Wednesday, January 30, 2008

#88 Earnie Riles



Why this card is awesome: Because of the bizarre use of the name "Earnie." On most of his cards, he's Ernest Riles. So, not only did Topps see fit to give him a nickname (just like with Benny Santiago and Denny Martinez), but they didn't even call him "Ernie" but rather "Earnie." Bizarre. Oh and he was born in Cairo (Georgia, not Egypt.)

Cool stat: It tough to find much of interest about Riles' career, but looking at his best offensive numbers by pitcher, I noticed he had 7 RBI in 7 AB against Roger McDowell. They came on two homers.

1 comment:

MMayes said...

Go to http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=Ernest_Riles_1960&page=chronology

You'll see there that Earnie/Ernie (1) hit the 10,000th homer in Giants franchise history; (2) was traded for Jeffrey Leonard during the '88 season when Leonard was reasonably highly regarded and (3) in a minor league game in which 56 points (8 touchdowns) were scored, Ernie didn't get an RBI (he was a good hitter b/c he won the batting title that year).