5 Baseball Cards That Couldn't Have Been Anything Else

These dudes were destined for the diamond

You ever run into a person who’s exactly what and where they’re supposed to be?

Like, you walk into Cheers, and there’s Norm at the end of the bar holding that stool in place for posterity (posterior-ity?).

Or like, you go to IT for help with your password, and Poindexter osmoses through the wall of his computer cave to lay some disdain and a fix on you. (I can say this — I’ve spent the majority of my adult life in a computer cave.)

Yeah, they were pretty much where they had to be. Couldn’t fight nature on that.

Just like the guys below had to be baseball players. Their parents pretty much guaranteed that when they made their big purchases at the local Baby Name Store.

1981 Fleer Champ Summers (#466)

This is how I “found” Champ Summers when my mom forced me into collecting back in 1981.

All of his cards that, uh, summer were dark and drab and showed him as a member of an up-and-coming Tigers team that no one was really thinking about yet.

But even then, I knew Champ’s name was super cool and super baseball-y.

He was a Champ. Of the Summers clan.

Yeah, baseball-y.

Of course, looking back on this card now, you can just about imagine he must have known what was coming.

I mean, Summers came up to the 1974 A’s in May that year but was back in the minors by mid-June. He had to watch from home as the dynasty finished off their third straight title.

In April of 1975, Oakland traded Summers to the Cubs for a Player to Be Named Later, who turned out to be Jim Todd. Summers found some decent playing time on the North Side, but the Cubs struggled to get anywhere.

They were the Cubs, after all.

Chicago traded Summers to the Reds just in time for him to mop up the transmission fluid from the breaking-down Big Red Machine in 1977. When they were ready to win the National League West again, Cincy flipped him to the rebuilding Tigers during the 1979 season.

Summers was way too old to be part of Detroit’s youth movement.

He was just right for a couple of meh Giants teams, though. And then he was just right to be a Player to Be Named Later himself in a December 1983 trade.

That landed Summers in San Diego, where it’s always summer. At least sorta.

There, Champ finally got to live up to his name, helping the Padres to a division title and getting his first taste of October baseball.

So of course his former team, the Tigers, thumped the Friars.

Yeah, 1981 Fleer Champ Summers totally saw it coming.

1986 Donruss Jay Baller (#613)

Right, Baller should be on a hoops card, not a baseball card.

His name says so.

His height (6’6”) says so.

You could be mean about it and say that his record says so — 4-9, 5.24 ERA in 94 big league games.

But, hey — do you have a 1986 Donruss card showing you in Cubs pinstripes, about to launch a ball over the backstop?

You gotta think Pete Alonso has a copy of this card taped inside his locker, right?

1979 Topps Horace Speed (#438)

Speed is the baseball equivalent of the 400-pound lineman whose name is “Tiny.”

An outfielder and pinch runner who spent parts of three seasons in the bigs, Speed accumulated 160 plate appearances in 113 games.

In those trips to the dish, Speed “amassed” one triple, 5 doubles, and 4 stolen bases. He was caught stealing 5 times.

For what it’s worth, the last guy Speed relieved on the basepaths was Cliff Johnson, who stole 9 bases in his 15-year career.

Heathcliff was nabbed 12 times.

1983 Donruss Cecilio Guante (#423)

I was pretty sure 1983 Donruss Cecilio Guante was mad at me. Especially after I called him out for being “Matt” on the front of the card.

It’s probably not going to help matters when I point out — for what must be like the millionth time in Matt’s life — that “Guante” in English is “Glove.” You know, assuming you can direct-translate proper nouns and all that jazz.

All (or some, at least) silliness aside, if you don’t want Cecil Glove — or Matt Glove, as the case may be — on your baseball team, then you’re not even trying, bro. Hermano.

1966 Topps Earl Battey (#240)

Battey is kind of like a combo of Speed and Guante.

First, though Battey was decent or better hitter, his stock-in-trade was being a Gold Glove catcher.

So, to be fair to Twins fans, he maybe should have changed his name to Earl Catchey.

Then, on the Guante front, Battey translated from mid-century American to TikTok American is, roughly, Battey.

Yeah, Earl Battey is a constant. According to the Dead Ball Era Scrolls, Battey stood in place at what would become home plate while Joy Cartwright built that first diamond around him.

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What other baseball players had to be baseball players, in your experience?

Razor Shines always makes me think of spikes flashing in the sun. He’s in the club.

Matt Batts. Duh.

Chester Catches would qualify if he were real.

And George Brett was pretty much born for the diamond, regardless of his name. He’d have had some real issues with HR in any other line of work.

Thanks for reading, and try not to melt or tear a UCL until we meet again.

—Adam