One True Rookie: Julio Franco

One True Rookie™ is a feature here where we take a look at a player who only had 1 actual rookie card from a major card company during the 80s. First we featured Fred McGriff, then Joe Carter. Both of those cards were Donruss beating Topps and Fleer to the bag. Get ready to chalk up another one to the ol' Leaf corporation!

Julio Cesar Franco was signed by Philadelphia as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 1978. He steadily rose through the system never batting under .300 in the minors, plus showing great speed and good power. The knock against him, as with many young shortstops, was his defense, accumulating around 30 to 40 errors per season.

Most of Julio's 1982 was spent in AAA, but he was called-up to the Phillies for a few games here and there, finishing the year with 16 big league games under his belt. After the season, he was included in a trade package to get Von Hayes from the Indians. With Ivan de Jesus the starting shortstop, the Phillies thought Julio was expendable, I guess. You might notice similarities to another young Phillie shortstop who played just a few games in purple before being traded away. Yep, Ryne Sandberg was a step or two ahead of Julio in Philadelphia's farm system in the late 70s, early 80s. Both players went on to greater success at other positions for other clubs. But while Sandberg hopped to 3rd for a year before being entrenched at 2nd, Franco stuck with SS for the next several years, even if he was often atop the AL in errors committed.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

When the 1983 baseball card sets came out, Julio Franco was not included in the checklist for Topps nor Fleer. But in one of the earliest examples of scoring rookie gold before the other guys, Donruss gave young Julio a card.

While Sandberg infamously got shut out with no Phillies RC in 1982, Franco at least went 1-for-3 with the big card companies. --Ok, maybe not "infamously" but it's a WTF moment that Ryne had to wait an extra year for his rookie card(s) to come out.

An official "cards that never were" from 2007.

Donruss wouldn't debut their "Rated Rookie" subset until the following year, so who knows whether Julio would've gotten the RR distinction or not. But I'll bet he would have. (Update: A friendly comment informed me that there actually are a few Rated Rookies in 1983 Donruss, but instead of having anything noting it on the front, there's just a bold line of text near the bottom of the card back. He did not in fact get the blurb about being a Rated Rookie.)

Julio made the Indians out of spring training as their starting shortstop. Topps and Fleer got caught with their pants down, as a solid rookie campaign earned him runner-up to AL Rookie of the Year winner Ron Kittle.

1983 Topps Traded

Fleer got shut out for the year, since their inaugural Update set wouldn't come out until 1984. Topps, on the other hand, included Julio in their 1983 Traded set, but of course it wasn't until 1984 that Julio had a real, flagship Topps card. (He made the Topps All-Star Rookie Team, but '84 Topps cards didn't feature the rookie cups.)

Back of his '84 Topps card.. a good look at his minors & rookie numbers.

Over the next few years, Julio's offense and defense both improved a bit. In 1988, he switched to second base to make way for Jay Bell at short. After the season, Cleveland shipped him to the Rangers for Jerry Browne, Oddibe McDowell, and Pete O'Brien. The trade worked out for Texas, as Julio continued to produce, earning 3 straight All-Star nods and winning the batting crown in 1991 when his .341 average bested 2nd place Wade Boggs' mark of .332.

Unfortunately, it would be the last time Julio led the league in a major offensive category. An injury took away much of his '92 season, and his speed was never the same. With his mobility somewhat diminished, he mostly DH'ed or played first base from this point on.

But while the common version of that scenario involves the player hanging on for a couple years then fading away into retirement, Julio managed to defy the odds and stick around not just for a few more seasons, but 15 years! Wow. He was the oldest player in the sport at 49 when he played his final MLB game near the end of 2007. Forty-freakin'-NINE!

Julio had an unorthodox stance and used a heavy bat.

