Wednesday, May 7, 2008

#420 Wally Joyner



Why this card is awesome: Because Joyner's pointing straight at the ground. I bet you've looked at this card dozens of times and never noticed that! Also, another mention of current Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon. He was a pretty good scout, it seems.

Cool stat: I do not like Joyner and I don't feel like spending time researching a cool stat. But I will point out that he didn't strike out very much, and had only 10 games with 3 strikeouts in his career. Don Mattingly had similar career numbers to Joyner and he did it only 5 times.

7 comments:

Luke said...

the first starting lineup i ever had, was Wally

i think it was bought @ the now defunct Hill's

Unknown said...

Why don't you like Wally? Is it his uncanny resemblance to Matthew Broderick?

Corky Williams said...

I wonder if Topps knew something about Joyner that we didn't giving him the card #420.

I always wondered about how an average ballplayer like Wally Joyner was so loved by so many people. I guess that late-80's 1B position was not a hot spot for superstar players.

Andy said...

I'm sure Joyner got card #420 because he had two very good years in a row in 1986 and 1987.

I always thought Joyner was a hot dog--not on the field, but off. And the fact that he's on the list of alleged steroid users doesn't help either.

Unknown said...

Joyner was above average: career OPS+ of 117.

Andy: Got any anecdotes to share of Joyner's off-field hot-dogging?

MMayes said...

Being a rookie w/100 RBI on a playoff team at a prestige position will get you a lot of attention. The league figured Wally out by 1990 and he had a long, slow downward slide through KC and San Diego. I think that's how someone we look back on 20 years later as an "average" player got so much love.

defgav said...

And "Wally Joyner".. that's just a cool name. Wally World, etc. Always seemed like a good guy to me.. played hard and such.