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.  

 

 

Danny Darwin 1992 Fleer

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

 

 

 

 

Danny Darwin's nickname was "Dr. Death" for some reason. It probably had to do with one of his pitches, probably an off-speed cutter or something, but it always seemed like a weird name for him.

Danny Darwin was born in Bonham, TX and looked like he was born in Bonham, TX. He was tall, gangly and had a droopy mustache that perfectly contoured to his long face. If he was in a western movie, they'd nick name him "Slim" (he is listed at 6'3" and 185 pounds) and he'd probably end up getting shot in a bar fight during the first 20 minutes. 

Darwin pitched--are you ready for this, because this is legit surprising--21 seasons in the majors. Even though he looked like he should have spent his entire career with the Rangers or the Astros (he spent eight and six years with each club respectively) he ended up playing for eight teams. 

If you played for 21 years you would at least think that you'd get some sort of team or individual honor in one of those seasons, right? Wrong. Darwin was never on a World Series team nor was he ever an All-Star. What's even more insane is that according to baseball-reference.com, Darwin NEVER, as in not once, ever appeared in post season play. Not once. 

You hear about a person like Derek Jeter who played 19 seasons (not including 1995 when he played 15 regular season games) and was an October participant in 16 of those seasons, and even the reddest of Red Sox fans can appreciate that number. That's a lot. Darwin does him better, only the opposite. Twenty-one years, no October baseball. At all. 

I don't know how he feels about this dubious distinction, but I am completely blown away. That's a lot of shitty baseball that he watched. Day-in and day-out, trudging to work knowing that your team stinks. That has to take a toll on a man's psyche. 

Maybe that's why they called him Dr. Death? Because every team he was on was death. 

In Darwin's defense, he probably wasn't the problem. He never won more than 15 games in a season and he didn't strike out a ton of people, but he didn't walk a lot either, his WHIP was pretty decent (he lead the league twice, once in Houston--which considering he pitched half his games in the cavernous Astrodome seems about right--and once in Boston--which considering he pitched half his games in the bandbox that is Fenway Park seems about wrong) and he lead the league in ERA. 

The year that he lead the league in ERA and WHIP was 1990, which like I said was done in the ultimate pitcher's park, the Astrodome. So of course Lou Gorman signs* him to a crazy four-year deal for big money. For the Sox he was fine. His first year, it looks like he was hurt--he only appeared in 15 games. The second year he operated out of the bullpen, which I'm sure people were going  nuts about "We gave $3 million bucks to a long relievah! Tha fuck?". The third year, he pitched well as a starter (this was when he lead the AL in WHIP)  and the fourth year, he was fine again. 

* This was Lou Gorman's post 1990 shopping frenzy when like in a day, he signed Darwin, a pretty close to past his prime Jack Clark and a pretty sucky Matt Young to big deals. None of them made the impact that Sweet Lou thought that they were.

BTW, Gorman signing Darwin after he had an amazing year in the Astrodome should have been a harbinger of things to come when nine months later he sends New Britain third baseman Jeff Bagwell to the same Astros. Why did Gorman do that? Because he couldn't understand park effects--the Beehive in New Britain was a huge place where hitters "lost" power and pitchers pitched "awesome". It was kinda like a minor league version of the Astrodome and proved that Lou didn't understand park effects very well.

All-in-all Darwin was a meh signing at best. He wasn't going to win you a ton of games and he wasn't a star that was going to get the masses excited either. He was third/fourth starter who could give you innings out of the bullpen. There are a million dudes who can do that. No need to pay them a ton of cash to do that. Maybe throw the whole wad at Kirby Puckett--who the Sox were rumored to be going hard for that offseason. 

After Darwin left the Fens, he bounced around for the rest of his career, a half season in Toronto, back to Texas then to Pittsburgh back to Houston over to the White Sox before finishing up with the Giants. 

According to Wikipedia*, it was with the Giants that he got into a few scuffles. According to Orel Hershiser, when they were teammates there was a benches clearing brawl and Darwin popped Hershiser (who was his teammate, remember) in the face. Orel claims it was because he hit him once when they were facing each other back in the day. Which, take it easy Slim. Shit happens. 

* How great is it that every MLB player has their own Wiki page? What an age we live in!

The second Giant incident occurred when teammate Barry Bonds lollygagged after a ball. Darwin was furious because that lackadaisical play allowed a run to score. I'm sure that Bonds was super apologetic and vowed that it wouldn't do again. 

Darwin has spent his post-retirement years as a minor league pitching coach--except for a few months when he got  the call to the Show when the normal Cincinnati Reds pitching coach needed a replacement. I don't think that team made it to the postseason either. 

Larry Parrish 1989 Fleer

 On April 2, 2021 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

Larry Parrish was one of those guys. You know what I mean, he was the type of guy that was seemingly in every baseball card pack you opened. You looked at the front of his card for a minute, maybe you looked at the back of his card for a half-second and then you shove it back into the pile and keep flipping cards to see whether you got a Wally Joyner or a Bo Jackson or a Roger Clemens.

 

Unless you were a die-hard Expos or Rangers fan*, chances are you don’t remember Parrish all that much. But he was a beefy dude who played fourteen and a half seasons for Montreal and Texas. When I got around to noticing who he was, he looked like a stereotypical designated hitter; giant, slow, with a bit of a belly. Kind of like a softball player, a person who was seemingly born to DH, but at one point in his life, he had the mobility to be a third baseman and outfielder.

