5 (or, like, 14) Future Stars Who Haunt My Past

Fire up the Delorean, Marty -- my tenses are all mixed up!

Former Angels star Hubie Brooks turns 67 years old today.

Which is pretty ridiculous, if you ask me. I mean, it seems like just yesterday he was out there in the Anaheim sunshine slashing .216/.247/.337 and doing his best to make the California faithful forget about all the other DHs who came before.

But, no. Appareantly, that was 1992. And this is, like, not 1992.

Darn calendar lies to me all the time.

Anyway, once upon a time, Brooks appeared on one of those fun multiplayer rookie cards. They’re great fodder for obscure baseball facts, especially as the years roll on.

And, since so many years have rolled on now, how about a quick look at a few of those all-in-one RCs that always warmed my cardboard cockles? Or at least made me giggle.

1979 Topps Royals Prospects (#707)

Must have been tough to be a prospect for the Royals in the late 1970s, what with names like Brett and (eventually) Brett and Splittorff and White and Wilson and all the rest blocking your way to the bigs.

So it’s little wonder these three gents managed just 29 appearances for KC among them, with McGilberry accounting for 21 of those.

He also accounted for one of the most fanciful, leprechaun-ish names in MLB history.

And, of course, Bass went on to appear for several big league teams before becoming a diamond cult hero in Japan.

1980 Topps Yankees Future Stars (#670)

This is a bit of a homer card since Brad Gulden later went on to star in several of my Cincinnati Reds nightmares in 1984. And as Kevin Nealon on SNL.

And Bobby Brown confused me for years until I figured out he wasn’t actually the American League president while he was playing for the Padres. Or Whitney’s hubby.

And Darryl Jones? He’s exactly the sort of guy these cards were tailor-made for, debuting at age 28 in June of 1979 for the Yankees…and wrapping up his big league career in July of 1979.

Read all about it!

1981 Topps Mets Future Stars (#259)

As mentioned above, this is the card of honor here. But it’s also sort of an outlier on this list since all three guys had long and productive careers.

Still, this was a constant companion for young collectors in the 1980s, and it was fun to watch it rise to semi-prominence in the hobby as Wilson and Berenguer were winning World Series while Brooks was All-Starring in Montreal during the middle part of the decade.

That was a really long sentence, so I understand if you need a breather. Here’s something refreshing to get you through the rest of this post…

1982 Topps Padres Future Stars (#731)

Armstrong put together a respectable 8-year career and also appeared on one of the most suspicious baseball cards of all time.

More importantly, he shows up here on his rookie card rocking 1980s birth control specs that only manifest when you fail the eye-chart test … and he also appears next to the Human Eye Chart.

And Fred Kuhaulua.

Do obscure rookie lineups get any better?

1986 Fleer Major League Prospects (#652)

If you read the prognosticatin’ magazines back in the day, you knew that Billy Joe Robidoux was the second coming of Babe Ruth. Or maybe Harmon Killebrew.

Rob Deer?

Would you believe Steve Balboni?

As it turned out, Robidoux appeared in 173 games over 6 seasons and put up -2.4 WAR.

And as it also turned out, it’s “Jo” not “Joe”.

Potato, potatoe.

Funderburk, on the other hand, is in the same general baseball stratosphere as Robidoux from a baseball name perspective, though he only made it into 31 games in two seasons.

The sweet news for collectors is that we forever have this cherry Robidoux Funderbirk rookie card to keep us warm on cold winter nights when Spring Training is buried under a mound of Christmas tree needles and dusty old memories.

—

Yeah, I could have included some Rated Rookies here, but I’ve done that song and dance before — not that I’m above an encore.

But RR’s only give you one ridiculous pick at a time.

The mid-70s were the bees knees for thos sort of thing, as well as the early 60s, since Topps crammed so many prospects on their cards back then.

But “back then” was before even my time, so those cards weren’t quite so formative for me.

How about you, though? What load-’em-up rookie cards are your favorites?

Think about that, and I’ll be over here trying to find out why Billy Jo has no “Similarity Scores” over at Baseball Reference. Does that mean he’s just incomparable?

Dunno. But it sure makes playing 6 Degrees of Dan Driessen a real chore.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam