1990 Fleer, Mike Gallego

#7 Mike Gallego

Mike is the third base coach for the A's this season and he was nice enough to sign three cards for me before a Cactus League game in Glendale, Arizona last month. The A's have a decent assortment of coaches that played in the '80s and '90s and that is who I got most of my autographs from that afternoon. I only got a couple of current players to sign, but getting 'graphs from four members of the coaching staff more than made up for it.

Mike played in the Major Leagues for thirteen seasons with the A's, Yankees, and Cardinals. He was a light-hitting middle infielder that played good defense. He hit .239 for his career and somehow managed to slug 42 home runs, including a career-high of 12 in 1991. That might not seem that impressive unless you realize that Mike is listed at 5'6" and 160 pounds.

Mike has a very interesting signature. If you check out his Baseball Almanac page, they have a sig by Mike that is much longer than this one and halfway readable. This one, on the other hand, looks more like a sign. There is nothing there that looks like "Mike" and you might be able to make out a "G" if you are wearing beer goggles. But all three signatures I got from him that day were identical, so at least he is consistent.

Mike has one certified autograph and that is from the '96 Leaf Signature set and that autograph looks more like the Baseball Almanac version than this one. So, I wonder if this is his hurried ballpark sig or if this is what all of his signatures look like now.