 

Life is a lot like that, you run into people at certain points in their lives and you think that’s who they’ve always been, but that’s not true. That Mom who’s always making stuff for the school bake sale? She was the bassist in a pretty decent riot grrrl band back in the 90s. The Dad who coaches your kid’s Little League team? He got black out drunk every weekend in college. You’re the guest star in their story, not that other way around. And that’s how it was for me and Larry Parrish. When he played in Boston he looked like a jacked up Alex P. Keaton; neat, short-haired almost like a Republican. But when he was in Montreal, he looked like Bill Lee's running mate, Grizzly Adams-type with a crazy beard and wild eyes. Beards were scary to me in the 1980s, Jeff Reardon (another former Expo to play for the Sox haunted my nightmares). Compare Parrish's card above to an early 80s card while an Expo below.

 

 

* As a Massachusetts native, I can’t think of no two more seemingly different, but very similar, outposts in Major League Baseball than Arlington, Texas and Montreal. Both teams were very anonymous, but on the fringes of being pretty good—Montreal was really good but they couldn’t put it together. They both wore powder blue away uniforms and crappy stadiums. Both had terrible weather (too cold in Canada, too hot in Texas) and they just seemed like teams that were around to fill out the league so that the Dodgers didn’t have to play the Cardinals every weekend and the Yankees didn’t have to play the Red Sox all the time--yet they were never on TV's Game of the Week. 

 

Did you know that Parrish was a two-time All-Star? It’s true, in 1979 and 1987 he made the mid-summer’s classic. The year after he made his second All-Star Game he was released by the Rangers in July and picked up by the Boston Red Sox about a week later. This was around the same time that John McNamara got canned and interim manager Joe Morgan was expected to keep the manager’s office warm until Lou Gorman could find a replacement skipper.

 

But Morgan kept winning and winning and winning that month, the Red Sox went on a tear and Morgan Magic was born. I remember when the Sox got Parrish he came to town, put on Don Baylor’s old number 25 (which seemed right, he reminded me a lot of a white Don Baylor), stood erect at the plate (he looked like he was seven feet tall and 250 pounds) and just started mashing.

 

In all, he hit seven home runs for the Sox that season and I bet six of them came within two weeks of his signing. After being discarded by the Rangers, all of a sudden he was as hot as the team he joined. You could tell that the Sox had captured the sports zeitgeist because in September, they made the cover of Sports Illustrated and one of the photos was an action shot of the newly acquired Parrish taking a hellacious cut and destroying a ball.

 

As the team lost their otherworldly momentum, so did Parrish. He finished a shade under .260, with seven homers, a .298 OBP (yuck) and a .424 slugging percentage. That wasn’t too bad for a 35-year-old, but I think that everyone knew that Larry was done. The good news was 1988 was Parrish’s second foray into the postseason (he was a member of the Blue Monday Expos in 1981), but the Sox were quickly run over by the Oakland A’s juggernaut and Parrish retired from the game after that season.

 

After he retired, he got back into baseball and was a coach for a few teams. Much like his last skipper, Parrish was named interim manager after his old Ranger pal Buddy Bell got the hook and rode a decent September 1998 (13-12, which was part of their overall 65-97 record) into becoming the new Tigers skipper the following year. The team was abysmal in the year of our Prince, 1999, and finished the season with a slightly better 69-92 record. But it wasn’t enough for the Tiger front office and he was not asked back to manage Detroit into the new Willenium.

 

As one of those guys, you don’t think of a Larry Parrish very much unless he somehow finds his way to your team. Then you think about him a lot. You can’t remember what life was like when Larry Parrish wasn’t holding down the DH position for the local nine. You see that weird stance every night, you open up Sports Illustrated and there he is the crisp, bright white Red Sox uniforms and you’re like “Damn, Larry Parrish was made to be a Boston Red Sock.”* You get all caught up in his hot streak and the team’s scorching three weeks and start believing that maybe Larry Parrish was the x-factor, the guy who the team needed to push them over the top. This is the year that the Red Sox are going to finally get that stupid monkey off their back. 

 

 

* I was so all-in on Larry Parrish that I bought his rookie card that summer. 

 

But, as they say, water finds its level and Parrish turned back into an old pumpkin. However, you still hold out hope that maybe at the end of September and into October, he has just a little more gas in the tank. Maybe he can put the team on his back and carry them for just a few more games—14 at the absolute most.

 

He doesn’t. Everyone knows that he’s cooked and he’s gone at the end of the year without much fanfare. After a bunch of years, you almost forget that Larry Parrish ever had a locker in the home clubhouse at Fenway Park, unless you’re tipping back beers with friends and talking about obscure Sox guys.

 

“How about Larry Parrish!”

“Lance Parrish never played with the Red Sox!”

“I don’t mean the Tigers catcher, I said LARRY Parrish!”

“Oh shit, yeah I remember him. He was pretty good for awhile back in 88, right?”

“Yup. He did some stuff.”

 

As a guy, it’s always good to be remembered for doing some stuff.

Steve Curry 1989 Fleer

Do you remember a time when we were able to leave our homes without masks? Do you remember a time when we could gather together in public places and shake hands or hug and didn't have to stand six feet from one another? I barely recall these days of long ago--actually it was at the end of February--but it was during this time that the Baseball Card Bandit emailed me (YES! EMAIL!) this card. I'm now only getting to writing about it mainly because I had time remembering Curry and wasn't sure what to say. 

