Bob Stanley 1990 Fleer

Sometime in October 2022 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

Bob Stanley never seemed to quite enjoy baseball.

He wasn’t good enough to be a curmudgeon like Steve Carlton. He wasn’t like Wade Boggs who was very serious about his craft, hitting, and his job, baseball. He definitely wasn’t like Ken Griffey Jr. or George Brett, two players who exuded joy every time they stepped foot on the diamond.

Stanley appeared to be a dude who would walk around his house and grumble about having to face “the fucking Orioles” this weekend as he stuffed a gym bag full of gear before saying good bye to his wife and jumping in his car. When I was younger, in the mid 80s, Stanley was the dude who got called into a game when the Sox were close or leading and would usually give up the lead. When he was giving post game comments he always had a hang dog expression and was constantly explaining why his off-speed pitches hung and why his fastball was flat.

 

The only time I saw any joy is when a beachball would leave the bleachers and go into the bullpen or field. Stanley was like a beachball grim reaper as he grabbed a metal rake and popped the offending orb. He was usually greeted with boos, which is something that by that point in his career, Stanley was more than used to.

 

Stanley wasn’t always the recipient of boos though and a person’s entry into the game and the introduction to its players matters. You see, I always thought that Bob Stanley stunk. To me, his name was synonymous with a blown lead or a horrible loss (see Game 6 of the 1986 World Series), but it wasn’t always like that.

 

Once upon a time, Bob Stanley was pretty good. Strike that, Bob Stanley was really good. From 1977 through 1985, he was a durable reliever. He didn’t strikeout a ton of guys, but at the same time he didn’t walk a lot of people either. He gave up his fair share of hits, but if he wasn’t walking a ton of folks, they weren’t exactly doing a lot of damage. His ERA was anywhere from the mid twos to the mid threes (except for 1979 when it was 3.99, but he also started 30 games that year) and he made the All-Star team twice in 1979 (kinda ironic) and 1983. He even lead the league in ERA+ (140!) in 1982.

 

Like I said, he really wasn’t that bad.

 

But when I entered the baseball universe, it was 1986 and that was Stanley’s first really bad year. He had turned 31 that year and had a ton of innings under his belt, it appears to me that he the end was getting close for the Steamer. This happens all the time now and managers are conscious of what happens when you have a pitchers with a lot of miles on his arm, you provide him with “load management”. In other words, you’re not running him out there every other day like John McNamara did.

 

Stanley appeared in a career high 66 games (82.1 IP)  that year giving up 109 hits, 40 earned runs and surrendering 10 dingers for an ERA of 4.37, which translated into a 96 ERA+ and a 1.59 WHIP. He had 16 saves which suggests that he was the team’s “stopper” before Calvin Schiraldi was ready, but man, Red Sox GM Lou Gorman really needed to get his head of his ass* and pick up someone who was reliable in the bullpen.

 

* You know what happened in 1986. At the absolute worst possible moment, the bullpen melted down like Three-Mile Island. All year, the bullpen was an issue and I don’t know who to blame. Was it Gorman for not getting McNamara more bullpen help during the year? Or was it McNamara for destroying the arms in his bullpen by pitching the same few dudes day after day after day?

After 86, Stanely never really recovered. The next year the Sox made him a starter and when Roger Clemens was holding out for more money, he was given the ball on opening day. He got his ass handed to him by the Milwaukee Brewers who promptly swept the Sox in the opening series, setting a tone for the rest of the year for both Stanley and the team. The Sox never got over their World Series hangover and was rebuilding by midseason. Stanley had an awful year going 4-15 with a 5.01 ERA.

 

* Milwaukee would set an MLB recording by winning 13 games in a row to begin the season but still finished behind the Blue Jays and Tigers in third place with 91 wins. It was a different game, guys.

 

In 1988 Stanley had a better year (3.19 ERA and 130 ERA+, while appearing in 31 games) and the following year the Steamer just plain ran out of steam. But because of 86 and 87, Stanley’s name was pretty much mud around Fenway and fans were ecstatic that he was gone—finally we can begin the John Dopson and Tom Bolton era. At least that’s how I remembered it.

