Lately my wife and I have started working on jigsaw puzzles together. We have two all together different strategies when it comes to this. She is a get a bunch of pieces together and then we will put it in the puzzle, while I am more of a let’s get it in the puzzle and knock out the easy stuff first. Also if she is working on one part of the puzzle she get’s very upset when I work on that area as well. Suffice to say we have had some heated exchanges, but in the end cooler heads prevail. What’s crazy about the latest one we are working on is that we were given 2 of the same piece and we are missing one piece. How awful is that? Well let’s take a look at pack number 42.
1. Craig McMurtry – P – Brave – Besides having the stunningly good looks as indicated in the picture below, Craig has one more note on his resume. He is the first pitcher ever to give up a home run to Barry Bonds. Ironically it happened in 1986, so this is a good time to mention his 1986 stats 1-6/4.74/1.569. Not exactly tearing up the league and may explain why he wasn’t to be int he majors in 1987. I had to put the picture up because I want to know could his glasses be any larger?
2. Ricky Adams – 3B/SS – Giants – 153 – Ricky’s major league career ended in 1985 with the Giants. He was a very seldom used middle infielder, never actually putting up over 125 at bats in a season. In 1985 he put up 0.190/2/10 so you can understand why he didn’t come back in 1986.
3. Ramon Romero – P – Indians – 208 – Ramon wants you to see his shiny new blue glove. It may not go with his Cleveland Indian uniform, but he’ll be damned if he can’t wear it when he pitches. I bet he thought it was the coolest when he got it. Maybe he was secretly hoping to be traded to the Blue Jays. He had a long trip to the majors, starting in 1978 and finally arriving in 1984. Unfortunately though 1985 was his last season he went 2-3/6.58/1.663, that’s why he didn’t come back in 1986.
4. Rick Lysander – P – Twins – 482 – Rick was another casulty of bad pitching in 1985, he was not to come back in 1986 either. He went 0-2/6.05/1.541, which are just brutal numbers and probably why he didn;t get the call back for 1986.
5. Mark Gubicza – P – Royals – 644 -I’m a Gubicza fan. I know a lot of people make fun of his last name, like I used to used Gubicza instead of a 4 letter word. For example You know, you are such a Gubicza, and that person would be offended. Overall in 1986 Mark had a pretty good season where he went 12-6/3.64/1.323. He was a great number 3 guy behind Saberhagen andLeibrandt.
6. Luis Salazar – 3B/OF – White Sox – 103 – Duplicate, first reviewed in pack 6.
7. Mike Trujillo – P – Red Sox – 687 – Mike was one of the first guys to visually show bling on his card. Note the diamond studded cross on his chest. I really have a hard time trying to remember when it got acceptable to wear jewelry on the field. I know the mid to late 90′s were the big days of it. The heavy jewelry laden players have since disappeared, but it’s funny to see the bling so early in the baseball time line. In 1986 he was traded mid season to the Mariners, his numbers as a middle reliever were 3-2/3.26/1.277.
8. Vern Ruhle – P – Indians – 768 – 1986 would prove tobe the end of the line for Vern. He had a nice long career (13 years) for a nondescript pitcher. In 1986 he went 1-3/4.15/1.112 as a middle reliever. Not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but at 35 he was clearly out of gas.
9. John Tudor – P – Cardinals – 474 – Double, first reviewed in pack 23.
10. Mike Pastore – P – Reds – 314 – Mike was another middle reliever who’s career ended in 1986 when he went 3-1/4.01/1.581. Curiously though he was only 28, I would think that would be too young to run out of major league gas. Great story on basreball reference though. Read about Mike’s gluttonous achievements here (fastest recod for eating a 72 ounce steak).
11. Enos Cabell – 3B/1B – Dodgers – 197 – I remember Enos pretty well, but mainly for his years on the Astros. He was a pretty decent player who swung a decent bat and was always a threat to steal. Unfortunately though 1986 was his last year in the pros. His line for that year was 0.256/2/29/10, so he even had some gas in the wheels left at 36, well enough to swipe 10 bases.
12. Milt Thompson – OF – Braves – 517 – This was early on in his career and he hadn’t settled in as a starter as of yet. 1986 was also spent on the Phillies where he went 0.251/6/23/19 and carved out his way into becoming a starter for Philadelphia for the next few years.
13. Tom Brunansky = OF – Twins – 565 – Double, first reviewed in pack 23.
14. Ryne Sanberg – 2B – Cubs – 690 – Double, first reviewed in pack 23.
15. Juan Samuel – 2B – Phillies – 475 – Double, first reviewed in pack 9.
Overall a pretty nice pack. Player wise it was not the best, but we did get some nice doubles and the Mark Gubicza was a nice find as well. I am going to give this one a 2.0 stars rating. I don’t want to jinx myself but this box does seem to be the yang to the other box’s ying. It should prove interesting to see if a set can be completed. Don’t forget to visit Bad Hits.
Everyone’s glasses were ridiculously large back then. I’m tempted to scan in a picture of me from 1986. Not only were my glasses giant (for an eight-year-old face) but they were PINK…pink…what was I thinking?