Curry, who looks almost exactly like Deadspin founder Will Leitch, pitched three games in the summer of 1988. Curry pitched three games in his entire pro career, and here is his line: 0-1, 8.18 ERA, 11.0 innings. He gave up 15 hits, 10 runs, walked 14 (!) and struck out four. The only good thing is that he didn't give up a home run during his trio of starts. 

His first MLB appearance was July 10 and his last appearance was July 23. Do you know what this means? Steve Curry lost his first decision and his next two appearances he received no decisions. Let me explain. 

At the beginning of 1988, the Sox were scuffling along. 1986 World Series goat John McNamara was still the manager and it was apparent that he lost control of the club house. So Boston canned him right after the All-Star game. They negotiated to get a few high-profile managers, but in the interim they named Walpole, MA-native Joe Morgan (not that one) manager on July 14. The Sox ripped off a 12-game win streak that the press dubbed "Morgan Magic". 

I remember Morgan Magic and it was insane how the Sox were winning for those two weeks. It seemed as if every game was won in walk-off fashion. One out in the bottom of the tenth and Todd Benzinger hits a game-winning dinger off of Minnesota Twins reliever Keith Atherton*. It was crazy. The Sox would ride this hot streak into the fall before losing to the Oakland Athletics in the American League Championship Series. 

* I could have sworn that Benzinger hit his homer off of seemingly untouchable closer Jeff "The Terminator" Reardon, but apparently it was Atherton, which isn't as good of a story. 

Back to Curry, with his start on July 10, that may have been one of McNamara's final moves as a Red Sox manager. According to RetroSheet.org, Curry didn't pitch too badly in that game, losing 4-1 to the White Sox. He gave up four hits, three runs and walked seven--which sounds to me like the dude was nervous. 

His second start came against the Twins where he had a reverse split of walking only three (good!) but giving up seven hits (bad) in 4.1 innings. Lucky for Boston, they scored 11 runs and that took him off the hook. Though he wouldn't get the win because he didn't pitch five full innings. Just two more batters and you would have got the "W", dude! Damn. 

Curry last start was also against the White Sox and he gave up four hits and four walks but also five runs in a little over two innings. The Red Sox scored 11 and cranked out 20 hits. And that was it for Steve Curry. The bullpen and the offense saved his ass big time in two of his three starts, Morgan and General Manager Lou Gorman had apparently seen enough and he was banished to AAA Pawtucket and was never heard from again, which seems kind of crazy because he was only 22-years-old. 

A couple of things:

1. I have a feeling that Steve Curry was definitely rushed to the Big Leagues and completely spit the bit. He pretty much got his ass kicked, BUT he was in the Show and like I say, that's something that no one can take away from you, no matter how much you stink the place up. I'm really surprised that no one gave him at least one more shot, especially in 1993 when the league expanded and they needed pitchers. A 27-year-old Steve Curry couldn't have been handy to anyone? Really? 

2. It's kind of crazy to me that the 12-game winning streak had two starts by someone who pitched so damn poorly. Like I said above, I was under the impression that these games were mostly close--and according to the game logs they were as 8 of the 12 wins were decided by three runs or less--but they also scored a ton of runs too. I guess I forgot that the pitching staff gave up a bunch of runs too (44 in those 12 games, which isn't great considering that there was a Mike Smithson shutout mixed in there too (exactly who you would have thought). 

3. When I Googled "Steve Curry Boston Red Sox" I got his Wikipedia page and his Baseball-Reference.com page and that's it. The next bunch of links were about how Golden State Warrior future Hall of Famer, Steph Curry is a huge Red Sox fan. I kinda feel bad for the baseball playing Steve Curry, but that's the way it goes, I suppose. 

Hopefully the BCB drops more cards in the mail soon. Not email though. So impersonal. 

Joe Hesketh 1992 Fleer

  

Last week, I received this baseball card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB). Included with this card was a note printed on a missed message piece of paper. The note said, “Til we meet again for the first time.” I know that I alluded to this with the Terry Francona card from last week, but it appears to me that the BCB is all done. 

I know that the next question is, why? I think that the reason why is because the identity of the BCB was clumsily revealed to me two years ago at my brother’s wedding. While the name of the person was never verified, I think that he got the message that I know who it is. I’m not trying to be a tease, but I will not reveal the name until he is verified and he wants me to. 

If the game is over, I am legitimately bummed out about this. This has been a fun few years of getting random baseball cards, writing about the players on the front of the cards, exploring how baseball relates to life and how perceptions change over time. How you might look at a player one way in 1988 and then see that person in a completely different light in 2019. 

One of those players is the card that I received today, Joe Hesketh. If you think about Joe Hesketh at all—and aside from a username on SoSH it’s been a while since his name has invaded by cerebral cortex—mostly you might remember him as a fourth starter for some mediocre Red Sox teams. 

And aside from his first full year in Boston, that’s who he was.  

The 1991 season was a bit underrated in terms of interesting Red Sox seasons. They finished in second, behind the division-winning Blue Jays after completely falling apart late in the season. On Sunday, September 22, the Sox had two outs in the ninth against a bad Yankees team. Roberto Kelly was facing Jeff Reardon, who was protecting a one-run lead. Kelly loses the ball over the Wall and the Sox can’t score in the bottom of the ninth. Punching bags Matt Young and Dan Petry come in (there was no one left in the pen, I assume) and gives up two runs to the Bombers. The Sox bat in the 10^th and Mo Vaughn rockets a two-out double, Jack Clark strikes out against Steve Farr and the Sox lose. 

