1992 Score, Don Wakamatsu

#814 Don Wakamatsu

Here is a card of Don Wakamatsu that I got signed outside of Kauffman Stadium last season. Don was the bench coach for the Royals at the time.

That was the second time that I got Don to sign outside of The K for me. I got him to sign a manager card for me the previous season. I didn't have this card at the time, though, so I ended up buying it just to have a card from his playing days signed. This is the only base Major League card of him ever made from when he was playing.

Don got just a cup of coffee with the White Sox in 1991. While he spent well over a month in the big leagues, he was limited to just 18 games with 9 of those being starts. Over those 18 games, he hit .226 with no extra base hits or RBI. He walked once, struck out 6 times, and scored 2 runs. Then that was it as a Major League player.

Don will not be returning to the Royals this coming season. They let him go and Dale Sveum got promoted from hitting coach to bench coach. Don will now be the bench coach for the Rangers.

1992 Score, Tony Fossas

#389 Tony Fossas

Here is the third and final card that I got signed by Tony Fossas at Spring Training last year. Tony was working with the Reds at the time and he signed for me while the team's minor league players were having their morning practice. You can see the first card of him that I posted here and the second one here.

Those first two cards both showed Tony with the Brewers. For whatever reason, I seem to have a decent amount of signatures from Brewers pitchers. Luckily, I was able to find this card and mix it up a bit. Even though I am not a Red Sox fan, signed cards of Red Sox players do not appear on this blog enough.

Tony pitched for the Sox for four seasons in the early '90s. During his tenure in Boston, he went 7-5 with 4 saves and a 3.98 ERA. It was with the Sox that he settled into his LOOGY role, pitching just 160.2 innings over 239 appearances.

After leaving Boston, Tony went on to pitch with the Cardinals, Mariners, Cubs, Rangers, and Yankees. He finished his twelve year career with a record of 17-24 with 7 saves and 3.90 ERA.

1992 O-Pee-Chee Premier, Jeff Fassero

#119 Jeff Fassero

Here is the first of three cards that I got signed by Jeff Fassero at Spring Training last year. Jeff was the pitching coach for the AAA affiliate of the Reds, but he was nowhere to be found at the minor league diamonds that morning. But, he did show up at the Major League game and another fan pointed him out to me. That particular fan was impressed that I actually had a card of Jeff with me.

Jeff pitched with the Expos for six seasons. Over that time, he went 58-48 with a 3.20 ERA and 750 strikeouts. His best season was with Montreal in 1996. He was 15-11 with a 3.30 ERA and a career best 222 strikeouts. That was the only 200 strikeout season of his career.

I am heading up to Royals Fanfest tomorrow. Why I keep going there year after year, I do not know. It seems like it gets worse every year. But, hopefully, with three big names gone, there will be less people there and I will be able to get some cards signed. Salvy is still priority number one as I still do not have any cards signed by him even though he has been with the team for seven years.

My biggest concern this year is that there are quite a few guys slated to be there that I do not have cards for. Most of them are young players that have no cards, but there are a small handful where every card I have of them is signed already. I just worry about sitting in a line for an hour and a half and then Scott Barlow comes out to sign.

1992 Donruss, Tom Candiotti

#459 Tom Candiotti

Here is the first of three cards that Tom Candiotti signed for me on the last day of the regular season last year. Tom does radio for the Diamondbacks and the club was in Kansas City to finish out the year. I got to the park nice and early that day and was lucky enough to catch Tom as he was coming off of the team bus.

When I think of that Candy Man, I picture him playing for the Indians and Dodgers. Well, it turns out that he pitched for the Brewers, Blue Jays, and A's, too. His time in Toronto was extremely short, though. He was acquired by the club mid-season in 1991. Down the stretch, we went 6-7 with a 2.98 ERA and helped the Jays secure the division by seven games.

Unfortunately, he was not much help for the club when the postseason began. He got two starts against the eventual World Champion Twins and took the loss in Game One after failing to get out of the third inning. He got the start in Game Five, but got a no decision after the bullpen blew the three run lead it was handed. For the series, he had an 8.22 ERA over 7.2 innings. He gave up 17 hits and walked 2 while striking out 5.

The Jays did not bring Tom back after that season and he signed with the Dodgers.

