Cruz Brothers

It's the early spring of 1973. 

 

You think back to six years ago, when at the age of 19 you started a solid climb through baseball's minor leagues—from Single-A Modesto to Double-A Arkansas to Triple-A Tulsa. Now you're about to start your third season in the big leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals. 

 

You've also got two younger brothers, and they've been trying to take the same route through the Cardinals' organization.

 

Tommy, the next youngest, has been bouncing up and down from Single-A to Triple-A and back again.

 

And Héctor, the youngest of the three, has been catching up.

 

What a treat that the Cardinals have shown such faith in all three of you! Not only has it made it easier to keep in touch, but it's also helped you work with each other and spur each other on.

 

Now it's time for spring training. You've been focusing on your skills, and preparing for your upcoming season in the bigs. But the Cardinals have just made two announcements that cause you to temporarily lose your focus:

 

(1) They're calling up Tommy for some spring training games with the big club. 

(2) They're calling up Héctor for some spring training games with the big club.  

 

All three of you will be reunited! 

 

 

From left to right: Tommy, Héctor, and José Cruz

And on March 23, 1973, something even more amazing happens. Coach says the three of you will be starting today's game against the New York Mets.

 

Three Cruz brothers, all in the lineup, playing the outfield together! You walk over to the batting order. Manager Red Schoendienst has done the family another solid. You've got the first three spots in the order!

 

Well, you don't need any more motivation or inspiration. The three of you hit well, putting up 3 runs and 3 RBI in a 9–2 win. You've scored more runs than the entire Mets team! 

 

After the game, Schoendienst speaks to the media, saying, "...they're good ballplayers. I guess I batted them at the top for the effect. They have six older brothers back home and, if they come to town, I'll play them, too."

 

What a moment for the Cruz family. 

 

After that magical spring training, plenty of folks must have been excited at the prospect of seeing all three brothers playing full time for the Cardinals. 

 

However, baseball doesn't always give you the straight and simple road.

 

Here are the brothers on cardboard, just a few years later: 

 

 

1977 Topps #42 Jose Cruz, 1977 Topps #624 Hector Cruz, and 1978 TCMA #0109 Tommy Cruz

 

Héctor got some more work done in AAA from 1973 to 1974, and by 1975 he did make it to the show with the Cardinals. In 1976, his first full season in the big leagues, he would finish 3rd in N.L. Rookie of the Year voting.  

 

After 1973, Tommy went back down to AA and AAA and toiled for the next few seasons trying to crack a major league lineup, receiving just a brief cup of coffee with St. Louis in 1973 and the White Sox in 1977. 

 

And in 1975, José would go from St. Louis to Houston, where he put up solid numbers from the start and quickly became a fan favorite. Within a couple of years he became a perennial .300 hitter, good for around 30 doubles, 80 RBI, and 60 stolen bases a year.

  

By 1979, José was on the verge of some All-Star nominations and Silver Slugger awards, while Héctor had gone from the Cardinals to the Cubs to the Giants, putting up serviceable but not stunning numbers at the plate and in the field. 

 

And Tommy?

 

Well, he was still toiling in the minors. He posted good numbers, batting over .300 numerous times with some decent power, but it still wasn't enough to crack a major league lineup. Then, after the 1979 season, an opportunity came along from some distant shores.

 

Japan. 

 

And Tommy decided to go for it. The professional league in Japan was pretty darn good, after all, and the team he'd be playing for, the Nippon-Ham Fighters, had been showing some spunk lately. 

 

But you've got to wonder how Héctor and José felt when Tommy told them he accepted an offer to play overseas. It would have been tricky to follow Tommy's career, at least day to day or week to week. Were the brothers making long-distance phone calls? I mean, how did a ballplayer in America get sports news from Japan back in the early 1980s? There was no internet. And although satellite TV existed, I wonder how many NPB games would have been transmitted to the US. As for Japanese newspapers, it's possible that some big-city libraries in the US carried them. But even if they did, who would translate the articles and box scores?

 

Regardless, I'm sure all three brothers did what they could to keep in touch and cheer each other on.

Here are some stats for all three Cruz brothers. 

