CARD
I love the shot of beautiful Riverfront Stadium in the background. That's as good as it got.
Good call by Score on the back of the card, predicting that he would become a top starter, which he did.
STAT
Because it was so impressive and so easy to forget, I'm copying my Cool Stat from Rijo's 88 Topps card:
Cool stat: From 1988 to 1993 (6 seasons), Rijo leads the way in seasons with at least 111 IP and an ERA no higher than 2.84. In fact, he did that all 6 of those years and nobody else did it more than 3 times. Whew!
CAREER
Rijo is another great "what if" case for a starting pitcher. By the time he got his walk rate down in 1988, he managed to make 30 starts only 3 times in his career. I'm glad that he finished in the top 50 for career K/9 and also that he pitched so well in the 1990 World Series.
I recently watched a documentary on the 1990 season that spent an inordinant amount of time on the relationship between Rijo and his father in law, The Dominican Dandy. I have no idea how true this is, but the film gave Marichal a lot of credit for helping develop the young Rijo.
ReplyDeleteI notice that Rijo's Wikipedia page says that Rijo was once married to Marichal's daughter, so I guess he's not Marichal's son-in-law anymore, if that fact is correct.
ReplyDelete