Wednesday, January 30, 2008

#89 Gary Thurman



Why this card is awesome: Because that's not Gary Thurman in the photo. It's actually late-night sensation, Arsenio Hall. If you agree, pump your fist in the air and make that stupid dog-bark call. What else makes this card awesome? The factoid on the back: two pregnancies, five children. Wow!

Cool stat: With a career OBP of .297, Thurman couldn't get on base to save his life. In fact, he had fewer than 250 total bases in his career. For players under that threshold, though, he has the third most stolen-bases of all time. See here.

18 comments:

Uglee Card said...

"He and twin sister have triplet brothers and sister."
I cannot figure that factoid out for the life of me. How many kids are there? And who's kids are they?
And who was going to St. Ives?

Andy said...

Heh. There are five kids. The factoid is saying that Thurman's mother got pregnant and had twins (Gary Thurman and his twin sister), and then she had another pregnancy where she had triplets (two boys and a girl.) So Gary Thurman has sister who is a twin to him, and then three other siblings who are triplets to each other. (I don't actually know which pregnancy was first.)

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives

Seven wives with seven sacks
Seven sacks with seven cats
Seven cats with seven kits

Kits, cats, sacks, wives
How many were going to St Ives?

Luke said...

WHOO WHOO WHOO WHOO!

Anonymous said...

What's most interesting is that the two players ahead of Thurman are Matt Alexander and Larry Lintz. They both played for Oakland in 1976 and recorded far more games played than at-bats! Can you believe that Oakland used two roster spots on exclusive pinch runners?!

Andy said...

I can, considering how they used Herb Washington. He never got a single at-bat.

Unknown said...

I was a freshman in high school and a Royals fan when this set came out and therefore I thought Gary Thurman would be the greatest player of all time. I managed to amass a collection of 89 of his cards (since he was card 89) and even went to an Iowa Cubs-Omaha Royals game and got one autographed. I'm planning on getting another autograph from him at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Andy said...

You're not the only one who thought Thurman was going to be awesome. I thought so too, back when I was too young to realize that you couldn't steal bases without getting on base first.

mthurman said...

Hey, the real facts about Gary and his siblings are that he has a twin sister(Monica) and he also has triplet sisters and brother(Lanette,latresse,and Lamonte) i know because i'm one of the triplets

mthurman said...

this is not a picture of Arsenio Hall, it is my brother Gary. Andy (whoever you are) you are wrong

Andy said...

Thanks for the correction. Can you tell us what Gary's up to these days?

By the way, sorry for all the negative comments about Gary's career on this post--I hope it's obvious that we're not picking on him as a person!

Andy said...

I know that's Gary Thurman--my comment is only a joke. If you read the rest of this blog, I am making fun of Topps in most of the posts!

amy lee said...

Hey, this isnt all that important but, I used to date gary thurman when he played for the Kansas City Royals.. and I noticed his sister was on here at some point - please tell him Amy from Ottawa says "hi"

lthurman said...

Gary is doing fine, he is a coach for the Cleveland Indians minor league organization and last year he was the first base coach for the Seattle Mariners while they were in the play-offs(if you were watching you probably saw him down the first base line). No problem about teasing him, we just wanted to correct the mistakes

lthurman said...

Amy i will tell him you said "hi"

Unknown said...

Gary,
Gary if you read these blogs it is your old teammate John Yowler. I have been following your coaching career the last couple of years. Congratulations on your recent promotion. I run a Sports academy in south jersey. I am the baseball director, I am also the pitching coach at Rowan University.My E-mail is jy1043@aol.com. I hope things are well and hope to hear from You.
Your friend
YOWLER

ajnrules said...

Wow. This is like the Thurman family reunion or something. I went to middle school with an Andrew Thurman, and I was told that was Gary's son. I never absolutely confirmed it, but I once asked him if he can get my 1988 Topps Thurman card signed. I balked when Andrew said Gary was still in Indianapolis.

If Andrew is indeed Gary's son, I'd like to know how he's doing. Tell him Leon said hi.

Happy said...

Hi my name is Brent, Im from Minnesota, I just recently picked up all my cards from my parents place and now I'm looking all my cards up for pricing!! I ran across Gary Thurman"s card and read this post... Just wondering, if I sent it to his sister or friends, would he like to sign it for me, just wondering???

Happy said...

Hi my name is Brent, Im from Minnesota, I just recently picked up all my cards from my parents place and now I'm looking all my cards up for pricing!! I ran across Gary Thurman"s card and read this post... Just wondering, if I sent it to his sister or friends, would he like to sign it for me, just wondering???