This was the turning point of the season as Boston tailspins into a 3-10 record, which costs Joe Morgan his job. The Red Sox were pretty brutal in the next three seasons, finally bouncing back in the strike-shortened 1995 season. 

In 1991, Hesketh was pretty good swingman for the Sox. He appeared in 39 games, started 17 and went a career-high 12-4, with a 3.29 ERA with 104 strikeouts in 153.1 innings pitched. He also led the entire league in winning percentage (.750) that year, which is god damn amazing, if you ask me. If the Braves thought that he’d be this decent, they never would have released him in 1990. 

Confession time: I used to get Hesketh confused with another mediocre lefty National League reject named Joe from around that time, Joe Price.

This was it for the former Montreal Expo (side note: he was 10-5 for the Expos in 1985, which happened to be his rookie year, good for eighth in the ROY award) in terms of being a serviceable pitcher, as his next three years were pretty poor. The good news for Hesketh is that he had his career year at the best time for the perfect GM in the league, as Sox General Manager Lou Gorman felt that he had to sign him and gave him a three-year, $5.1 million-dollar deal. For that scratch, Hesketh rewarded his team with 19 wins and ERAs of 4.36, 5.06 and 4.26. 

I know that I’ve said this before, but it’s not the money that you give to the superstars that gets you fired, it’s the cash you dole out to the Joe Heskeths of the world. Gorman should have known that you can find a Joe Hesketh on every MLB roster and that he’d cost you nothing to aquire him. Also, Hesketh was 32-years-old in 1991, he wasn’t going to get better as he got older. And it was pretty obvious that he was going to get worse. 

I’m not saying that the Hesketh deal was what Gorman axed at the end of the 1994 season, but this—along with the rising star of Jeff Bagwell in Houston—had to be on the list. Joe Hesketh was a one-man heist movie. 

And while he pretty much stole $5 million from the Red Sox, good for him. The Sox should have known what they had in Hesketh, they shouldn’t have given him anything more than a one-year deal. If they wanted to give him a 1992 contract for $1.7 million in recognition of a good 1991 season, so be it. But there’s no need to get attached to a guy like this for real money. 

That’s all on Gorman. 

I think that’s something that fans need to understand.  A player is going to get as much money as they can. Teams need to have some sort of foresight and intelligence when it comes to deals like this. If they can’t help themselves, that’s their problems. I never understood why fans take the teams’ side when the teams gave out the contract. 

Oh well, I guess that’s as good of a rant as anything to go out on.  

In any event, it’s been a fun couple of years and hopefully I’ll get more cards. But if I don’t, I guess I’ll have to come up with a new project for me to write about and for you to read. Talk to you soon!

Tom Brunansky 1990 Score

In mid-September 2019 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

The first year I really started to obsessively follow baseball was 1986. Watching the Red Sox that year was total exhilaration, until it came to the second-to-last and last games of the season. Then it sucked. Hard. But you already know that story and I’m not going to talk about it because it doesn’t matter in the greater context of this blog entry. 

The thing that no one really warns you about, is that once the season ends; baseball pretty much disappears. When you follow the game every single day for eight months, this is god damn jarring. No longer is the sports page abuzz with team notebooks and game summaries and box scores. Maybe once or twice a week, you’ll get a few inches on what the Sox are thinking about and every Sunday Peter Gammons or Larry Whiteside filled a broadsheet of rumors, but that was it. You were supposed to go cold turkey on baseball. 

But eventually, things heat up a little bit at the beginning of December where all 26 teams (there was only 26 teams back then) came together in some hotel in a warm part of the country and they’d sit around and make deals and sign free agents and new uniforms would be announced. It was like a baseball Hanukah, because it happened over a week, and every day there were gifts as players were changing teams at a rapid pace. Anyway, during the Winter Meetings of 1986, it seemed that just about every team—except for the two teams* in the World Series—made moves. When they showed up to Spring Training in 1987, mostly everything was the same. 

* The Mets made one memorable move, sending a bunch of players (including Kevin Mitchell) to San Diego for Kevin McReynolds. The only thing that the Sox did was alienate Roger Clemens and colluded against catcher Rich Gedman.  

Using this first offseason as my template, I thought that was how champions and runners-up behaved. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Of course, the Sox and Mets stumbled a bit in 1987 and didn’t make the postseason. So, I should have learned a lesson. 

What does this lengthy preamble have to do with Tom Brunansky? In 1987, Tom Brunansky was a key member of the World Champion Minnesota Twins. He was their rightfielder and was a key bat in the middle of their lineup. About a month into the 1988 season, the Twins sent him to the Cardinals (the team that they just beat the previous October!) for second baseman Tommy Herr. 

I had questions.

Tommy Herr? Why would the Twins make that deal? They had veteran Steve Lombardozzi, a Massachusetts native to boot, manning second base. They won a World Series with that guy, why would they trade for someone to replace him? Especially from a team whose ass they just kicked? And why would they trade a power bat like Brunansky? Who was going to play rightfield and hit 30+ home runs?  

Here’s the thing that I didn’t really get about baseball back then. The clichés are usually true. Especially the two that fit here: to get something good, you have to give up something good and the proverbial trade that helps both teams. 

In the late 80s, the Cards needed power, badly. All they had was Jack Clark hitting dingers and he took his bat to San Diego (along with former Sox lefty Bruce Hurst). The only power threat they had was former Brave Bob Horner, who was returning from a year in Japan. He was no Cecil Fielder and was pretty much running on fumes by this point in his career. With this trade, the Cards got their middle-of-the-order bat in Brunansky. However, even with Brunansky and his 22 homers in 1988, St. Louis managed 71 homeruns all year. I know that they were still in the midst of Whitey Ball, but that’s less homers than Barry Bonds hit by himself in 2001. Consequently, they finished behind the Mets for the National League East title. 