 

 

CAREER TOTALS

 

	JOSÉ (19 seasons MLB)	TOMMY (6 seasons NPB)	HÉCTOR (9 seasons MLB)
GAMES PLAYED	2353	712	624
AT-BATS	7917	2780	1607
RUNS	1036	345	186
HITS	2251	863	361
DOUBLES	391	155	71
TRIPLES	94	11	9
HOME RUNS	165	120	39
RBI	1077	466	200
STOLEN BASES	317	9	7
WALKS	898	178	176
STRIKEOUTS	1031	220	317
BATTING AVERAGE	.284	.310	.225
OBP	.354	.351	.301
SLG	.420	.504	.353

 

 

 

BEST SEASON (career highs in bold)

 

	JOSÉ (1983, HOU)	TOMMY (1984, Nippon-Ham Fighters)	HÉCTOR (1976, STL)
GAMES PLAYED	160	124	151
AT-BATS	594	489	526
RUNS	85	66	54
HITS	189	170	120
DOUBLES	28	36	17
TRIPLES	8	2	1
HOME RUNS	14	29	13
RBI	92	96	71
STOLEN BASES	30	0	1
WALKS	65	33	42
STRIKEOUTS	86	37	119
BATTING AVERAGE	.318	.348	.228
OBP	.385	.385	.286
SLG	.463	.607	.338

 

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José played the outfield, and was a 2x All-Star and 2x Silver Slugger. Along with the year I chose for his best season in the table above (1983), the few seasons that surrounded it were essentially just as good. He finished in the top-10 in batting average in 1978, 1983, and 1984, and led the N.L. in hits in 1983 (189). Over his career, José played for the Cardinals, Astros, and very briefly for the Yankees. His son, José Cruz, Jr., had a very good professional career as well. (Over 1,000 hits, 200 doubles, 200 home runs, and 600 RBI.)

Héctor mostly played the outfield, along with some third base. He suited up for the Cardinals, Cubs, Giants, and Reds. Interestingly, he also played one year of Japan ball in 1983, with the Yomiuri Giants. Tommy had already been over there for a few years at that point. You'd have to think that he spent some time showing Héctor around!

Tommy was also an outfielder. He played a few games for the Cardinals and White Sox, then played for the Nippon-Ham Fighters in the NPB from 1980 through 1985. The Fighters won the Pacific League pennant in 1981, and Tommy must have played a good part in that. (Regular season: 116 games, 138 hits, 30 doubles, 2 triples, 18 home runs, 75 RBI, and a .297/.343/.486 slash line.) 

 

 

So here's to the Cruz brothers. Three pretty solid players (endorsed by Red Schoendienst!), and one magical spring training memory.

 

Little League Trophy (Or, the Golden Days)

The Favorites Box post from last week featuring Mike Pagliarulo's 1985 Topps rookie card really got the Little League nostalgia going for me—so much so that I was motivated to go into the garage to look for something that I'd been meaning to look for since last year.

I had a good idea where it was, and thankfully, after just a couple of minutes, I located it and brought it inside. Here it is:

You're looking at a baseball trophy from my Little League days. It was dusty and dirty, and the metal was pitted here and there, but a little bit of elbow grease took care of most of it. I really should have taken better care of this little guy over the years, but that's fine. There's no way it's going back in the garage now, especially because it's the only trophy I still have from those days.

The engraved plate on the front declares that our team was the runner-up. We certainly didn't have playoffs back in those early years, so I'm guessing the runner-up designation meant that our team had the second best win-loss record in the league that season. As for my other Little League years, I suppose our team finished too low in the standings to receive a trophy. Or, if our team did finish high in the standings, the trophies have since been lost to time.

What's important is that I still have quite a few memories and stories from those golden days, like turning an unassisted triple play. Or the example of what my first baseball glove looked like. 

I also have a physical, tangible memento in one of the game balls that I received for a job well done out there on the field. And now there's this trophy. I've got to find a good place to store it—perhaps on a shelf in the closet of my home office, which has partially become a card closet.

While I figure that out, there's one more memento I can share. Have a look at this:

 

 

 

There's so much 1980s goodness in this photo. It's the scruffy grass and chewed-up dirt around home plate. The small, simple chain-link backstop. The kid watching from behind that backstop wearing jean shorts and tube socks. The parents chilling out on folding lawn chairs they brought from home. The yellow school buses in the background. It's all glorious.

As for the little guy wearing #24 for the Cardinals and standing at home plate? That's me. (We're playing the Orioles there. Check out the orange jersey the catcher is wearing.) It was my very first year of Little League, so I'm probably around 6 or 7 years old in the photo. I'm sure of that because the following year we all started wearing baseball pants and stirrup socks. 

If my dad were looking over my shoulder as I typed all this, he'd be proudly insisting that I tell you how I hit a triple in my very first Little League at-bat. Or that a few years later, I pitched an inning in our Little League all-star game and struck out the side. (Those are his go-to moves whenever the topic of baseball comes up.) Dads are great for bringing back those experiences. They were on the sidelines, observing things from their adult perspective, while we were in there, playing and having fun. 

And if you're a fellow blogger, you know that blogs are also good for recording and preserving these kinds of things. I've done a bit of that over the years here on the Nine Pockets blog, to the extent that I added a Personal Nostalgia tab to the navigation bar at the top.

Ultimately, I'm grateful for the Little League mementos I have—as few as they may be—and for all the vivid experiences they help to bring back.