Those last 15 years were spent bouncing around with many different teams, often as a pinch-hitting specialist and platooning at DH or 1st. From Texas, he went to the White Sox for the '94 season where he found his power stroke, setting career highs in home runs (20) and RBI (98) even with the strike-shortened schedule. Then he spent a year playing in Japan. He returned for another stint with Cleveland in '96. He went to Milwaukee for the second part of the 1997 season. Then back to Japan for '98. Then he played in Mexico for '99, also getting a solitary at-bat (a strikeout) with Tampa Bay late in the season. The year 2000 found him playing in South Korea. The next year he was back in Mexico much of the year, then signed with Atlanta for the last month of the season and stuck with the Braves through the end of 2005. He signed with the Mets for 2006. In 2007, he finally started to slow down. New York released him after 40 games, and he finished up with 15 games back with the Braves, ultimately ending his major league career. And he still wasn't done! He played a bit in Mexico the following year before finally hanging up his cleats. And even then, he couldn't leave the game, going straight into managing. He currently manages in Mexico.

His major league career totals are pretty darn good. If not for the seasons "lost" to foreign leagues, he would have most likely gotten well over 3000 hits, therefore garnering serious Hall of Fame consideration. But instead he ended up with 2,586 hits and a fine .298 average. Add to that 173 homers, 1,194 RBI, and 281 stolen bases. Excellent career numbers, but not quite enough to impress HOF voters. In his first year of eligibility, 2013, Franco received just 1.1% of the vote and was dropped from future ballots. The list of players with numbers closest to him at baseball-reference includes 2 HOFers in the top 10, Enos Slaughter and contemporary Roberto Alomar, plus the "not in the Hall but probably could/should be" Tiger tandem of Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker.

Near-complete career numbers via back of Franco's 2007 card.

Counting all professional hits (minors, majors, Dominican, Mexican, and Asian leagues), he's got well over 4,000 hits, in the company of Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, and Ichiro Suzuki. He had the most career MLB hits by a Dominican-born player until Vlad Guerrero passed him. He holds the record for oldest non-pitcher regular MLB player (ie, not a publicity stunt appearance), and oldest to hit a home run and grand slam.

Who would have thought that Julio Franco's major league career would stretch for a whopping 25 years? After that first year, anyways, only Donruss deemed him worthy of a flagship card. Say what you want about them, but you gotta give Donruss credit for their rookie selection in the 80s. Excellent foresight once again in identifying a future star and giving him his one true rookie.

Can you identify this mystery autograph?

The recent Dick Allen collection post got lots of hits, relatively speaking, so that's nice. Good to see ol' Crash getting some love. I think it's my most popular post yet, even. Talking about one of the few autographs I've personally gotten in my life reminded me of another one I got, from someone I don't know.

Any idea who this is:

Seems to be "Bill M.." something? I believe (pretty sure??) I got it before a spring training game in '92 or '93 in Yuma, AZ between the Padres and the Indians. I didn't arrive early enough or stay late enough to get many chances to get autographs, but there was a coach (or instructor, assistant, ?) for the Indians who was asked by another kid for his autograph, and I followed suit. The kid was probably just going for low hanging fruit ("hey, an old guy walking by in a real baseball uniform!"), but perhaps the guy was a big league player back in his day? He was an old white guy, part of the Indians organization. That's all I can recall. If there's anybody out there who could solve this 20+ year old mystery for me, that would be sweet!

Another memory I have from that day involves Albert Belle taking some batting practice. As he finished up and walked by some kids, one of us sheepishly asked if he could have his autograph. Joey just gave the kid a stink eye and after a moment flatly said, "No."

I loved this! Everyone heard the stories of Joey Belle being an asshole, but it was neat to witness in person. I imagine it's sort of like if you saw a celebrity say his catchphrase in real life, like Joey Lawrence saying "Whoa" or Henry Winkler saying "Ayyyyyeee" or something. It's just like, "Wow, he said it!! He said it!!" Haha.

This day was also the only time in my life I've been stung by a bee. Just a piece of useless trivia about myself.
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Pull-Tab Awareness Week recap

Oh, and I hope you all had a great Pull-Tab Awareness Week! Never before has the blogosphere been so united by a common goal, and I'm honored to have been a part of it. The impact of our cause was so great that it even reached into non-baseball card blogs, such as that one guy and other well-known blogger urging their readers to make pull tabs when they tape up stuff. I admit I was nervous when I first got the call to talk about the cause on CNN, but after a few national spots, it became old hat, and by the time I was interviewed on the Colbert Report I was as comfortable as could be. It really was a whirlwind week of amazingness!

