Why this card is awesome: Because, OMG, it's yet another airbrushed Giants card from this set. Reuschel came over from the Pirates late in the 1987 season. I'm a bit flabbergasted that Topps thought it was better/cheaper to pay someone to airbrush the photo than it was to send a photographer out to a game to get photos of guys who were new to the uniform (whether traded or rookies.)
Cool stat: The original Big Daddy (long before Cecil Fielder ever got called that) was a pretty good hitter in addition to being a very solid big-league pitcher. He's one of the most recent pitchers to amass at least 75 RBIs in his career. He's also one of the more recent pitchers to amass 200 IP in a season at age 40 or older.
I went to B-R.com and put in "Big Daddy" in the search box. It also came up with Stan Williams, who I guess then is the REAL ORIGINAL Big Daddy, having the nickname even before Reuschel.
3 comments:
Loved this guy. looked nothing like a baseball player, classic soft tosser, yet always won.
Topps had no problem snapping a photo of the guy Reuschel was traded for in HIS new uni (Jeff Robinson).
When I was a young'un and it was World Series time, I'd get all my cards out and gather up every card from the two teams in the series.
I remember in '89 digging out all of my Giants cards and this Reuschel is amongst them.
Looking at the back of the card, I didn't know what all the numbers meant but I thought "hey, this guy must be good because there's a loooot of numbers back there."
Nearly two decades have gone by since I looked at the back of that card and reading this today. I probably would have gone another two decades and never given Rick Reuschel another though... but looking at his numbers now, he was a very fine ball player.
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