How about you readers? If you played any sports when you were a kid, do you have any stories, photos, or objects from that time? 

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading! 

From the Favorites Box: Mike Pagliarulo, 1985 Topps #638

A series where I post some thoughts about favorite cards. Previous cards in the series are available here.

You know that scent in the air in these early days of spring? That little bit of green grass coming to life? That faint touch of rain? 

When I was a kid, it would always start a few butterflies going in the stomach.

Why?

Little League season was coming. And I wanted to do my absolute best—for my parents, for my teammates, and for our coaches, who pushed us to be excellent and expected us to work hard.

I was also collecting plenty of baseball cards back then, and this particular one brings back a lot of good memories.

 

Growing up a baseball-loving kid in 1980s New York, "Pags" was a favorite of mine. Game in and game out, he put forth the effort that New Yorkers wanted to see. He was just a classic hard worker. A classic player. 

And if you want an example of a classic baseball card, that's it. The pose, the batting gloves, Yankee Stadium as a backdrop, the Yankees logo with the bat and top-hat. 

I still remember the baseball card shop I bought this card from. On the ride back, just a block or so from home, I saw one of my friends riding his bike. My mom pulled the car over, and we said hello. My friend saw the binder that I was holding, and excitedly asked what cards were inside. The hobby was booming, and a lot of the neighborhood kids were collecting their favorite local players and watching them on TV.

Back then, Yankee games were televised on WPIX channel 11. (What a treat to have so many games available on basic cable!) 

Another treat was listening to Phil Rizzuto call the games. I can almost hear him now.

"Holy cow, Pagliarulo got a hold of that one! That ball is . . . outta here!" 

As Pags rounded third base, Scooter would continue.

"And you know what we say every time a Yankee hits a home run. Mike Pagliarulo, this Bud's for you!" 

 

You can hear an example of the call for yourself after Mr. Pagliarulo's second home run of the game here: 

 

 

 

In 1987, around the time I bought the card shown above, Pags was busy having his best season yet. He'd finish with 122 hits, 26 doubles, 3 triples, 32 home runs, and 87 RBI, with a slash line of .234/.305/.479. I was pitching and playing third base on my Little League team, and whenever I played third, I tried to work just as hard as he did.

His numbers declined over the next couple of years, partly due to elbow issues, and in 1989 he was traded to the Padres. A couple of years after that he signed as a free agent with the Twins. All the while, I was rooting for him and following him in the box scores. And I'm glad I did, because it was in Minnesota that Pags found his game a little bit, and had a career moment. 

The Twins would go on to win that ALCS, and couple of weeks later they'd defeat the Braves in an exciting 7-game World Series. Notably, Pags went 3-for-3 with a home run in Game 4—against John Smoltz! That's another pretty cool feather in his cap. He finished up his MLB career with short stints in Baltimore and Texas, and also played one year in Japan with the Seibu Lions.

The card at the top of this post brings all that stuff back to me. And to this day, I still get a few butterflies in the stomach on these first spring days.

For the fact that one simple baseball card of a childhood sports hero can do all of that, 1985 Topps #638 has a spot in my box of favorite cards.

Thank You for Being a [Custom Card]

If the title of this blog post has already caused a certain TV theme song to play in your mind, I guess the cat is out of the bag. There's no need for me to provide any clues to help you figure out which subjects you'll find on the custom card I'm going to share below.

For those of you who still might need some clues, I'll say that a few collectors over the past couple of years have asked me whether I've created a custom card based on this particular TV show. I'll also say that I've never really watched it, but I do understand and appreciate how wildly popular it was when it aired in the 1980s—and how popular it still is. Folks just seem to love the sharp, sarcastic, needling humor of the four silver-haired ladies the show is centered around, not to mention the variety of their personalities and lifestyles.

So eventually I gathered some ideas and inspiration, and decided to put the iconic foursome on a card. 

That's right, it's The Golden Girls! If you're a fan of the show, who's your favorite character? Should I try watching a few episodes? Let me know.

 

And if you are indeed a fan, I think you'll appreciate this: I decided to create a custom design for the back of the card.

Similar to some of the other customs I've done based on television and film, I included a little stat line to this card that contains some interesting information. I didn't realize The Golden Girls kept going into the 1990s. That's a pretty good run!

So that was that. Another custom card was complete, and I felt good about it. 

 

But then I thought, Wait a minute, why stop there?

After all, Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia weren't the only fab foursome to have cemented their place among the legends of sitcom.

How about these four?

Al: Can I get a "Whoa Bundy"?

Family (begrudgingly, all together): Whooaaaaa Bundy!

Now here's the card back.

Married with Children had an even more impressive run: 11 seasons, 259 episodes, and a whole lot of absolutely brutal (yet hilarious) takedowns and insults.