The Twins were looking for someone that could play second base and hit. Despite being born in Malden, Massachusetts, and starting for a championship team (I was obsessed with this for some reason, like I thought because you started and your team won, that automatically meant you were really good) Lombardozzi was a terrible batter. That World Series cornerstone slashed 238/298/352 in 1987, and those were some of his better numbers. They needed a second baseman who could hit and run a little. They had power with first baseman Kent Hrbek, third baseman Gary Gaetti and centerfielder Kirby Puckett. Therefore, Brunansky was the odd man out. So Herr, who was a few years away from finishing in the top five in the 1985 NL MVP race behind teammate Willie McGee, was slotted in at second and Lombardozzi roamed around the infield, not hitting but being a pretty good gloveman (I assume, I don’t have his defensive numbers in front of me). 

Even with Herr, the Twins finished second to the budding dynasty that was beginning in Oakland. Herr stuck around for less than a year and joined up with the Phillies in 1989 before ending his career with the Mets and Giants two years later. 

Brunansky was a Cardinal for about two seasons before he was sent to the Red Sox in exchange for Hall of Fame (that’s still really weird to write) reliever Lee Smith in 1990. Brunansky reunited with former Twin Jeff Reardon and made a spectacular catch in the corner of rightfield in Fenway Park off the bat of Chicago White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen that clinched the 1990 AL East flag for Boston. It was probably the highlight of his Red Sox run. 

I’ve talked about this before, but I never understood why Boston GM Lou Gorman signed Reardon in the first place when he had Smith in the backend of his bullpen. And I was really angry when they shipped Smith to St. Louis for a fading power hitter in Brunansky. I talked about it here and here. 

For some really awful Red Sox teams in 1991 and 1992, Brunansky was the only one who supplied any sort of power with 16 and 15 round-trippers. That second number led the entire team. Fifteen home runs was the best that a Red Sox player could do in 1992, despite playing half of their games in Fenway Park. It was abysmal. Brunansky played with the Brewers in 1993 before coming back with to the Sox in 1994, where he hit his last 10 dingers. 

For a guy from West Covina, California (I wonder if he knows Josh Chan? Shout out to “Crazy Ex Girlfriend”) with mediocre power and a mustache, Tom Brunansky not only brought a lot of questions, but he also ended up teaching me a lot about baseball – mostly that nothing should stay the same. You have to keep moving, getting better and improving. And if that means trading your fourth-best power hitter. 

Wade Boggs 1991 Fleer Ultra

On July 16, 2019 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

A few weeks ago I received a letter in the mail from the BCB. It had been a long time since I got anything from him (or her), so I ripped open the envelope and out dropped a Wade Boggs card. Since it's been so long since I received a BCB letter, I forgot to write down the return address for this card. 

Wade Boggs reminds me that you can think that you know a lot about baseball or other stuff, but at the end of the day, no one really knows anything. And what you do know, at times, can make you sound incredibly dumb. 

Boggs was a true Boston star when baseball meant everything in the world to me. I didn't like him. At all. I hated getting his cards in wax packs, even though I knew that he was good. I told everyone that he was a decent hitter but there was always a caveat. "Sure Boggs will get you a few hits in the first four innings but where is he when it really matters?" "Yeah Boggs will hit over .350, but where's the power?" "I know that Boggs gets on base, but he has no speed. He goes from station to station to station. It takes four hits to drive him in! Why do you lead this guy off, he's not Vince Coleman!" 

I'm pretty sure that I wasn't alone. There was a very loud group of Boggs haters in Boston. Many came from the city's papers and a lot called on the talk shows. For a guy who was so great, he got no love in his home park. 

As the years crawled by, I started to really think that Wade Boggs out-and-out sucked. And that's because I was too dumb to appreciate what it was like to watch baseball before Boggs showed up. When I was a kid and I played Red Sox General Manager, first I'd have a big lunch (just like real GM Lou Gorman) then I'd pretend to call any team and beg them to take Boggs off my hands.

"Hello Seattle? Sure, I'l trade you Wade Boggs straight up for Jim Presley!"

"Yes, I know that Gary Gaetti was a key member of your World Series team, Minnesota. Take Boggs AND Jeff Sellers for him! Please! I'm begging you!"

Mike Schu (the Phillies moved Mike Schmidt across the diamond to make room for him, he must be good!), Terry Pendleton (dude played third base and was fast -- he really wasn't that fast, TBH), Mike Pagliarulo (Pags and Don Mattingly were my version of Maris and Mantle) and Carney Lansford (why couldn't the Sox have traded Boggs to Oakland for Tony Armas!), were all players I held in higher regard than Wade Boggs. 

I wasn't being a troll, I wasn't looking at numbers in a weird new way, I wasn't even being a contrarian; I just thought that Wade Boggs blew. I thought that all of his numbers were hollow (remember that time that he struck out in the ninth inning against Dennis Eckersely of Game 1 of the 1988 ALCS, WTF man?) or that he was selfish (he hit 27 homers in 1987, that proves that he can hit with power if he wanted to!) or that Fenway helped him (if it wasn't for the wall, all those doubles would be outs). But the fact was, I was just never advanced enough to get Wade Boggs*.

