CARD
Well there are two insanely crazy things about the photo on this card:
1) We have an up-the-nose photo of a player! Are you kidding me???
2) We have a photo featuring a catcher going after a popup, and someone on the card is discarding their face mask, and it's NOT the catcher! It's the umpire!
STAT
From 1981 to 1991, Cerone was by far the part-time-iest player in the big leagues, registering far more seasons with 200 to 300 AB than anybody else.
CAREER
Cerone is one of those guys whose impact went far beyond his stats. Offensively, he was not very good. True, in his only season with 500 AB, he had a very nice 107 OPS+, but he didn't hit well enough in any other season to warrant so much playing time. He also had a number of years with an OPS+ below 65 (ouch.) But he stayed in the big leagues for a long time, a sure sign that he was of value to his teams. After his playing career, among numerous other things, he founded the Newark Bears, a prominent independent team.
Cerone probably would have had a good deal more playing time for the Sox in '87 and '88 if Clemens wasn't so enamored with Rich Gedman. I remember wishing Gedman would just go away so we could see more of Cerone. But instead we got a healthy dose of John Marzano, too. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteDon't speak ill of the dead!
ReplyDeleteWait...John Marzano or Rich Gedman? I had no idea one of them died.
ReplyDeleteMarzano. He died last year falling down stairs at his home.
ReplyDeleteWow, I had no idea. That is terrible.
ReplyDeleteThis card is almost identical to the regular issue card of Rich Gedman. Photo here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.checkoutmycards.com/Cards/Baseball/1988/Score/241/Rich_Gedman
Wow, that is uncanny. Nice catch, Bo.
ReplyDeleteCerone was just good enough to NOT make the Backup Catcher Hall of Fame (BCHOF). Two seasons with 400+ AB's are enough to exclude him from consideration.
ReplyDelete