Introducing the Stargell Braves meme

Yesterday I found this real photo of Willie Stargell as an Atlanta Brave and it blew my mind. I had never seen him in anything other than a Pirates uniform. It feels like catching your dad in drag or something.

Spurred on by a bottle of wine, I was compelled to make it into a meme and have been peppering different versions of varying levels of dumbness on my Twitter account for the past 24 hours. I otherwise didn't have a blog post ready for today, so here they are in roughly chronological order.

Around this time, Tony L. looked it up and verified that Pops was indeed a coach in the Braves organization for a few years, even coaching a young Chipper Jones. I imagined it probably went a little something like this:

Then I went on an A&G tangent:

UPDATE: one more.

I think it'd be cool if the card-collecting world had a popular meme of our own, so please create and share some yourselves and maybe this'll catch on. The site I've been using is Meme Generator (it's free and easy) and the original pic is at the top of this post. Go nuts!

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.

One True Rookie: Fred McGriff

Welcome to the first of a new series here at Baseball Card Breakdown! One True Rookie™ posts will feature a guy who only had one actual rookie card during the time of multiple card companies.

(Disclaimer: Hopefully my post ideas are reasonably fresh. I am somewhat new to the baseball card blogosphere, so forgive me if I retread on ground already covered by other blogs. I assure you I strive for originality, and will never blatantly rip off another blog, but here in 2013, there are few things that haven't already been done, especially in regards to old baseball cards. I'll post about topics/cards I find entertaining, and my apologies if anything I do has been covered before. Thank you.)

To explain the premise a bit more: For a long time, Topps was the only game in town when it came to full-sized baseball cards sets, only briefly given competition by Bowman and Fleer. And so for 99% of players playing in the 50s through 1980, their first Topps card was undeniably their rookie card.

But in 1981, Donruss and Fleer came onto the scene and made things interesting. While all 3 companies gave cards to pretty much the same 500+ players, there were occasionally variances in guys chosen to have a card. Sometimes a journeyman infielder would be snubbed by one or two companies, but given a card in another's set. Sometimes a great player who retired recently after the previous season would be denied a "send-off" final card (Topps being especially infamous for this), while the other companies would be gracious enough to issue a card with complete career stats (Fleer especially).

And of course, the 3 companies would sometimes differ in which prospects they deemed worthy of having a place in their set. Most of the time, they agreed. But from time to time, one company would "guess right" and put out a card of a kid who went on to great things, leaving the other companies caught red-faced, scrambling to include the player in their traded/update sets. And sometimes, it would be a year or two till the prospect in question broke onto the scene, making the sole company who gave him a card way-back-when look like magic fortunetellers.

By 1990, the marketplace had become inflated by Score, Upper Deck, the reintroduction of Bowman, and the revamped Leaf set. Soon thereafter, things really became a mess, what with Stadium Club, Fleer Ultra, Pinnacle, etc.

So for this One True Rookie series, I'm limiting the range from 1981 to 1990, back when there really were just a handful of options for a guy's rookie card.

For the first entry, I've chosen one of my favorites:
1986 Donruss #28 Fred McGriff

The guy in charge of picking Rated Rookies really came through for Donruss in '86. The fact that they were the only game in town with a Jose Canseco rookie card not shared with Eric Plunk (Fleer) must've helped them sell a lot of packs back then. But one slow-burn prospect who turned out to be a brilliant pick for them was Fred McGriff.

When the 1986 season started, McGriff had yet to make his major league debut, and his minor league numbers were promising but not exactly explosive, so it's no shock that Topps and Fleer didn't find a place for the Crime Puppy, as I'm sure he was called back then. But Donruss saw something in him and not only gave him a card, but proudly emblazoned it with the prestigious Rated Rookie logo.

Back then, collectors must've thought he was destined to be another RR dud (the list of Rated Rookies who never amounted to much is probably just as long as those who did go on to have respectable careers, if not longer.. hmm, perhaps that could be researched as a topic for a future post?). Fred's 1986 season came and went with him only popping up for an unimpressive 3-game cup of coffee with the big league club (1 single in 5 at-bats, with 2 strikeouts) after a lukewarm season in AAA (.259 with 19 HR).

When the 1987 baseball card sets came out, Topps and Fleer again looked the other way, with only Donruss standing by their man and giving him another card in their set. His '87 Donruss card is very often mistakenly called his rookie card by collectors. It's hard to blame them when you turn the card over and see he only had 3 games under his belt at the time.

