Why this card is awesome: Because, loyal readers, as we are getting very close to the end of this set, you should now be able to figure out on your own why THIS card is awesome. Who can be the first to realize why? There's a very good reason why it is awesome.
Schu was involved in a very interesting trade:
March 21, 1988: Traded by the Philadelphia Phillies with Keith Hughes and Jeff Stone to the Baltimore Orioles for a player to be named later and Mike Young. The Baltimore Orioles sent Frank Bellino (minors) (June 14, 1988) to the Philadelphia Phillies to complete the trade.
All four of the big-leaguers involved were often viewed as flame-outs. Schu was supposed to take over 3B from Mike Schmidt when he moved across the diamond, but it never worked out. (And the Phillies didn't have another great 3B until Scott Rolen--sorry Charlie Hayes.) Keith Hughes was, for some odd reason, always considered a prospect but did practically nothing in MLB. Jeff Stone we've talked about already. And Mike Young had that one really good year that he never came close to repeating.
Cool stat: Why all the complaining about Rick Schu? He was totally reliable. Between 1985 and 1990, you could always count on him for 7 or 8 homers.
Hall of Fame count: 45
10 comments:
That pretty much looks like Mike Schmidt in the background.
Von Hayes usually batted ahead of Schmidt in 1987. The batting order feature doesn't account for late game entries, but there were 3 instances where Schu hit directly ahead of Schmidt in '87: 4/27 at home, 6/21 at New York Mets and 9/20 at Montreal. I'll say this was the June 21 game at Shea.
Ah, late '80s Phillies suckiness, well embodied by Rich Schu...for some reason it still holds a place near and dear to my heart.
Of course, Steve Jeltz is still the paragon.
So where's that HOF counter?
That's definitely Schmidt in the background, and I agree with mmayes' assessment of which game it was.
I was waiting to uptick the HOF counter until you guys figured it out. Done now.
Same game as the Luis Aguayo card, you can see the guy in the red/white hat in both cards. Maybe same game also as Jeff Calhoun and Kevin Gross who both pitched that game, Calhoun faced one batter and Gross took the loss.
Schmidt got HBP in the first AB in that game so he might have gotten plunked soon after this photo.
With a little research its interesting what can be learned about the circumstances of a baseball card photo. I only said it was Schmidt because it sure looked like it to me. Thanks to others for the research.
So Schu is his full last name and not an abbreviation or some coach-thought-up nickname?
Yeah, Schu is his last name.
Incidentally, I did all the same research on my own before this post, in terms of batting orders, which game, what happened to Schmidt, etc. It's nice to see all of your folks with a similar level of interest!
This is a better shot of Schmidt than the one on his regular card.
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