1996 Best Harrisburg Senators, Scott Forster

#12 Scott Forster

Here is the last of four straight minor league cards. Next, I will be coming with some guys with Royals ties before hitting a solid month of Leaf Signature Series.

Here is another Best team set card that was sent to me by Ryan, from The Great Orioles Autograph Project. Like the card I posted yesterday, I assumed Scott Forster was another career minor leaguer. And like yesterday, I was wrong again.

Scott made it to the big leagues for one season with the Expos in 2000. He made it into 42 games and it looks like he was mainly used as a left-handed specialist since he only pitched 32 innings. Or he might have only pitched 32 innings because he did not do so hot. That season, he went 0-1 with a 7.88 ERA. Yikes, that is a lofty ERA for 42 games of Major League work.

I mentioned that Scott might have been used as a LOOGY based on that fact that he is left-handed and pitched in less innings than games. So, I decided to look at his splits for that season and that definitely was not the case. Scott fared much better against righties than lefties. He faced 36 more righties that season than lefties and the righties hit just .195 while the lefties teed off for a .289 average. Left-handed hitters also hit one more home run off of him than righties.

After his one season in The Show, it was back to the minors for Scott. He pitched for four more seasons, splitting time in three different organizations and with three different Atlantic League squads.

1995 Team Set, Harrisburg Senators

#17 Steve Faltseisek
#20 Tony Kounas
#27 Mark Charbonnet
#38 Antonio Grissom

Here is a foursome from the Harrisburg Senators team set from 1995 that was sent to me a couple of years ago by Ryan, from the Great Orioles Autograph Project. These are not the first cards of the Senators that he has sent me. He sent me three from the '94 set, too, and those can be seen here. Like I said on that post, I believe that the Sens were Ryan's local minor league team back in the day and that is how he got these cards signed. I very easily could be wrong, though.

Out of these four players, three of them never made it above AA-ball, which is the level Harrisburg was at. Two of those three only got one crack at AA and were either out of baseball or in an independent league afterwards. Tony Kounas was spending his third straight season at AA, first with the Expos organization, but was done after that season.

Steve Falteisek was the highlight of this group. Not only was he a pitcher on a card with a posed batting shot, but he also made it to the Majors. He made his debut with the Expos in 1997 and had five relief appearances and posted a 0-0 record and 3.38 ERA. He spent all of '98 in the minors before make it back up to the bigs in '99 with the Brewers. He got into ten games and again did not get a decision. And his ERA ballooned to 7.50. That was his last chance in the Majors, though he did pitch professionally through the 2003 season. His career stats are no decisions and a 5.85 ERA with 6 walks and 7 strikeouts over 20 innings.

Mark Charbonnet played minor league ball for twelve seasons. About a third of that time was spent in independent leagues that are no longer around- the Western League and the Prairie League. Some of the teams he played for in those include the Moose Jaw Diamond Dogs, the Southern Minny Stars, the Bend Bandits, the Zion Pioneerzz (yes, two Z's), and the Tri-City Posse. I do not remember either of those leagues, but at least they left us some interesting team names.

1994 Fleer Procards, Harrisburg Senators

#2083 Bob Baxter
#2086 Steve Hoeme
#2095 Rob Fitzpatrick

Last year, I got a package in the mail from Ryan of The Great Orioles Autograph Project. The package consisted of a few Royals cards and many autographs. Most of the autographs had an Orioles connection, but there were a few random ones as well. I would catagorise these as some of the randoms. The funny thing was that there are a few more Harrisburg Senators cards coming up. Even though Ryan is an O's fan, these Sens cards are from their days as an Expos farm team. I am pretty sure Harrisburg was Ryan's nearest team when he was growing up, so it is very likely that these cards were ones Ryan got signed in person in 1994. That is pretty cool.

None of the guys here made it to the Major Leagues. Baxter and Hoeme pitched some games in AAA, but Fitzpatrick never made it past the AA level. Baxter pitched in 97 AAA games and went 8-8 with 3 saves and a 4.90 ERA. Hoeme pitched in just 15 AAA games and he was 0-2 with 1 save and a 4.62 ERA. Fitzpatrick was a .234 hitter in 209 AA games.

Out of these three cards, the Steve Hoeme card is my favorite. Hoeme is a fellow Kansan and he played college baseball at the same school that I did, Pratt Community College. I did not realize this until I now when I looked up his stats on Baseball Reference.

1992-93 Fleer Excel, Mike Lansing

#61 Mike Lansing

Here is the second Mike Landing card that I have signed (here is the first). I think that I got the '91 Classic Best card signed first and then sent this card to him after I pulled it from a pack. I guess that I wanted a card signed that had him with an affiliated team.

If you read my first post about Mike Lansing, you'll know that I thought that the signatures that I got from him and the one Baseball Almanac have are pretty different. Does anyone else have any Mike Lansing autographs to compare with?

Check out the giant Mountain Dew can in the background. It is amazing how much minor league baseball has changed since the early '90s.

1991 Classic/Best, Chris Haney

#23 Chris Haney

I got this card signed at a Royals Caravan, probably around 1993. I think that it was in January of '93 because I got two cards signed, and he was an Expo in both of them (or in this case, an Expo minor leaguer). He made 7 appearances with the Royals the previous summer after coming over from Montreal, so I probably didn't have any Royals cards of him yet. This particular caravan, like most of the early ones, took place at the mall. This was how autograph collecting was for a 13 year old in central Kansas in the early to mid '90s. It was this once a year event and getting autographs through the mail.

I do like that jersey. That uniform is kind of a carry-over from the '80s with the belt-less pants and pullover jersey.