1982 Topps, Denny Lewallyn

#359 Denny Lewallyn

Here is a card that I got signed the day before the Rickwood Classic. We got to Birmingham a day early so we could see the Barons play in their current home, Regions Park. Unfortunately, we ended up sitting on the highway for an hour after there was an accident between a car and a tractor's mower and we didn't get to the ballpark as early as I had hoped we would. But Denny, who is the Tennessee Smokies pitching coach, was down in the bullpen watching the starting pitcher warm up and I was able to get this card signed when he made his way to the dugout. It was one of only four cards that I got signed at that game. That's not too good for a minor league game.

Denny's stats are pretty interesting. He pitched in the Majors for parts of eight seasons with the Dodgers, Rangers, and Indians. The interesting part is that he only appeared in 34 games for his career. That averages out to just over four games a year. He had one season that he appeared in one game, one season that he appeared in two, three seasons that he appeared in four, one season that he appeared in five, and two seasons that he appeared in seven games. He finished his career 4-4 with 1 save and a 4.48 ERA.

Denny doesn't have too many cards. In fact, this is his only card from a major card company. All of his other cards are either minor league cards or team issued cards. I didn't have this card originally and I couldn't find any on checkoutmycards.com. Luckily, Scott, from Hand Collated, saw that I was needing this card and he sent it and some '81 Donruss cards to help me out. Thanks Scott!