger (he caught the last out of the 1990 World Series) had replaced Esasky at first base, but he did not provide the same offense that his predecessor did. 

Had he been healthy in Atlanta, the Braves probably wouldn't have signed Sid Bream (Esasky was the superior player) and maybe the Braves win the 1991 World Series. (Bream batted .125 that October.) 

And maybe the 1992 NLCS ends up differently too. Maybe it's not Sid Bream chugging around the bases in Game 7, maybe it's Esasky and perhaps he gets thrown out at the plate (though I doubt it because Sid Bream was incredibly slow). But let's say he did, that play sends Barry Bonds and the Pirates to the World Series instead of Atlanta. Perhaps Barry Bonds wins a championship and six years later he doesn't feel the need to take PEDs and he becomes the first unanimous Hall of Famer. 

Nick Esasky is the nexus of baseball realities.

2019 Notes: There isn't a lot to add to this entry, it's one of my favorite ones that I wrote and started the ball rolling on a different kind of BCB entry, where I use the player as a jumping off point for other things that I wanted to write about. 

When I heard that Esasky had vertigo, I was conflicted. On one hand, I felt bad for the guy. The year that he spent in Boston, Esasky seemed like a really good dude and he put up some pretty good numbers. On the other hand, I was pissed that he left the Sox; I mean we traded Todd Benzinger for him! And while I wasn't happy that he got a career-ending illness, I was a bit relieved that didn't happen while he was in Boston. And if I'm being honest, I felt a little twinge of "That's what you get for leaving MY TEAM!"

As a 15-year-old I was a real dick about sports and I actually feel terrible even thinking that back then. Ugh. I was the worst. 

Though I will say that when I read about this happening to Esasky, I thought that the Atlanta Braves were a snake-bit organization and nothing good would ever happen to them. Ever. Then the 1990s kicked in, they won like 15 straight division titles and I was proven wrong. Again. I'm shocked I never worked in professional sports. SHOCKED!