Quote:
Originally Posted by steve B
A very long time ago I put aside cards of players I figured had a shot in some way. From just popular players with decent stats, or guys with a chance at 300 wins, 3000 hits or 400Hr. Which were all the big landmarks at the time.
The steroid era and more recently the swing for the fences and don't worry about strikeouts made 400HR pretty much a losing thing.
I found that box a while ago, and looked. Only a few had made it. Yount and a handful of others.
Many did not. Like Johnny Ray, who seemed on the path to 3000 hits, being generally well over 150 a year. ended up at 1502 after 10 years, including his first when he only had 31 games. I suspect a lack of power and the then common thing of releasing veteran players who were solid enough to get paid well in favor of kids who might be better or worse but at least were cheap finished him off.
It's an interesting box to go through.
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LOL, I was a big Johnny Ray mark back in the day to. Socked away all my Johnny Ray and Steve Sax rookies. They were 1-2 in the ROY voting in '82 (and I played 2nd base in Little League at the time).
Johnny was more under the radar though, so I thought I had a diamond in the rough that nobody else was paying attention to. He was probably a more well rounded player then Sax was also.
Pretty good ballplayer, but not exactly "generational".
I had a soft spot for 2nd basemen. Willie Randolph was my favorite player for awhile, and I remember hoarding Damaso Garcia Rookie cards for some unknown reason.