I loved collecting baseball cards back in the day; I loved going through all of them recently during the pandemic, when their popularity skyrocketed again. Trying to collect the whole set, reading all of the player stats on the back, sorting them by player, by year, by player, and by year again, playing games with them, taping them on my grandmother’s wall… haha; this was all stuff I recall. Of course, the opening of the pack itself was the most exciting part; who will be in there? Will I get the best card in the set? When I opened that 1989 Upper Deck pack back in the day when we were on vacation in Michigan, I clearly remember looking at that Ken Griffey Jr card; I remember the feeling that I felt getting THE card of that set. I still have it to this day. Even when I get it graded eventually, I don’t think I’ll ever sell it… we’ll see. Of course the one card I wish I had was the famous T206 Honus Wagner card; this brings me to the selection of my all time SS. He’s not JUST a baseball card… although just recently in fact, this card went for $7.25M (M=MILLION!) dollars in a private sale. That’s just fricking insane. The “Mona Lisa of baseball cards” wasn’t too bad of a player in his day either.
Let’s start off with that lost stat of batting average again. He’ll fit in nicely with his .328 career average. Not a ton of power, in fact very little, but his 3,420 career hits will play nicely. He stole bases, another lost art, and didn’t strike out a ton, about 6% of his total ABs resulted in a K… not too shabby. Yes, his first year in the game was 1897… no typo… the 19th century!!! But he shouldn’t be punished for that. Yet, because he played so long ago, he played before the Gold Glove awards were handed out. Yet, I read he could flash the leather, and is still considered one of the best defensive SS of all time, which eased my concern about that important quality at this position. He also has a World Series title under his belt, way back in 1909 against the Tigers, outhitting his more famous opponent Ty Cobb .333 to .231 in the 7 game series. I’m good with it.
Of course, there were other valid choices, including Cal Ripken Jr, Derek Jeter, Ozzie Smith, and of course, Ernie Banks. I thought about picking Banks, although he did play more than half of his career at first base. That all-time Cubs team will most certainly have Mr. Cub, although I did love Shawon Dunston.. haha. Cal owns one of those records that will never be broken, Derek has his own miniseries now, and Ozzie is the Wizard and is actually one of the Cardinals I don’t mind. But for me, after further review, we’re going old school… really old school.
Honus Wagner, another guy I didn’t think about right away, but one that I’m perfectly happy with putting at my starting SS position. I wonder who my second baseman will be…
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