* This is not like how I don't get Bruce Springsteen. I get Bruce Springsteen, I get why he's popular and good and why people love him. I'm not one of those people. I mean, I like him just fine and he checks off a lot of boxes for me, he's just not my cup of tea. I don't own anything by the man and probably never will. But I don't feel about Springsteen the way that I do about Billy Joel or Rush. Those dudes are terrible. It's the same thing with Radiohead and Pink Floyd. I know that they're good, I just don't dig them. I can't tell you why. 

Back to Boggs. This sounds absolutely stupid, but I never appreciated what he brought to the table; which was a 338/428/462 slash over 11 seasons with the Sox, only striking out 470 times in 7200 plate appearances. Not only that but he worked his ass off to be one of the best defensive third basemen in the league. With or without the Wall, he was a doubles machine, cranking 420+ over his Sox career and was patient as hell walking over 1000 times. 

But I didn't want that. I wanted a third baseman who hit bombs. Home runs. If you played either of the corners or the outfield and you didn't hit at least 20 dingers, you weren't worth a greasy shit to me. If you asked me in 1989, I'd say Wade Boggs hit like a second baseman, just a bunch of singles and dinky doubles (this was patently untrue, BTW, Boggs rocketed balls off the wall, absolute peas). And yeah I was kind of right, Boggs did hit like a second baseman if that person's name was Rogers Hornsby. 

After Boggs moved on to the Yankees (HA! He's your problem now New York) and had a bunch of good years, I had to watch the likes of Scott Cooper and Wilton Veras and Tim Neahring and Chris Donnels try to play third. And it was brutal. They either couldn't hit, couldn't field, couldn't stay healthy or sometimes all three. 

At some point in the mid 90s, I realized that I missed Wade fucking Boggs. I missed his insanity, he once tried to will himself invisible when someone pulled a knife on him (his titanic drinking exploits didn't come out until much much later). I missed his tales of OCD, chicken every day, drawing the Hebrew symbol Chai in the dirt before every at bat, taking ground balls at the same time. I even missed the lurid tales of Margo Adams*. 

* Well maybe not. When this story broke, I was the world's youngest prude. "Ballplayers fool around on their wives with other women? Land sakes! I need my fainting couch!" I was so appalled at Boggs for ruining the Red Sox' good name (and this was maybe a year or two after the team was involved in some racist shenanigans at the Winter Haven Florida Elks club) that I wanted him gone. "Gary Gaetti? We'd be lucky to get Steve Lombardozzi and Al Newman for him." I kept a clipped newspaper article of every trade that Boggs was ever rumored to be in and read it over and over and over. There was one particular great deal for the Sox: Boggs to Atlanta for Ron Gant and Tom Glavine. But none ever came to pass. 

Here's the thing, when I was having these obviously idiotic thoughts about a sure-fire, first ballot Hall of Famer, I thought myself as a particularly smart and nuanced baseball fan. Not only did I think that understood the game on the field, but I thought that I knew what the front office looked for off the field too. 

And I wasn't shy about it either, I had a weekly column in the school paper where I'd write this insanity for the entirety of my high school to read. I'm glad I don't have those AHS Weeklys any more, I'd probably use them as kindling to light myself on fire. 

The point isn't to beat myself up over wrong headedness from 30 years ago, it's more to say: we're all wrong about certain things. We can get something stuck in our head and just obsess about it over and over and over again until it becomes their truth. I was wrong America, Wade Boggs is and was pretty god damn good at baseball. 

Mike Boddicker 1989 Topps

Sometime in the last year or so I received this card but I'm not sure if it was from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On July 29, 1988; Lou Gorman made a trade that worked out well for both teams sending Red Sox prospects Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling to the Baltimore Orioles for veteran right hander Mike Boddicker. Anderson was a big time prospect and broke camp with the big-league at the beginning of the year and was sent back to Pawtucket by May. Schilling was a wild righty with good stuff, but a five-cent brain. At the time, no one really expected Schilling to do anything but Boston fans were nervous about losing Anderson. 

Anderson didn't have his breakout year until four season later in 1992 and became a three-time All Star with O's for the rest of the 1990s. Curt Schilling has a very good shot of making the Hall of Fame (if he can shut his mouth for more than five minutes) but didn't reach his potential until after the Houston Astros (who acquired him from an exasperated Orioles club) sent him to Philadelphia. In the City of Brotherly Love and with the Arizona Diamondbacks and back to the Red Sox, Schilling took off and became a perennial All-Star as well as one of the more dominant pitchers for the next 15 years. He lead his teams to four World Series, winning three of them -- including two all timers in 2001 and 2004. 

Mike Boddicker played with the Sox for two-and-a-half seasons compiling a 39-22 record before signing a free agent deal with the Kansas City Royals in the winter of 1990 and played for the Brewers in his last season. 

Why did this deal work out for both teams? The Orioles received two players that had they used patience with BOTH former Sox prospects would have seen a better return on their investment. But they only stuck with Anderson and he proved to be a player to wait for. Anderson had one of the strangest home run years in 1996 when he 50 round trippers, he never hit more than 24 before or after that year. When the O's began a mini renaissance in the Charm City, Anderson was one of their better players. 

Boddicker was the perfect fit for the Sox needs from 1988 through 1990. In July of 1988, the Sox were hot as hell flushed with Morgan Magic. They had Roger Clemens and Bruce Hurst to lead them, but after that, the pitching staff was pretty bleak. Gorman got Boddicker and he was the perfect third man in the rotation, going 7-3 with a 2.63 ERA for his new team. Not too bad. 

