1981 Donruss, Tippy martinez

#354 Tippy Martinez

Here is another card that Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff, got signed for me at an Atlanic League game. Tippy is the pitching coach for the York Revolution. Paul told me that Tippy doesn't like to sign cards of his where he has a mustache, so I am fortunate that he hadn't yet decided to grow the mustache in 1980.

Tippy was a left-handed relief pitcher for 14 seasons, mostly with the Orioles. He was an All-Star in 1983 for them. But, his claim to fame is that he once picked three runners off of first base in the same inning.

According to Wikipedia, the O's replaced their catcher and backup catcher in the ninth inning while rallying to tie the game against the Blue Jays. The emergency catcher on the team was Lenn Sakata, who moved from second base to behind the dish in the tenth. Tippy entered the game with a runner on and quickly picked him off when he left for second too early. He then walked a batter and picked him off before giving up a hit to Willie Upshaw. He, of course, then picked off Upshaw. Apparently, they all wanted to steal off of Sakata and were getting bigger than usual leads.

Sakata ended up hitting a walk-off home run in the bottom of the tenth to give Tippy the win. You can see the box score and play-by-play for the game here.

'81 Donruss Tracker: 32/100