1994 Pinnacle, Raul Mondesi

#242 Raul Mondesi

Here is another through the mail success that I got in the mid 90s. In 1994, Raul was the third straight Dodger to win the Rookie of the Year Award. The franshise went on to win five straight with Eric Karros and Mike Piazza winning the first two and Hideo Nomo and Todd Hollandsworth winning the last two. Only two franshises have won the award more than two years consecutively and the Dodgers have done it twice. They won four in a row from 1979-1982. The other team is Oakland and they won three straight from 1986-1988. In fact, Dodger players have won the award more than any other franchise. They have won it 16 times. The team that has won the second most times is the Yankees and they have 8.

I always liked Raul while he was a Dodger. He hit for power, he could run, and he had a cannon for arm. He was so pround of his arm that he actually got a cannon tattooed on it. I'm pretty sure that there was even a baseball card made that showed off the tattoo. But, prior to the 2000 season, Raul was traded to the Blue Jays for Shawn Green. He played for Toronto for two and a half years before being dealt to the Yankees. After a year in a half in New York, Raul started to bounce from team to team. He played for three more years for four different teams and never played in more than 45 games a year. In 2005, he hit .211 for the Braves in 41 games before being released at the end of May. After that, his career was over.

This was one of my favorite signatures while growing up. While the actual autograph is rough on the eyes, I liked that he added his number. It seems that baseball players aren't as big on adding their numbers as basketball and football players are (at least in the late 80s to the mid 90s). So, it was always cool to get a number added to a card. Plus, the photo is great.