And with Hurst departing for San Diego that winter, he fit in nicely behind Clemens as the number two man on the staff winning 15 and 17 games in the next two seasons before taking off to KC. 

The reason why this trade works out for both teams is because where they were at at the time. The Sox were in the middle of a pennant race and couldn't afford to waste time on players that might be good in two, three or in Schilling and Anderson's case, four to five seasons down the road. Baltimore, on the other hand, had nothing but time. That year they started 0-22 and were in the midst of a full-fledged rebuild--wasting Cal Ripken's prime in the mean time--they had nothing else to do but see if the kids they had in their minor league system would hit. And some did. 

Most of the time, baseball trades aren't that big of a deal, they really don't change a team too much. Every once in awhile there will be a steal of a deal (like when Gorman sent Jeff Bagwell to the Astros for Larry Andersen in 1990) but those are few and far between. Even more rarer are the trades that help both teams, like this one. 

Danny Heep 1990 Fleer

On June 12, 2017 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

On Facebook, I wrote: Almost by definition, sports are unfair. But baseball might be the most unfair game of them all. Ted Williams, Yaz, Ernie Banks, Barry Bonds and scores of other Hall of Famers have never stood on the mountaintop as a World Champion. 

2019 Notes: What I mean by sports being unfair is that you can be the absolute best at your game, but you can still have nothing (in terms of championships) to show for it. And baseball seems to be the toughest. Even someone like Barry Bonds only stepped to the plate (at most) four times a game. If his other teammates don't deliver, it doesn't matter. 

And unfortunately, people don't take that into consideration when they talk about all-timers. "Did he win a Championship?" is usually one of the first questions. And it's unfair, I think. 

Danny Heep won two World Series with two different teams in three years. Unless he made his living rescuing babies and nuns from burning buildings in a previous life, karma sucks.

2019: This is sort of a weird analogy. I think that what I was trying to get at was you have to be lucky--not necessarily great--to be on a championship team. And for Heep to be on two in three years is a pretty lucky especially when juxtaposed with his career. Danny Heep played for 13 seasons in the major leagues and he had a skill set, pinch hitter extraordinaire, but he wasn't Williams or Yaz or Banks or Bonds. So what's the explanation for his good fortune? Karmic retribution? I was making a joke, but at the same time, how can you explain luck?

This 1990 Fleer card was sent to me through Tulsa, Oklahoma from the BCB. To me, Danny Heep was an anomaly. When I was a kid I loved when the Sox picked up veteran players I had heard of. By 1989 I had heard of Danny Heep and I was not a fan of this move. At all. 

2019: Not to go all Paul Lukas on you, but I'll tell you what I am a fan of, those Spring Training uniforms that the Sox wore that year. I love the Red Sox over the heart and the v neck; man it's great. I remember when the Sox came out with those uniforms for Spring Training, people were a little pissed (probably not the right word) that they wouldn't train in their every day uniforms any more. Boston is so fucking weird some times. 

The Sox gave him 320 at bats that year (WTF?!?) and he did hit an even .300 but it was hollow. Out of his 113 hits, only 22 were for extra bases (five were homers). That left a lot of singles. He wasn't fast (zero SBs), so he was just a banjo hitting corner outfielder. 

In fairness to Danny Heep, he was the perfect NL player who was adapt at pinch hitting (a monumentally difficult task) but the Red Sox play in the American League and pinch hitters aren't needed as much. He batted .179 the following year in Boston (where he also pitched an inning in relief) before ending his career with the Braves. 

I don't know what Danny Heep does now but if I were him, I'd spend my days polishing my rings and thanking Vishnu that I was part of TWO World Series teams.

2019: Danny Heep is probably a good guy, I don't know him, but he must have been a hell of a pinch hitter to play consistently for 13 seasons. Pinch hitting is hard, I bet. You sit around all game until the manager tells you to grab a bat and hit against the guy that is currently mowing your teammates down. It doesn't sound fun. So I can see why that skill is admired. 

But Danny Heep (you have to write out his full name--it's the law) is nowhere near an American League player and when I was a kid, even I knew that. There's barely any pinch hitting going on this league. And he's not someone that you give 320+ at bats and expect your club to win. When you're 15-years-old and your favorite baseball team signs a guy that you think is not the right move, I guess it sticks with you. I'm not blaming Danny Heep, I'm blaming Lou Gorman. There had to be an outfielder out there with more pop than this guy. Right?

I was also probably a little pissed that the Sox got a guy from the 1986 Mets too. They were supposed to be our rivals! They cut out our hearts! And now we have one of them playing for us? I don't think that I really got sports for a long time. 

Trivia: in 1983 Danny Heep was traded from the Houston Astros to the New York Mets for future Cy Young Award winner and 1986 postseason nemesis Mike Scott (not the dude from "The Office"). I wonder what Danny Heep's life was like in 1986 with people asking him what it was like to be traded for a guy who was completely dominating the league?

I bet if you get traded and the guy you're traded for does really well and you just kind of do your thing, that must not be a lot of fun. 

Jeff Reardon 1992 Upper Deck

On July 1, 2016, the Baseball Card Bandit sent the above card. I took to Facebook that day to write this:

“The BCB is at it again but this time there's a wrinkle in his (I assume it's a man) game. Look at the postmark! This card, of Terminator Jeff Reardon, was sent from New York City where Reardon spent the last 11 games oh his career sans trademark beard. 