 

 

 

Woman: You'll be hearing from my attorney!

 

Al: Is that the law offices of Häagen and Dazs?

 

 

Heheh. Anyhow, after those two cards were finished, I felt like a third card was necessary. And even though I've already documented this next quartet on cardboard a number of times, I couldn't resist adding them to the set.

I think Jerry George, Elaine, and Kramer look quite at home on this 4-player design. It works well for the entire set, in fact. The word "sitcoms" fits comfortably into the pennant at the top left, and there's plenty of space across to the right for the name of the TV show. As for the character/actor names, I went with the standard practice of placing the character names first, and then the actor or actress name underneath.

 

Here's the back of the Seinfeld card.

Pretty good stats there, too.

 

So that's three more custom cards finished. This was a fun project, and I hope you're enjoying the new set.

 

Do you have a favorite show of the three? Favorite character? 

 

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

 

 

 

The 1989-90 OPC Hockey Sticker Album Project

My first experience in this hobby came at a very young age—I was probably about 6 years old—and involved not cards, but stickers. 

 

 

At some point in 1983, Dad brought home a baseball sticker album and some packs of stickers for me. Throughout the season, he'd occasionally bring home a few more packs of those stickers, and I'd very happily open them up, find where each sticker was meant to go in the album, and stick 'em in there as carefully as a 6-year-old could.

 

Over the next few years, I became a baseball-loving, Little League–playing, card-collecting kid. But something new came along by the end of the decade.

 

Ice hockey.

 

An elementary school friend introduced me to the sport, and I loved it. I soaked up as much knowledge as I could, and started playing the sport as well—first in sneakers, then on roller skates, and eventually on the ice.

 

Hockey stickers were available in my area, and I do remember buying a few packs during that time. But by and large, I was buying packs of hockey cards. They were from the 1988-89 Topps set. (Sticker albums were a young kid's game, and I was almost in middle school, gosh darn it.) So I never really got the experience of filling up a hockey sticker album like I did for baseball.

 

Very recently, however, I came across an online listing for some hockey sticker packs from that same time period. 

 

 

A complete box of 48, to be precise. 

 

 

 

The price was so reasonable that I considered buying it right then and there, just for some fun and nostalgia.

 

But then I thought of something else:

 

What if I find a blank sticker album from that same season, buy that as well, and then open the packs and actually fill the album? 

 

Because really, what else would I do with a box of 48 hockey sticker packs? Put it in my closet and let it sit there?

Didn't seem right.

 

So, off I went to search for a blank 1989-90 O-Pee-Chee hockey sticker album. And I found one at a reasonable price. 

 

 

  

I mean, look at that image. How can you not want to look inside that album and fill it up with stickers? 

 

Check it out:

 

 

 

Studying all those stats on the inside front cover would have had 1989-90 Gregory busy for a couple of weeks, that's for sure.

 

Now here are a few team pages.

 

 

 

Some teams, like the Canadiens, received a two-page spread. Patrick Roy was a very big deal back then. 

 

 

Other teams received just one page. I chose this spread to show you the all-star page. (I wonder if those stickers have gold foil like the baseball all-star stickers often had.)

 

 

 

And here's one more team page, plus the super-nostalgic sticker order form instructions. It's so cool that back then you could hand-write a list of stickers you needed, mail it away with your payment (10¢ per sticker), and then in a few weeks Topps or O-Pee-Chee would send you what you needed.

 

So let's get down to business here.

 

Now that I have the stickers and the album in hand, I've decided that I will indeed go for it. But will one box of sticker packs allow me to compete the album? Here's some number crunching:

 

48 packs x 6 stickers per pack = 288 total stickers

 

There are 270 stickers in the complete set, which at first doesn't make set completion seem promising. But remember, quite a few of them come two stickers to a panel, like this:

 

 

 

So really, there are only 182 different sticker panels I'd have to pull from the total of 288. 

 

There aren't any variations on the fronts, which means that as long as I pull fewer than 106 duplicate panels, I should be able to complete the set. In other words, even if almost 1 out of every 3 panels is a duplicate, I'll still complete it.

 

What I'm thinking of doing is opening a few packs at a time, maybe once a month or so. For each round, I'll post an entry here on the blog to show you which stickers I pulled, where they go in the album, and a bit of information about some of the players and teams featured on the stickers.

 

I hope you'll follow along in this series, because I just talked with 1989-90 Gregory, and he is psyched. He thinks this project will be totally rad, and that you'll have an awesome time, too. 

Don't worry if you can't pronounce names like Luc Robitaille, Pat Elynuik, or Vincent Damphousse. 1989-90 Gregory didn't know, either.

I'll get this started in a few weeks. Stay tuned!