I am kind of surprised that this is the only '92 Donruss I have to post. It seems like I have a ton of '92 Donruss and Fleer. But, I have so much that I hate going through them to pull cards. I know the card is in there, I would just rather not have to dig through so many cards to find it.

The '92 Donruss design sure looks good on Blue Jay cards, though.

1992 Classic/Best, Marcus Hanel

#242 Marcus Hanel

Here is the second of two cards that Marcus Hanel signed for my older boy at Spring Training last year. Marcus is the bullpen catcher for the Brewers and my boy, with the help from some other 'graphers, was able to get him before a game at Goodyear Ballpark.

It just so happened that the three games we were going to see last year all had the Brewers as the visiting team. Since my boy could care less about autographs, and there is usually less for him to do at a Spring Training park than a Major League park, I put him to work 'graphing the Brewers for me. To make it worth his while, I told him I would give him a dollar for every autograph he got. For some reason, he thought he was going to make $50. But 'graphing is not his thing, and we only made it to two games, so he was only able to get fourteen cards signed. I was more pleased than he was and gave him twenty bucks for his efforts.

As for Marcus, he never made it to the show. He spent eleven seasons in the minors with Pirates, Braves, and D-Backs. He made it to AAA, playing in 37 games at the level over three different seasons. For his career, he was a .193 hitter.

If you check out Hanel's bio on the Brewers coaching staff page, you can learn some interesting fact about him. For starters, he has been the bullpen catcher for the Brewers for eighteen seasons. But, more importantly, he can hold seven baseballs in one hand and he holds the record for the most cheesesteaks consumed in the Phillies visiting team clubhouse over a three and four day stay. In 2015, Marcus smashed 18 cheesesteaks in three days. He had five more on the fourth day for 23 for the four game set. This makes me want to look up the Royals bullpen catcher's bio to see if he even compares to Marcus.

Back in the day, I really loved this set. I am pretty sure I even bought a box of it. But, for whatever reason, I do not have very many cards from the set signed. This one is just the eighth card from it that I have signed and the first one I got signed since 2009. I guess the main drawback for the set is that it does not feature any AAA players, so most of the guys never made it to the Majors. That is my theory at least.

1991 Topps, Mark Parent

#358 Mark Parent

It only took four months, but here is the third and final card of Mark Parent that I got signed at a Royals game in 2015. Mark was the bench coach for the White Sox at the time. You can see the first card here and the second one here.

Mark played in the Majors for thirteen seasons with the Padres, Rangers, Orioles, Cubs, Pirates, Tigers, and Phillies. Over that time, he hit .214 with 53 home runs and 168 RBI. His best season was in 1995, a year split between the Pirates and Cubs. Spending the majority of the year with Pittsburgh, Mark played in a career-high 81 games. Over that span, he hit .234 and had single season bests in home runs (18) and RBI (38). Besides that season, the most dingers he had in a year was 11.

I mentioned in that last post I did of Mark that I have a hard time doing a second and third post of a player (or a sixth, seventh, or eighth of a Royal). Luckily, Rod left a comment on that card that had some neat facts about Mark. The one I liked the most was that Mark was once ejected from a game during the pregame line-up exchange. It was while he was coaching with the Sox and he apparently brought up something from the night before. That is classic!

1991 Topps, Ozzie Canseco

#162 Ozzie Canseco

Here is Ozzie Canseco card number three. This one, however, was signed by him in 2016, a year after the first two. Ozzie was the hitting coach for the Sioux Falls Canaries at the time and I got the cards signed by him at a Wichita Wingnuts game.

This is the only base Topps card of Ozzie, which is kind of surprising. While Ozzie had a very short Major League career (24 games), he had a decent amount of cards made of him. I am sure that it mostly because of his name. Upper Deck and Score each made two base cards of Ozzie. Every other brand made just one, except for Fleer. Fleer only had an Update card of him. Sure, Ozzie appeared in a Bowman set and Stadium Club, but this his only regular issue Topps card.

Ozzie played in just nine games with the A's. In those games, he got 19 at-bats and only 2 hits. One of those hits was a double and he also drove in a run. The downside to his limited Oakland days were his strikeouts. Ozzie fanned 10 times. That was the main reason for his .105 batting average.

The A's released Ozzie after the 1990 season and he spent '91 playing in Japan.