 

So maybe he had reason to grumble and be angry about his lot in life. He never really got the respect that he deserved. I’m not sure if it was for his body of work or his body (he retired at 34 and he looked like he was a 54-year-old dentist). Yeah, he’s playing a kid’s game and he got paid handsomely for it (more than $1M a year since 1985) but at the end of the day, baseball can be a job just like any other job. You have your good days and your bad days. But the sucky thing about baseball is that your bad days are played out in front of 30,000 people live—not to mention the thousands of folks watching at home—and the airwaves and newspapers discuss how shitty you did that day.

 

That has to wear on a guy.

 

Also, his teammates seemed like absolute dicks to him. When Boggs was caught cheating on his wife with Margo Adams one of the stories that slipped out was how teammates Boggs and others—including Stanley’s bullpen “friend” Steve Crawford—hated how Stanley was faithful to his wife. So they enacted a plan called “Delta Force” where they got Stanley shitfaced, put him to bed, sent a prostitute to his room and then busted in and took pictures of the “affair”. I don’t know what they were going to do with the photos (send it to Stanley’s wife if he didn’t start cheating on her?) but that just fucking sucks.

 

Fuck you Wade Boggs and double fuck you Steve Crawford. At least Boggs could hit, you just sucked.

 

The other thing that I remember was that in 1989 both Stanley and outfield Jim Rice were “retiring” after that season—they were probably pushed out by the team. The Red Sox wanted to honor both men and they set up a day at the end of the season where both players would be recognized simultaneously. For some reason, this really made Boston sports fans and writers really angry.

 

“How could they do this to Jim Rice? He’s given so much to this organization and he has to share his day with Bob fucking Stanley? That’s absolutely ludicrous and the Red Sox should be ashamed!”

 

I was part of this caterwauling but looking back, why? Yes, Rice had a longer more illustrious career. There’s no doubt about that, but it’s not like Bob Stanley was Tim Lollar or Steve fucking Crawford. He had a lot of terrific moments for Boston and now when he was getting the proverbial gold watch people were trying to stick it to him one last time? It was a bush league reaction. I can’t exactly remember what happened, but I’m pretty sure they gave Stanely his own day and the following day they gave Rice his.

 

Maybe they should have done that—the Red Sox were notoriously tone deaf about a lot of stuff back then—but jeez, what a shitty way to end your career. At the end of the day, Stanley’s only crime is that he never hid what a grind the Major League Baseball season is and he wore it on his face. People don’t want to come to the park to see that, they want the Pagliacci clown, the guy who’s smiling on the outside and they don’t give a fuck about what’s on the inside.  

 

 

Paul O'Neill 1992 Upper Deck

On May 17, 2017 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: The other day, after a few weeks off, the BCB sent over a new card. The postmark is from Boston and there's no note. It's been a year since the original BCB showed up (this one is a copycat) so it's nice to see this thing has been chugging along. 

Today's card is Paul O'Neill. You may remember him as the obnoxious, red ass Yankee who was never wrong about anything but before that he was a Cincinnati Red. He was sent to the Yankees in exchange for Roberto Kelly. 

These were the type of under-the-radar fleecings that New York used to make when they were focused on building a team. Anyway, by the time he played three games for New York, he became Asshole #1, on a team chock full of them. 

Here's 10 things about Paul O'Neill:

1. He was legit hilarious on his Seinfeld episode. 
2. New Yorkers loved calling him "Pauly", which ugh. 
3. He's actually a good color guy. 
4. If you loved Trot Nixon, you would have loved him on your team. 
5. His first two managers, Pete Rose and Lou Piniella, were the two biggest red asses in baseball history. That probably had something to do with his disposition. 
6. He won five rings. That's impressive. 
7. He made five All-Star Games. Also impressive. 
8. He pitched two innings in 1987. 
9. Led the league in hitting in the strike shortened 1994 season. 
10. According to BaseballRef, made over $51m in his career. 