Ha, no, actually that was all a lie. I don't think 2013 is the year Pull-Tab Awareness Week really catches on. Maybe 2014? I probably should have given it a more catchy name like The Week for Awareness of Tabs (T.W.A.T.)

The goal was to spread the message of pull-tabs and how convenient they are, but I don't think a single other person mentioned pull-tabs anywhere in the world this week. Oh well, if I convinced just one collector out there to take the 2 seconds to make a pull-tab the next time he tapes up a card to mail, then it's all worth it.

Kind of.

There were a couple helpful comments on the post, at least. Ryan from "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog and Nick from Dime Boxes -- The Low-End Baseball Card Collector's Journey both mentioned that Painter's Tape is great for taping up cards. It's easy to remove and won't leave residue if not left on for too long. Plus it's a pretty shade of blue! Nice!

Masking Tape also works. But don't leave it on for too long or it might start to shred when you remove it, and it'll sometimes leave residue.

But I'm pretty sure Scotch Tape is the cheapest option. So if you're watching your pennies, it's probably your best bet. Just remember to make pull-tabs!

One True Rookie: Joe Carter

This is the second installment of a feature focusing on a player for whom only one major card company issued a rookie card.

Joe Carter and Fred McGriff are linked together in the minds of many baseball fans. The sluggers were essentially traded for each other (with Roberto Alomar and Tony Fernandez also being traded for each other concurrently). In addition to suiting up for the Blue Jays and Padres (as result of that trade), Carter and McGriff both played some for the Cubs, too. Each guy ended his career tantalizingly close to a home run milestone, with Joe winding up at 396 and Fred at 493.

And for a baseball card collector, a big similarity is that each player only has one true rookie card, both being Donruss "Rated Rookie" cards. Since McGriff's 1986 card was the subject of the first post in the series, I figured Carter would make a good follow-up.

From their debut in 1981 through 1983, Donruss put out a respectable-- yet unremarkable-- design. Their first notable subset, "Diamond Kings", was introduced in 1982, which featured oil paintings of star players (one from each team) done by noted baseball artist Dick Perez.

While the addition of Diamond King cards was a good start for the company to develop a unique identity in the baseball card market, it wasn't until the 1984 Donruss set that card collectors really seemed to be impressed. That year, their set featured a fresh pseudo-borderless "wavy" design (breaking away from the similarity of the company's "boxy" designs up to that point), lower production numbers than other sets of the era, and the introduction of an intriguing new subset, Rated Rookies.

A "rookie" designation on a baseball card was nothing new; Topps had many past sets with "star rookies" (etc.) and multiplayer rookie cards, not to mention the All-Star Rookie cups commemorating a player who had a good rookie season the year before. But the company was never very consistent about having a distinct rookie subset. For a while, they even did away with rookie cups (in 1979) and multiplayer rookie cards (in 1983), leaving no cards that screamed out ROOKIE! to the mid-80s collector.

Donruss smartly filled that void in 1984. New York Daily News writer Bill Madden selected 20 young prospects to have their cards graced by a Rated Rookie banner where the team name typically went (it wasn't until the next year that the iconic blue RR logo first appeared). Obviously, betting on prospects will yield mixed results. Many Rated Rookies never did squat in the bigs, whereas future top stars (such as Don Mattingly and Darryl Strawberry) apparently weren't rated high enough in Mr. Madden's eyes to get the RR distinction. The website Mental Floss has a great article looking back at the 1984 class called How the Original Donruss Rated Rookies Turned Out.

In 1985, Fleer would get into the Rookie-promoting game by including 2-on-1 "Major League Prospects" cards. Topps brought back the All-Star Rookie cups in 1987, as well as reintroducing the "Future Stars" subset that year, previously used for 3-on-1 rookie cards in 1980 through 1982, but now they were on individual player cards and had a nifty shooting star logo. You can easily imagine the meeting of Topps executives.. "Kids love that Rated Rookie stuff.. we need to come up with something like that!"

