1984 Fleer, Dick Williams

#659 Dick Williams

While I got many great cards from Rod, this one might actually be my favorite. It's of the 2008 Hall of Fame inductee, Dick Williams. This is the only card of a member of the Hall that Rod sent me. But, that could easily change in the next few years as there were a few cards of players that should get serious consideration.

The stats link above links to Dick's player stats, but since he was known more for his managing, you can see those stats here. If you look at both stats pages, you'll see that he played his final season in 1964 for the Red Sox and then he took the Sox to the Series in his first year of managing, in 1967. That's a quick turnaround from player to Major League manager. He went to the Series three more times, winning it twice with A's in the early '70s. He even guided the Expos to their lone playoff appearance.

To date, this is the only checklist card that I have signed. These were kind of strange team checklists. There is a team on the front and a team on the back. But, only the team on the front has a picture of the manager on the card. However, that is not a problem on this card since the back has the "special cards" checklist.

1990 Topps, Lee Smith

#495 Lee Smith

I got this card signed this past spring at the Willie Wilson Classic. If you don't know what the Willie Wilson Classic is, click on the WWC label and go to the older posts to find out.

In October, I showed this Lee Smith card that I got signed through the mail in the '90s. In that post, I stated that I thought that the signature was fake. The reason I thought that is because I got this one in person and it looks nothing like the other one. So, I assumed it was fake. Then I came across a 1982 Topps Lee Smith. That set had the fascimile signature on it just like the '08 set has. The fake signature on that card looks very similar to the one on my '88 Topps card. So, I guess that Lee's signature has changed through the years slightly. Plus, he was probably in a hurry when he signed this card. Does anyone else have any Lee Smith signatures for comparison?

So there you have it- the (hopefully) future Hall of Famer, Lee Smith.

This is the very first Red Sox card on here.

1984 Fleer, Gene Richards

#310 Gene Richards

Here is another Padre that I am unfimiliar with. It looks like Gene spent seven of his eight seasons with the Padres. He always had decent numbers for his batting average and OBP, but his slugging was pretty pitiful.

Here is another yellow Padre jersey. This one is probably just a batting practice jersey. You just don't see too many teams wearing yellow these days. I saw the Sioux Falls Canaries wear a yellow jersey last year. I can hardly think of any teams that use yellow any more. The only ones that come to mind are the A's and the Salt Lake Bees.

1990 Topps, Eric Davis

#260 Eric Davis

This is one of the best autographs that I got through the mail when I was a kid. Most of the big name players wouldn't return the card or would send it back unsigned, and sometimes, with a photo explaining that they get too much mail to resond to each one. But, not Eric Davis.

I was a pretty big fan of Davis in the '80s. In '87, he was three home runs away from being the first 40/40 man. I even had a poster of him, too. He was dressed in a suit with a red tie and there was a huge revolver laying on a table. In big red font, it said "44 Magnum".

I was a Dodger fan when I was a kid and was pretty excited when he went to LA. But, that was when he started getting hurt a lot and was out of baseball four years later. But after a year away from the game, he was back and played for six more seasons and did pretty good when he was healthy. In 1997, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. But, he battled through it and went back to the team in time for the playoffs.

While Davis' career didn't reach the point that most people thought that it might, he was still a great ballplayer that was exciting to watch.

1984 Donruss

#446 Dennis Rasmussen

I like this card for two reasons. The first is that it is a player that I have heard of. The second is that it is 1984 Donruss. I might have three or four cards from this set, with one of them being the Joe Carter rookie. For some reason, this was always a hard set for me to find. I never saw any packs of these. It doesn't help that I didn't start getting into cards until 1986. But even today, it's hard to find packs of this set on ebay. And when you do find them, they usually aren't cheap.

1990 Score 2

#391 John Moses

This is the third and final John Moses card on here. Like I said for the first two cards, I got these signed at a Oklahoma Redhawks game last summer when he was the hitting coach for Las Vegas. You can see the first two here and here.

John was a .254 career hitter with no pop in his bat. It sometimes amazes me that players like this go on to coach. I guess that it has more to do with theory and mechanics than the talent you had when you played, which makes sense.

John has an interesting signature. You can clearly make out "John" and can kind of tell where "Moses" is on there. But, in the middle, there is something weird. There is a line going up and down between his names, like a divider. Then there is a big hook which might be a curl to start his "M". I might be looking into this WAY too much, but I wonder if this could be some kind of Biblical reference, like Doug Jones' PTL or Mike Sweeney's Bible verse. Here is what I'm getting at. John and Moses were both disciples, so he puts a divider between his names so that each one stands out. Then, instead of having a curl on his "M", what if it is supposed to represent a shepherd's staff, since Moses was a shepherd? Like I said, I'm probably looking into this too much. I just get curious sometimes when there "appears" to be more to a signature than a name.

1976 Topps 3

#611 Rich Folkers

This is the final Padrograph from the 1970s. Tomorrow, Padrographs II will be jumping to 1984.

Here is another former Padre that I had never heard of. Rich was mostly a relief pitcher in the seven seasons he spent in the big leagues. He pitched for four different teams, but had his best season with the Cardinals in 1974. That year he pitched ninety innings with a 3.00 ERA. With those glasses and being left-handed, he reminds me of Paul Splittorff.

Rod likes to get signatures in ink besides the standard black and blue. Here is the first red one. I think that it looks really good on this card. Also, it looks like Rich put his number under his name. It looks like 05. According to Baseball Almanac, Rich wore the following numbers- 30, 28, 26, 45. Maybe the card was signed in '05 or it is actually 26 or 28? I don't know.

I have very few 1976 Topps cards, but I find it very unusual that the three I show on here are all pitchers that have close-ups of fake windups. You can see the original one here.