The Division Series round of the 2020 Postseason will come to an end tonight. So, too, will this two-part post of a trade with Card Hemorrhage. There will be no Rockies in this part, but I have Stadium Club cards to show going all the way back to its inaugural year.
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| 2019 Stadium Club #279 Rougned Odor |
Stadium Club has always been known for great photography, and for fans of double-play shots, it is peerless. Here, Rougned Odor of the Rangers is turning two in Petco Park, which happens to be the neutral site of the ALDS series between the Yankees and Rays. The Bronx Bombers (San Diego Bombers?) are playing to win for Whitey Ford, the Yankee great who passed away yesterday at the age of 91. I was hoping that Seaver, Brock, and Gibson would be the end of this particular rule of threes, but it seems that 2020 isn't over yet.
The card back mentions Odor's 5-for-5 day on July 28th, 2018, appropriate because Will Smith of the Dodgers had just such a performance last night, the first time a Dodger has done so in the Postseason.
In case you're curious, the cameo on this 2019 Stadium Club card is Padres catcher Francisco Mejía, who was not included on the active roster for San Diego's 2020 playoff run. Odor has been a Ranger for a while, but Mejía might be our key to figuring out the date here. He had only recently become a Padre in late 2018, and faced the Rangers in his home park in mid-September. After drawing a walk in the bottom of the first on September 14th, 2018, Wil Myers grounded into a 5-4-3 double play. We're seeing the ball in motion between the "4" and the "3".
Cameos do more than look cool. They can be the source of useful information.
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| 1999 Stadium Club #269 Al Martin |
Generally speaking, no one dives into second to break up a double play, so on this 1999 card, we're probably seeing Al Martin steal a base. He was a Pirate at this point in his career, confirmed by the extremely faint Pirates team logo in the upper left.
As far as action shots go, this is a great one, and somehow Martin's airborne helmet sailing into left-center makes it even better. If you didn't have the raised-lettering nameplate or that tiny team logo, it would be pretty difficult to tell who the primary player in this picture is. I believe the cameo this time is journeyman infielder José Vizcaíno.
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| 1992 Stadium Club #444 Lance Johnson |
Delving into the early Stadium Club days, here's Lance Johnson taking some BP in the brand-new Comiskey Park. Currently known as Guaranteed Rate Field, it opened in 1991, replacing the original Comiskey Park which dated all the way back to 1910. It's changed a bit over the years, but the famous pinwheels are clearly visible above the center field scoreboard. I always enjoy when this set takes its name so literally, and I'd go so far as to call this one of the best wide-angle shots ever to appear on a card.
Lance Johnson was a blazing-fast center fielder, leading the league in triples five times in six years. His final year of that run came in 1996 as a Met, which was also his only All-Star appearance. He was also included in a small batch of 1993 Leaf that I just sent to The Collector.
1992 Stadium Club was one of the first premium sets I collected as a kid, along with the readily available Fleer Ultra. I remember that early TSC set (before they abbreviated it to TSC) was the first hobby box I ever bought. I don't remember pulling this card, but I spent a lot of time going through the duplicates to find the copy whose gold foil lined up most accurately around the black Stadium Club logo. When it comes to centering a full-bleed card, that's one way to do it.
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| 1992 Stadium Club #495 Kirk Gibson |
This Kirk Gibson copy isn't quite as perfect. The gold foil isn't centered just right, but nothing too bad. More important is this dark, low-key portrait of Kirk Gibson, the Dodger hero of the 1988 World Series. He's known for hitting one of the most famous home runs in World Series history, but he didn't really spend that much time in L.A., only three seasons. His tenure in Kansas City was even shorter, just a single season in 1991. This card was outdated before it even hit the shelves. He'd play even fewer games as a Pirate in 1992, before returning to his original team, the Tigers, where he retired in 1995.
Gibby went on to manage the Arizona Diamondbacks for five seasons in the early 2010s, and I'm sure I saw him from a distance during one of my many visits to Coors Field. It was a well-lit day game, nowhere near as dark as this photo that wouldn't be out of place in an early Studio set.
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| 1991 Stadium Club #138 Eric Show |
We can't go back any earlier than 1991 in a post like this, and that's where we end up. Pitcher Eric Show in a hammock with an electric guitar. It's pretty out there, and keep in mind this was Stadium Club's debut set. It might have influenced the fashion-shoot cards found in 1992 Bowman, and this is so distanced from baseball itself that you'd barely notice this is an Oakland Athletics card. Show spent nearly his entire career with San Diego, but signed with the A's for his final season of 1991.
He looks happy and comfortable, and in this moment he may have been, but he had a rough life. He was the pitcher who surrendered Pete Rose's record-breaking 4,192nd hit in 1985, and off the diamond, he struggled a lot with drug addiction. He had back surgery in 1989, and his career was never really the same. He passed away in 1994 at the age of 37.
It reminds me a lot of the sad saga of Roy Halladay, arguably the best player to hail from the state of Colorado. He, too, struggled with addiction, as recounted in this ESPN piece. Life isn't all hammocks and guitars, even for pro athletes. Sometimes especially for pro athletes. Performing at that level for that long puts a strain on the body, and it can be difficult to bounce back. Athletes who are fortunately still with us, like Bobby Jenks, have opened up about their struggles, and I'm glad the world seems to have turned into a place where we're ready to listen.
Thanks again to Jay for this horizontally-oriented trip through the history of Stadium Club, right back to the brand's beginning.
I just learned about Show's tenure with the A's this past week in another blog post. Can't remember when or where though. Sad that he passed away at such a young age.
ReplyDeleteStadium Club has given us so many great cards over the years. The Martin and Johnson are my favorites here.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the remaining greats are getting up there in age, so it won't be too surprising if the next couple of years are heavy in terms of athletes passing on.
ReplyDeletePleasure doing business with you, and thanks for posting these for the world to see.
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