But anyways, this post is focusing on Joe Carter's Rated Rookie.

minor league cards

Carter had a great collegiate career at Wichita State, I'm assuming, since he was drafted #1 by the Cubs, the 2nd player chosen overall in the 1981 amateur draft, just behind Mike Moore (P, Mariners). He put up some impressive numbers in the minors and got called up to Chicago for a cup of coffee near the end of the 1983 season, but struggled against major league pitching. Take a look for yourself:

Despite the weak MLB debut, he still had a lot of promise. Topps and Fleer left him out of their 1984 sets-- he didn't even make it into the Traded/Update sets-- so Donruss was the only game in town for a Joe Carter card till '85 rolled around. It was a great looking card, too, featuring a close-up of determined young Joe posed in a batting stance at Wrigley with the ivy in the background.

Joe started 1984 back in AAA, and his minor league success continued (.310 and 14 HR in 61 games). The Cubs, however, didn't see him as essential in their future plans, and shipped him off in a big mid-season trade. He was sent with Mel Hall, Don Schulze, and Darryl Banks to Cleveland for George Frazier, Ron Hassey, and Rick Sutcliffe. I suppose the trade worked out well for both teams, as Sutcliffe went 16-1 for Chicago, winning the Cy and helping the Cubs reach the playoffs that year for the first time in since 1945.

first Fleer card

Carter, however, would have to wait a while for a taste of October baseball. But he was able to blossom as a solid major leaguer in the Indians' outfield. In 6 years in Cleveland, he batted .269 with 151 homers. Highlights included 1987, when he joined the 30/30 Club (31 HR, 32 SB). He won the AL RBI crown in '86 (121), and later led the league in games (all 162) and at-bats (651) in '89. While not known as much of a contact hitter, he did a great job getting wood on the ball in 1986, collecting 200 hits with a .302 average (both marks he wouldn't come anywhere close to matching again). For his career, he wasn't picky with what he swung at, typically striking out about 3 times as often as he walked. In the field, he saw time at all 3 outfield positions, occasionally playing at first or DH-ing, and was known as a less-than-stellar fielder.

first Topps card

After the 1989 season, he was traded to San Diego in exchange for Sandy Alomar, Carlos Baerga, and Chris James. The deal was a bust for the Padres, as Joe delivered a down year for them in 1990, batting just .232 with his power dipping. For the Indians, Sandy Alomar would go on to win Rookie of the Year that year, and despite being injury-prone for much of his career, became one of the game's best catchers for many years. Baerga also had a few real nice years.

Maybe it's because 1990 was the year my love for baseball first exploded and I lived in the San Diego area, but I always mistakenly remember Joe Carter as being a long-time Padre. Truth is, they shipped him off after only one season, in the aforementioned Fred McGriff deal with the Blue Jays.

The pieces really fell into place for those early-90s Toronto teams, culminating in back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993, with Carter being a big part of their success with many clutch hits. He of course carved himself a permanent place in baseball history when he cracked a dramatic walk-off homer to end the 1993 World Series.

After a few more years with the Jays, Joe wrapped up his career in 1998, splitting that final year with the Orioles and Giants. Since retiring, he's done some broadcasting and started a celebrity golf tournament that benefits the Children's Aid Foundation.

Players with similar career stats include Dale Murphy and Ruben Sierra. When he was eligible for the Hall of Fame, Carter received just 3.8% of the vote and was dropped from future ballots. Unlike McGriff, there aren't many baseball fans clamoring for his induction. In fact, sabermetric advanced-stat minded types are quick to call him overrated, pointing to his poor defense and lackluster slugging and on-base percentages despite good home run and RBI numbers.

But still, the guy put together a solid career. And of course that World Series home run is one of the most memorable moments ever in the sport. And he only has one true rookie. Score another point for Donruss for being the only major brand to give him cardboard when he came up. They took a risk, and he proved them right, arguably having the most successful career out of the original 20 Rated Rookies in that Class of '84.