Reardon was needed when he was with the Sox (Boston had potential HoFer Lee Smith) but for some reason GM Lou Gorman picked him up. Maybe that's what led him to real world troubles he had in Florida after he retired. 

Or maybe it was just Florida. Man, that state just sucks.”

I was never a big Jeff Reardon guy. I just didn't think that he fit a need for the Red Sox and wondered why they were spending money on him. It was a needles bauble, as far as I was concerned. Sign a starting pitcher, an outfielder with pop, anything but another lights-out closer. We already had one. And he was good.  

When the Red Sox picked him up as a free agent after the 1989 season, I was a little shocked. Boston still had Lee Smith*, who had a really good previous year. Smith was 6-1 with a 3.57 ERA (which is unfair metric to judge for closers) and had 25 saves and a 12.2 strikeout over nine innings ratio. Reardon had a 5-4 record, a 4.07 ERA, saved 31 games and 5.7 SO/9. Plus, Reardon was two years older and cost more money. 

*The Lee Smith deal was probably Lou Gorman's best deal ever. He traded Calvin Schiraldi and Al Nipper to the Cubs for Smith. Gorman should have been arrested for larceny. It was that good of a deal. 

Why would you sign a closer when you already had a really good one in the back of your bullpen. I wasn’t sure what Red Sox General Manager Lou Gorman was thinking. But I assumed that since Reardon was signed in December 1989, Smith would be gone by Spring Training. Again, not true. When the Sox reported to Winter Haven, Florida both Reardon and Smith were there too. They spent a lot of time talking about who was the closer and they gave similar pat instances about how “these things have a way of working out” and “whoever had the hot hand”. Crap like that.

If there was ever a manager who could make this work, it was Sox skipper Joe Morgan. He said the same thing. When camp broke that April, both Reardon and Smith were on the roster. This lasted about a month before Gorman traded Smith to the St. Louis Cardinals for Reardon’s former Twin teammate Tom Brunansky.

Brunansky was slotted in right field and was the Red Sox only power threat in some very lean years. He did make a pretty awesome catch off of Chicago White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen to clinch the 1990 American League East. Other than that, he was completely adequate.

I often wondered why Reardon chose the Red Sox that off season. He knew about Lee Smith and he understood that the Sox really didn’t need a closer. Reardon grew up in Dalton, MA, so maybe he wanted to come home. Gorman gave him a crap-load of money to pitch here. Maybe Gorman told him that the team didn’t like Smith anymore and that he would be traded soon and that there was nothing to worry about.

I’m not sure. But he came in and pitched well. In two plus seasons, he had 88 saves for the Red Sox and made the All-Star team in 1991. That was also the year where he gagged the American League East flag. The Sox were making a pretty hard run late in the season when the Sox were on the verge of beating the New York Yankees to get closer to the league-leading Toronto Blue Jays.

With two outs in the top of the ninth and the Red Sox leading 5-4, Reardon gave up a game tying shot to Roberto Kelly. The next inning, Matt Young and Dan Petry couldn’t get out of their own ways and gave two runs to Bombers who won the game 7-5. From that game forward, the Sox lost 10 of their next 13 and finished in second behind the Blue Jays.

The Sox were never a serious contender until 1995 when another Massachusetts boy, Dan Duquette took the reigns as Boston General Manager and remade the Sox on the fly following the strike-shortened 1994 season. Duquette was Reardon’s catcher at UMass-Amherst.

Late in the 1992 season, Reardon was traded to the Braves for a minor leaguer. From there he bounced to Cincinnati and the Yankees—two teams that had strict rules of facial hair. If Reardon wanted to continue pitching, he had to shave off the beard that made him famous and intimidating. He retired after the abbreviated 1994 season.

Jeff Reardon was an interesting character. He looked like James Brolin from the original “Amityville Horror” movie. He was a Met for a while, but was traded to the Montreal Expos where he began his career as the unstoppable stopper. That’s also where he got his nickname “The Terminator”. He’d come in, throw gas by everyone, save the day and walk off the mound. He never showed a lot of emotion and when you mix his beard plus playing in the “wilds of Canada” he seemed scary as hell.

After the 1986 season, he signed with the Minnesota Twins and was dominant that year. He was probably their Most Valuable Player that year as he brought a ton of stability to the bullpen. The Twins believed that the game was over once Reardon was on the mound. Twins manager Tom Kelly used him brilliantly and was the best weapon in the American League that year riding him all the way to Minnesota’s first world championship in any sport.

The years after his retirement were not kind to Reardon. This is from Wikipedia (and references what I wrote about him in the original Facebook post):

“On December 26, 2005, Reardon was taken into custody and charged by the Palm Beach Gardens, Florida Police Department for allegedly committing armed robbery at a Hamilton Jewelers store at the Gardens Mall. Reardon attributed his actions to the influence of the medications that he had been taking since his son died in 2004. Soon after the episode at the mall and his release from an overnight stay in jail, Reardon returned to a psychiatric facility, and was an inpatient for nearly two months. His doctors drastically reduced his medications and began to administer electroshock treatments. However, Reardon still had to stand trial.

Reardon was eventually found not guilty of the charges by reason of drug-induced insanity. The judge ruled that because Reardon had been taking anti-depressants and mood stabilizers, and was distraught over his son's death, there was no reasonable explanation for the robbery. In addition, Reardon was not required to be committed after the ruling.”

I haven’t read much about Reardon since then, so I assume he’s doing okay. At least that’s what I want to believe. Because even dominant relievers need some relief.