1981 Donruss, Don Baylor

#413 Don Baylor

Here is one of the few Spring Training autograph requests that I have got back this month. This one is of the Rockies batting coach, Don Baylor.

A couple of firsts happened on this request. The most obvious is that his signature got smudged. While a smudged signature is not a first, a smudged signature on an '81 Donruss card is (at least for me). The other first is that this card came back in a different envelope than the one I sent with it. That, too, has happened to me before. But the previous ones all came back from companies that handled the big-name players and the envelopes contained photos, schedules, and fan club stuff. It has never happened for a normal TTM request. I don't know if my SASE got ripped when he opened the letter or what. Luckily, Don was nice enough to fill out a new envelope and provide postage to get my card back to me. That made up for the smudge.

As for Don's playing days, he played from 1970-1988 with the Orioles, A's, Angels, Yankees, Red Sox, and Twins. He was an All-Star in 1979 and he played in the World Series in each of his last three seasons, winning it all in 1987 with the Twins. For his career, he finished up with 2,135 hits and 338 home runs. He was also beaned 267 times which ranks him fourth on the all time list.

'81 Donruss Tracker: 54/100

On second thought, I have had a card come back in a different envelope once before. It was from John Olerud in the early '90s. I sent a card to him while he was still a Blue Jay and included the correct Canadian postage on my SASE. I got my card back after the season in a different envelope that was mailed out of Washington.