#143 Steve Boros
Here is another Padrograph of a person that I am unfamiliar with. I have lots of '87 Topps and even a complete set, but I don't recognize this card. But, the more I see it, the more familiar it looks to me (whatever that means). I guess that I really didn't care too much about manager cards back then.
Boros had a short career as a manager. He was the A's manager in 1983 and was canned after 44 games in 1984. He was the Padres skipper in 1986 and guided the team to a 74-88 record (which is the same record that the A's had in '83), which isn't horrible. For whatever reasons, he was not brought back the next year.
It's kind of funny that Topps puts "manager" on the front of the card since the rest of the cards list the position on the back. I guess they didn't want the old guys to be confused with the players.
Update: After reading Dave's comment, I decided to look into Mr. Boros some more. So, I went to his Wikipedia page and found some great stuff. For one, he was one of Whitey Herzog's coaches while he was with the Royals. That's neat since I just posted Whitey on here a couple of days ago. Another thing I learned is that he has a degree in literature. That's an interesting degree for a manager. The third great tidbit that I found was that he once got ejected from a game while turning in the linup card. Apparently he was carrying a video tape out out to the plate that had a blown call from the night before. The umpire saw the tape he was carrying and ejected him before he could even hand in the card. That's some good stuff.
Your card and its description make me think of 1990 Bowman! That set had tons and tons of unknown players and never-to-be-heard-from-again minor leaguers. Is Steve Boros the managerial equivalent of the players in that Bowman set? Boros has sort of a generic, glazed over look -- like an everyman who is indistinguishable from dozens of other unknown coaches and managers. Looking at him here, I start to imagine an entire set of semi-manager cards -- hundreds of bench coaches, bullpen coaches, first base coaches, trainers and minor league managers who never really hit the big time.
ReplyDeleteThe other funny thing about this card is that I can't tell if Boros is really young or really old. It looks like he's all gray up top, but he has the face and body of a much younger man. Was he too young to be taken seriously as a manager? Or was too old and past his prime as a manager by the time he got his shot?
Either way that is a pretty cool card to have. His signature is angled up to the right a bit, kind of like the "Manager" script at the bottom.