Player: Dave Righetti “Rags”
Set: 1982 Fleer, Donruss and Topps
Card Number: 52, 73, and 439 respectively
Why is These Cards are Must Have?: We go from one closer to another. I thought long and hard about including him on this list, but in the end I decided to put him on here. The reason is that he saved a crazy amount of games in such a short period of time. All but 5 of his 252 saves were earned during a 8 year stretch that ran from 1984 – 1991, that’s almost 31 saves a year. He was also a wildly popular player with the Yankees and still is considered, behind Mariano of course, the second best reliever the team ever had. Of course his best season by far was 1986 when he went 8-8/2.45/1.15 with 46 saves. Unfortunately after that big season, he never came close to duplicating it and by 1991 he was suddenly a journeyman reliever splitting the rest of his career between the Giants, A’s, Blue Jays and White Sox. However, I’ll always remember him as being a bright spot on some pretty lousy Yankee teams.
On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Must Have Are These Cards?: A 1 or 3 if you are a Yankee fan. Like I said, he is borderline on this Definitive list but I felt he needed to be here. After all he was one of the best closers of the 1980s. You can find these cards for no more than a dollar each (hopefully a lot less) on eBay.