So there's Paul O'Neill, the human embodiment of the Beastie Boys lyric, "One man's ceiling is another man's floor." A jerk on someone else's team but a lovable scrapper on yours.

2019 Update: I don't have a lot to say about this because I think that I did a pretty good job on the Facebook post. At this point it looks as if began concentrating more on the player rather than the BCB. 

Like I said, if you're a fan of the team that Paul O'Neill is on, he's one of your favorite players. It looks as if he gives a shit and I think that's what fans really want. They really like guys like Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Trout, ballplayers who make the game look a breeze. But they love guys like O'Neill who appear that they're giving 100% and for whom the game doesn't come as simple.

How can you get mad at a dude who's uniform is always dirty, is always diving around, who looks as if he played nine innings in the city dump (I will refrain from making the obvious Yankee Stadium joke here)? Especially compared to a player that seemingly glides along the outfield grass, who has a text-book perfect swing, who runs with grace and ease? Most fans identify more with an O'Neill type than the a Trout type because deep down, they know that that's who they are. 

But if Paul O'Neill isn't on your team, he's an asshole full of false hustle. A guy who knows he supremely talented but is fronting and pretending that he's a lunch pail guy. I don't know, the truth probably lies between the two point of views. I always thought he was an asshole. 

Ken Griffey Sr. 1989 Topps Traded

On June 13, 2016, I received the above card in the mail. I took to Facebook to write this:

“Another visit from the BCB, dropping off one of the last parts of the Big Red Machine: Ken Griffey Sr. -- though it would've been cool to get an 89 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. 

Couple of things about KGS: I always assumed he was a slugger. Nope. Turns out his high in dingers was 21 in 1986. 

He was a great fielder. I remember him climbing a wall and robbing Marty Barrett of a homer in Yankee Stadium. Double freedom rockets to Barrett. 

He had another son, Craig, who never made it to the Bigs. Must've been awkward at Thanksgiving around the Griffey table. All-in-all, KGS was a good guy to have on your team.”

Sports never stop. The way that seasons keep going and going, it’s like a speeding train. Each year is like a car connected to the engine. When you finally make the decision to jump on that train, you’re going to find yourself in a car that’s going to be different than the previous car (season). This is true with players.

To continue the train analogy, I jumped into baseball in time to grab the 1986 car. The way that I was able to acclimate myself was through baseball cards. When I got a Ken Griffey Sr. card, I thought of him strictly as a Yankee outfielder. From the back of his card, I knew that he played for the Reds, but as far as I was concerned he was a Yankee. In contrast, someone who jumped on the sports train in 1976 remembers Griffey as a Red. For them, he’ll always be a Red no matter if they see him as a Yankee or a Brave or Mariner.

With that as a background, seeing Griffey as a Red was pretty special to me. By the time I had this card, I knew a lot about baseball history and understood that the Big Red Machine was a really big deal. Seeing Griffey back in his Cincinnati Red was cool, it was almost like getting into a time machine and remembering that, oh yeah, Griffey made his name as a Red. I was able to go back in those train cars, just for a little bit. Hey, I like going home again, even if it’s never the same. Therefore, I liked this card a lot.

By the time this card was available, Ken Griffey was the hottest name in baseball. It wasn’t because of Ken Griffey Sr. though, it was because of his son, Ken Griffey Jr. Playing in the Pacific Northwest, Junior burst on the scene with a bang in 1989. He seemingly could do everything: he could hit for average, hit for power, he could run, he could field (holy shit, could he field) and he had a pretty good hose. Ken Griffey Junior put baseball on the map in Seattle. People cared about Mariners games like never before. Seattle tickets were hard to come by due to Griffey’s star power.

