1981 Donruss, Rafael Landestoy

#19 Rafael Landestoy

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I made an excursion to Arizona for Spring Training last week and I spent the two weeks prior to that just trying to get cards ready. We were planning on seeing eight teams in three days and it was an incredible task to get cards ready for that many teams sporting forty man rosters. But, I did OK as I came home with about sixty-five new autographs. I thought I did really well until I saw that Ryan, from the Great Orioles Autograph Project, came home with nearly 300 autographs from his three day trip. Nice job, Ryan!

I was lucky enough to have this card show up in my mailbox today. I sent this card out to Rafael two months ago. It has been one of my longer waits of late, but there are still two cards out that I sent on the same day.

Rafael played in the Bigs for parts of eight seasons with the Dodgers, Astros, and Reds. He was a utility man that played all four infield spots and a little bit of outfield, too. He was a career .237 hitter that tallied four home runs in his career. One of his four dingers came off of Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton.

Rafael saw some decent playing time in 1979 and 1980. He got 393 at-bats in '80 and hit .247. The previous season, with about a hundred less at-bats, he hit a career high .270. The rest of his career, he was pretty much relegated to back-up duties.

'81 Donruss Tracker: 91/100