1996 Leaf Signature Series, Curtis Pride

#184 Curtis Pride

Here is another checkoutmycards pick-up. This one set me back $1.25. When I saw this card on the site for so cheap, I could not pass it up. For those of you who do not know, Curtis was the first deaf player to play in the Major Leagues since 1945.

Curtis was such a good athlete that the Mets drafted him in the tenth round of the 1986 draft, even though Curt did not play college baseball. He went to school at William and Mary, but he only played collegant basketball. After six less than stellar years as a Met minor leaguer, Curtis got released. He was picked up by the Expos and he made his Major League debut with them a few months later. After that, he bounced around from team to team and spent a lot of time in the minors. He did, however, play in 421 Major League games with the Expos, Tigers, Red Sox, Braves, Yankees and Angels in a eleven year span. He is a .250 career hitter.

2008 was Curtis' last season playing ball. He spent the season playing for Southern Maryland of the Atlantic League at the age of 39. The season before, I got to see him play in a game in Wichita, Kansas. He was with the Arkansas Travelers at the time. I thought that it was pretty cool since it was a name that I actually recognized. You don't see a whole lot of former big leaguers at the AA level. I wasn't into autographed cards at the time, so I didn't even bother trying to get his autograph. Luckily, checkoutmycards was able to help me out on that front.

According to wikipedia, Curtis is the head coach at Gallaudet University.