Today, Pete Rose turns 83 years old. So let me be among the many to wish Charlie Hustle a happy birthday, because I’m sure he spends Sunday mornings reading my card ramblings (but I’m glad YOU do, if you do).
And I know there will be any number of baseball fans young and old who take exception to those birthday greetings because Pete remains a certified Baseball Villain.
You say potato, I say “you can’t tell the story of baseball without villains.”
So, in that spirit, here are five unusual and/or silly and/or remarkable cards of some other baseball villains (not sure if they’re Rose-level certified) to celebrate #83 for #14.
1976 Topps Rogers Hornsby (#342)
I first came across these All-Time All-Star cards in a batch of castoff cards I bought from a dealer at a local flea market in about 1984. I thought I had stumbled on one of those attic finds of ancient, priceless cardboard that would have seen me retired at 15.
It only took a trip to my local Beckett annual price guide to realize that I had instead stumbled across an invaluable treasure trove of baseball history.
Even then, I already knew that Ty Cobb, who also showed up in my find, was a bona fide and certified Baseball Villain.
It took many, many years before I learned that Hornsby may have been even more reviled by his contemporaries. Still a cool card.
1987 Fleer Ray Knight World Series MVP (#12)
I never was a big Ray Knight fan. Always seemed a little smirky-jerky for my taste.
But on July 22, 1986, Ray Knight became Enemy #1 in my fandom, my collection, and my household — all who have come into my family fold since then have signed oaths to uphold that status for as long as I’m sorting and breathing.
In case you didn’t know, July 22, 1986, was the day when Ray Knight — a former Red — sucker-punched Eric Davis while playing third base for the Mets.
Now, Knight says Davis elbowed him. I say ED was mostly elbows, knees, and wrists back then, so if you were going to chest bump such a budding legend, you were liable to taste elbow.
At any rate, Knight then had the audacity to win the World Series MVP award that fall, and Fleer had the audacity to capture his smug mug for posterity. This card should come with a paper shredder and a box of matches.
1990 Toys R Us Rookies Joey Belle (#3)
This card, and cards like it, were part of the problem.
First, did Joey Belle look like someone who wanted to play with toys? Who would be good around your kids? Who was ever even a kid himself?
I think not, Biff.
And second, Joey told you more than once — though maybe not quite so early as 1990 — that he wasn’t Joey. He was Albert.
Albert Belle. A grown-a** man with a big bat. A big corked bat.
Truth be told, I loved to watch Belle hit in the 1990s, and you probably did, too. Even if, somewhere in the back of your mind, you worried that he might somehow find a way to step out of that RCA set and charge you like an old car battery.
1993 Score Boys of Summer Pedro Martinez (#3)
Once upon a time, Ramon Martinez was the second coming of Sandy Koufax, Right-Handed Division — or of Don Drysdale, Diet-Food Division.
But even as Martinez was making his mark with the Dodgers in the early 1990s, the baseball world began whispering about how his kid brother Pedro was going to be the real star of the family.
You could almost see the “well, sh**” moment on the back of Ramon’s baseball cards, as he won 20 games when he was 22 in 1990, then slid from there as Pedro began his climb.
These days, Pedro seems to be universally admired, though I haven’t really heard from Ramon on that front.
If I’m being truthful, though — and what do I have to lose here? — I always sort of resented Pedro for putting Ramon in the backseat of the family juggernaut. I was never a big fan of his (Pedro’s) general arrogance, either.
But when he popped off on Popeye? Well, that was right up there in the Ray Knight neighborhood for me. I mean, Don Zimmer was the Red Sox skipper the first time I saw him, in my 1981 Fleer set (#230).
How could Pedro — a new Red Sox hero — think it was OK to bodyslam an old man, and an old Red Sox fixture, at least in my 1980s collector eyes?
Pedro was acting like a kid — a Boy of Summer, if you will — even if the 72-year-old Gerbil did run at him.
Get off my lawn!
2001 Upper Deck MVP Derek Bell (#293)
Derek Bell was going along just fine, as far as I could tell.
In fact, I always considered him to be a sort of underrated semi-star, the type who would have had cards that Beckett put at ten cents instead of the common-level three cents if he had played in the 1980s.
Even in his Killer B’s days with Houston, Bell still gave me some bang for my buck back when I was playing fantasy baseball.
But then came free agency, when Bell hitched his wagon to the Pirates. His first season in Pittsburgh, 2001, was a disaster, and manager Lloyd McClendon had news for Bell in 2002 — he’d have to compete for the right field job.
Bell let his skip know how he felt about the whole thing through the media, telling reporters in Spring Training that he shouldn’t have to compete, and that he wouldn’t. Instead, Bell was going into “Operation Shutdown.”
The Pirates released Bell two days later, and he never played again.
That makes cards like this 2001 UD showing Bell with the Bucs something of a historical curiosity. And it’s a reminder that, sometimes, villains only shoot themselves in the foot.
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So who’s your favorite baseball villain? In addition to Rose, I’ll pick Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds for my team any day.
And how about the “bad guys” that you consider super villains, like my Ray Knight, the Joker?
Anyway, hope all this Black Bart didn’t mess up your Sunday vibe. At least you have some time to get it out of your system before the new week starts, right. You know, unless you stumble across an A.J. Pierzynski documentary in the meantime.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam