1991 Stadium Club, Darryl Strawberry

#301 Darryl Strawberry

Two summers ago, Darryl Strawberry made an appearance at a church in Wichita to preach. While I don't usually get all excited to go to church, I made an exception that day. The whole family made the trip to see and hear him and we all got to meet him afterwards. While his message might not have been entirely appropriate for our eleven year old, it was still a good message all the same. After his sermon, we got to get some cards signed and get our picture taken with him. I am sure I will show that picture on one of the posts.

Darryl played for four teams during his career and I got cards signed from three of those teams. I already posted the Mets card, so here is the Dodger one. Needless to say, Darryl's tenure in Los Angeles did not go as well as anyone would have hoped. He did good his first season there, hitting .265 with 28 home runs and 99 RBI. But, he could not stay healthy the next two seasons and played in only 75 games over the two years. The Dodgers ended up releasing Darryl during the 1994 season with a year and a half left on his contract.

With LA, Darryl hit just .243 with 38 home runs and 136 RBI.

1991 Score, Danny Darwin

#24T Danny Darwin

Here is the third and final card that Danny Darwin signed for me at Spring Training last year. Danny was the pitching coach for the Reds AAA team and I got him to sign for me at the Reds minor league practice. You can see the first card I posted here and the second one here. On top of that, I got him through the mail on an '81D eight years ago and that one can be seen here.

That makes four signed cards of Danny Darwin with four different teams- the Rangers, Brewers, Astros, and Red Sox. Danny went on to pitch with four more clubs after his time in Boston, so I still have some work to do to get a card signed of him with each team he played for. That is probably not going to happen since there are not very many cards of him with the other four teams and I can't seem to find a single card of him with the White Sox.

Danny pitched for Boston for four seasons. During his tenure there, he went 34-31 with 3 saves and a 4.14 ERA.

By the time Danny was done pitching in Boston, he had played for four teams over a seventeen year career. He went on to pitch four more seasons, but he bounced around considerably. 1995 was spent with the Blue Jays and Rangers. 1996 was with the Pirates and Astros. 1997 was with the White Sox and Giants. 1998, his final season, was all spent with the Giants.

Danny finished his career with a 171-182 record with 32 saves and a 3.84 ERA.

1991 Score, Donovan Osborne

#677 Donovan Osborne

Here is the third and final card that I won in a Twitter contest in 2015. This card was actually the main prize and the other two cards were just thrown in. Those two cards featured Eric Bullock and Don Slaught.

Donovan pitched in the Majors for nine seasons. He spent the majority of the time with the Cardinals, but spent the last two with the Cubs and Yankees. Over his career, he racked up a 49-46 record with a 4.03 ERA.

His best season was with the Cards in 1996. That season, he won a career high 13 games while posting a 3.53 ERA and 134 strikeouts, both also career highs.

Donovan was the thirteenth pick in the 1990 draft out of UNLV. He made his Major League debut just two years later.

1991 Orioles Crown, Rex Hudler

#201 Rex Hudler

Here is the lone card of Rex Hudler as an Oriole. Wonder Dog played in just 14 games with the O's in 1986. In the 14 games, he either entered the game as a defensive replacement or a pinch runner. Because of that, he only came to the plate one time in an Orioles uniform and he flew out to center. But, he did manage to steal a base and score a run. On top of that, Baltimore was 12-2 in the games that Hud played in.

Rex signed this card for me two years ago at Royals Fanfest.

This is the second card from this set in my collection. The first one was given to me by O's super-graph collector, Ryan, from The Great Orioles Autograph Project. It featured Dick Hall.

I really like the concept of this set. I believe it was a stadium giveaway and it features every player that had played with the team up to that point. It looks like it came in sheets and you probably had to attend a few games to get the complete set.

As far as I have noticed, there are a few other teams that have done a set like this. I know the Brewers, Dodgers, and Rangers all have and I believe that the Mets and Yankees did sets as well. Unfortunately, I have yet to acquire a card from any of those sets.

Speaking of Royals Fanfest, the initial list of players to appear has been released and it is looking really bleak this year. There are currently three players that I have no cards for that are scheduled out of the nineteen. Since they never tell you who is going to be signing when and where, it really sucks sitting in line for an hour just to find out that Cam Gallagher is the person you have been waiting on.

1991 Line Drive AAA, Johnny Guzman

#536 Johnny Guzman

Just like the last card I posted, this one was also given to me by Rod, from Pardographs, when we met up at a Hillsboro Hops game in 2015.

While I was familiar with this card, since it was in my collection, I was not familiar with Johnny Guzman as a player. Like most of the players in the Line Drive sets, I just assumed that he never played in the Major Leagues. Turns out I was wrong. Johnny logged 8 innings in the Majors with the A's in 1991 and '92. While he did earn one win, it was a rocky 8 innings. He ended up striking out 3 and only walking 2. But, he gave up 9 runs on 19 hits to the tune of a 10.13 ERA. In Johnny's defense, he did not allow a home run and he was 21 or younger in each of his appearances.

In his one win, Johnny entered a tie game with two outs in the eighth with two runners on. After going to a full count, he got the Tigers Lou Whitaker to ground out to the second baseman to end the inning. The A's came up in the bottom half of the inning and put up a six spot to secure the victory. Some guy named Dennis Eckersly came out for the A's and pitched the ninth inning.

Johnny would go on to pitch only one more season before calling it quits at the age of 22. Though coming out of the Dominican Republic back then, it is hard to say if that was his actual age or not. But, that is pure speculation on my part.

1991 Line Drive AAA, Charlie Manuel

#99 Charlie Manuel

Here is another random card that was given to me by Rod, from Padrographs. This sucker is a little bent out of shape. But, it is an autograph from a World Series winning manager, so I don't really care.

Did you know that Charlie Manuel managed the Indians for parts of three seasons? I'm not sure what I was doing those three years, but I do not remember that at all. He is ingrained as a Phillie in my mind and that is all I can picture him as.

But, before managing in the Majors for twelve seasons and making the playoffs six times, Charlie spent six seasons managing AAA ball with four different clubs. Over those six seasons, his teams made the playoffs twice.

Before becoming a manager, Cornbread Charlie played in the Majors for parts of six seasons with the Twins and Dodgers. During that time, he hit .198 with 4 home runs and 43 RBI.

With this card, I have autographs from the manager and two coaches of the Sky Sox in this set. Jim Gabella and Rick Adair were the coaches and you can see their dual signed card here.

1991 Line Drive AA, Tom Carcione

#281 Tom Carcione

Here is a card that I got this past summer while I was in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was on our College World Series trip. When we make the trip, we usually camp out at a small state lake in Iowa. But, the state park was changed to a day use only park with no camping. When I found that out, I looked into another state park in Nebraska. But, with the chance of severe thunderstorms for the weekend, we opted to stay in a hotel in Lincoln. It is a little out of they way, but is so much cheaper than Omaha during the series.

So, the night we got to Lincoln, we went to a Lincoln Saltdogs game (American Association). I had cards of two of their coaches to get signed and got them both before the game started. We only stayed four or five innings. True to the weather report, it rained cats and dogs for almost an hour. Luckily, we made it out of the park before it came and sat out the storm at Blue Blood Brewery.

Tom played five seasons in the A's minor league system, reaching AA in parts of three of those seasons. For his affiliated career, Tom was a .229 hitter with 19 home runs and 151 RBI.

Tom is the Saltdogs hitting coach.