However, that year McGriff made the club out of spring training and didn't look back. He put in a solid rookie campaign, clubbing 20 home runs in under 300 at-bats mainly in a left-handed DH platoon role. Topps finally granted him his own cardboard in their 1987 Traded set, with Fleer following suit in their 1987 Update. Donruss got to gloat, including him in their The Rookies set, and perhaps in a cocky "suck on that, bitches!" gesture to Topps and Fleer, used a picture of Fred spitting while at bat.

The next year, Fred was the Blue Jays' everyday first-baseman, and broke out with a terrific season, batting .282 with 34 home runs and 100 runs scored. He was included in all 3 major 1988 sets (well, 4 counting newcomer Score), with collectors getting their first chance at pulling a McGriff from a pack of Topps or Fleer, as they looked back to check if they had any of his earlier Donruss cards.

1989 saw Crime Dog win his first HR crown with 36. He had similar power numbers in 1990, plus got his average up to .300. At the end of the year, he was involved in a blockbuster trade. Toronto sent him and Tony Fernandez to the Padres for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter. Speaking as a kid in San Diego at the time deep into my burgeoning love of baseball, this was a huge deal. I was sad to see Robbie and Carter go, but quickly warmed to the new guys. In 2 and a half years for the Friars, Fred hit .281 with 84 home runs (including his 2nd and final HR title in '92 [35]). Sadly for me, San Diego shipped him off to Atlanta in mid 1993 for little in exchange. But the move worked out well for Fred, as he won the World Series with the Braves in '95. This would prove to provide him with his only ring, though he put up excellent lifetime postseason numbers (.303 with 10 HR and 37 RBI in 50 games.)

Oh, Padres, will you ever win?

McGriff spent the next several years consistently putting up good average and power numbers, moving on from Atlanta to Tampa Bay (his hometown) in 1998, and then to the Cubs in 2001.

He signed with the Dodgers for the 2003 season, but his numbers started to slide, batting just .249 with 13 homers in 297 at-bats.

The next year, he tried to rekindle some mojo with Tampa Bay, but after a sub-Mendoza Line start, the Devil Rays released him near the end of July. He lingered on the free agent market for a while, hoping for another opportunity, but wasn't able to catch on with another team for 2005 and had to call it a career. He now works in the Rays' front office and I believe also co-hosts a radio show in Tampa.

Fred McGriff finished with 493 home runs. It's always frustrating as a fan-- especially a stat-minded fan-- to see a guy fall just shy of a landmark number like 500 HR (I'm sure it's frustrating for the player, too). You can't help but to imagine if he had just one more decent season left in him..... [daydreaming]

McGriff also stars in one of the longest-running TV ads ever!

It would definitely have bolstered his Hall of Fame chances to crack the big 5-0-0. So far in HOF voting, he's been polling steadily at about 20%.. so his chances of getting in are not looking great at the moment. But taking a hard look at his numbers, he's right there with other guys who are in or likely to get in when eligible. The very cool mathematical formula-based site Hall of Stats scores McGriff a 95, which is quite good, but falls short of the 100-point threshold for induction to their elite group. Meanwhile, his Baseball-Reference page lists these ballplayers as most-similar:
Willie McCovey (887) *
Willie Stargell (875) *
Jeff Bagwell (865)
Frank Thomas (861)
Carlos Delgado (857)
Billy Williams (851) *
Gary Sheffield (850)
Andres Galarraga (850)
Jason Giambi (832)
Eddie Mathews (827) *
* - Signifies Hall of Famer

Very nice company indeed, with several Hall of Famers and probable future HOFers. It should also be noted that Fred always seems to be described as a genuinely nice guy who always does the right thing, on and off the field. And I've never heard his name brought up with steroid implications. Throughout his career, he was a tall, slender guy with a tight, pretty swing. (Not one of those muscle-bound bruisers whose heads got rounder and rounder over their careers.) Unfortunately, all the juicing going on during his playing years most certainly causes his great power numbers to be diminished when looking at the era as a whole. In 1988, he was 2nd in AL home runs; Who was first? Jose Canseco. So yeah, you can see how roided-up guys stole some of his glory throughout his career. Hopefully HOF voters are eventually able to sort out the legit stats from the bogus, and Crime Dog will be enshrined in Cooperstown before long.

And when he does, that's yet more bragging rights to Donruss for giving the kid a rookie card long before anyone else. His one true rookie.

I've only got 4 or 5 graded cards in my collection, and this was the first one I ever got. Neat.