Thursday, July 31, 2008

#568 Chris Brown



Why this card is awesome: Because of the unusual black shirt Brown's wearing under his uniform.

Cool stat: Brown was a maddening player to many fans and members of the media due his to rash of strange injuries interrupting a very productive career. Case in point: Brown makes the top 25 for OPS+ over 1985 and 1986, among players with at least 800 AB.

Deceased players and managers: 16

Brown died quite recently, just a year and a half ago, from complications related to a house fire. The cause of the fire, including Brown's role, remains a mystery. Sadly, the odd circumstances of his death mirror the peculiar injuries and behavior he manifested during his career.

It's a bit too morbid for me to research carefully, but I believe Brown is the most recent player in this set to have died. He died a couple of months after Joe Niekro.

5 comments:

Jim said...

Wow, as a Giants fan, this guy was a huge letdown. Then they traded hima nd got Kevin Mitchell, Dave Dravecky and Craig Lefferts. It turned the whole franchise around. That hersey is airbrused in the photo, he is at Candlestick and the black sleeves are for his Giants colors he was wearing at the time.

Kevin said...

Hey, I've had this card for as long as I can remember, and I never noticed those Hefty bag sleeves! Shows how closely I paid attention...

Matt Maldre said...

the black sleeves kinda look like inflatable flotation arm wings. Chris Brown is going for a swim!

Unknown said...

Dravecky and Mitchell were also airbrushed.

The Padres made some lousy trades in the late 80s and early 90s. This was certainly one of them. I don't think it bugged the Giants too much that Davis won the Cy Young in 1989; they were too busy playing in the World Series.

MMayes said...

At the time this trade was made, most probably thought that Brown was better than Mitchell as far as third basement went, he'd just had a down start to 1987. Just like all these trade deadline deals made today, you really can't evaluate them until about 5 years down the road.