Every once in a while, a star comes along and sets baseball on fire. But what was interesting about Griffey Jr. wasn’t that he was only a star, it was that his dad was still playing baseball at the same time as he was. Baseball is the ultimate father-son game, how many tear stained stories were written when Kevin Costner wanted to have one last catch with old man a year prior during “Field of Dreams”? Major League Baseball pushes the father-son dynamic so hard that it kind of shoots itself in the foot with the syrupy nostalgia that it uses as the focal point of its marketing campaigns. At some point in a teen’s life, the kid starts to exert some sort of independence from their dad.

But this was different. Ken Griffey Jr. was young when he made his debut (he was 19-years-old when he started) and he played the game with a youthful exuberance. He wore his hat backwards! and that made a lot of sports writer’s monocles drop into tea cups. “How dare he disrespect the game by wearing his baseball cap backwards? This hip hopping of baseball is dreadful!” But kids didn’t care, they saw Junior’s smile and sweet swing and wanted to be like him.

Aside from Bo Jackson, there was no other baseball player that was cooler than Ken Griffey Junior.

On the other side was Griffey Sr., he looked like your dad. He was pudgy, seemed a little ornery (especially in comparison with his son) and was a little slower than how he used to be. Every so often he could use his dad-strength to hit one out of the park, but he looked as if he needed oxygen at second base to continue his home run trot. In 1990, the Cincinnati Reds* cut Griffey Sr. From what I remember, they did it because there were a lot of people clamoring for the Griffeys to play in the same outfield. Father and son, one in left, the other in center. The old guard and the new guard. Dad, let’s have a catch to warm-up!

* You know what I never thought of before, that 1990 Reds team won the World Series that year. Griffey was released on August 24 of that year. I would bet that Griffey would have been on that team’s postseason roster. He may not have played a ton, but he was a part of the team that long, why wouldn’t he have been there. I’m not sure if Griffey asked to be released, but if he did, he gave up a World Series ring to play with his son. I know at the time, the Reds weren’t considered a slam dunk to win the World Series, but man, that must’ve been a tough pill to swallow. Though, I suppose that’s the sacrifices you make when you’re a father.

The Mariners said yes and the two were teammates. I wrote in the blog about Marty Barrett how cool it would be to have a brother in the Major Leagues while you were there, but a father in the bigs? How awesome is that?

The Griffeys played more than a handful of games together in 1990 and 1991, before Ken Senior called it a career in 1991. But the duo amped it up on September 14, 1990 in Anaheim when Angels starter Kirk McCaskill served up homeruns to both Griffeys in the same game. Not only did they homer in the same contest, but they went back-to-back. I remember being dumbfounded by this.

I stole this picture from the following week’s Sports Illustrated from my high school library and stuck in my locker because I thought that it was so cool.

(This might be one of my Top Five, all-time baseball photos. I love it.)

The only other father-son duo was the mirror image of the Griffeys: the Raineses. Tim Sr. is a Hall of Famer and his son, Tim Jr., is not. They played a few games together for the Baltimore Orioles, but it wasn’t the same. Not only were they second but they never hit back-to-back bombs either.

Griffey Sr. wasn’t a superstar and he was never the best player on his team. In fact, he may have been the seventh or eighth best player on that Reds team, but that says more about how stacked the 1970s Cincinnati squad was more than Griffey’s talent level. But he was the last of the Big Red Machine standing and he achieved something that none of them could ever do: even a decade plus after the team was gone, he was the coolest member of that Reds squad ever.  

BTW, if you’re interested, Craig Griffey made it to AAA in the Mariners organization. He ended up retiring after he was sent down to AA after a few games. His pro baseball highlight had to be playing alongside his brother in a handful of Spring Training games back in the 1990s. I know that I kidded a little bit above about an “awkward Thanksgiving” but the dude went higher in pro baseball than 99.98888% of people who swing a bat. That’s nothing to overlook and in any other family, he’d be the greatest athlete produced.

But he was a Griffey and no matter how much his mother loved him, if she was starting a team made up strictly of Griffeys, I can guarantee you that he’d be picked no higher than third. That’s cold.