As a baseball fan it's fun to look back on games I've attended and remember the ballplayers I witnessed in person.
I'm not lucky enough to be able to go to a big league game every week or even every year. So seeing those notable players is extra special to me and, yes, I've written about that. I've watched Dennis Eckersley, Cal Ripken Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Sr., Reggie Jackson, Jim Rice, Adrian Beltre, George Brett and Jim Palmer.
But this post isn't about those guys. Instead have you have looked up the players you watched that you didn't know you watched?
I came across this idea off a BlueSky post when I realized that I watched former Blue Jays second baseman Damaso Garcia during the first game I attended in person. But I didn't see the Blue Jays in my first game. I saw the Royals and Yankees. Garcia was playing for the Yankees in 1978 and on July 15 he appeared in the game I watched in Yankee Stadium.
My mind was blown. I didn't even know Garcia was a Yankee.
But there he is -- on a 1978 minor league card -- as a Yankee farmhand.
In that same game, I apparently saw pitcher Bob Kammeyer, with whom I'm barely familiar, and only because I probably saw him in the back of a Yankee yearbook that year.
Kammeyer didn't have the luxury of appearing on a Topps card -- which would allow me to get to know him -- as he pitched in only eight major league games over 1978 and 1979.
I was relieved to see that the next few games I attended, I was aware of every single person, probably because it was during the 1980s and early 1990s when I was on top of every team.
But in July 1992, I apparently saw Rico Rossy play for the Royals during a game against the Red Sox in Fenway Park.
Again, I was not aware that Rossy played for the Royals even though I attended that game. All of my knowledge about Rico Rossy comes from the 1992 Fleer card at the top of the post in which he's shown with the Braves. But Rossy played the majority of his career with the Royals and the Mariners.
In 1994, I saw a game between the Pirates and the Phillies at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. In left field for the Pirates in that game was someone named Steve Pegues.
Pegues went 0-for-3. He didn't register a memory with me. He appeared on a 1995 Topps prospects card with Esteban Loiaza, but I was barely collecting then.
In that same game I'm told I saw Billy Hatcher play for the Phillies. Now, if you told me that I watched Hatcher in a game, I would have guessed he was an Astro or maybe with the Red Sox. I never would have guessed the Phillies because I didn't know Hatcher played for the Phillies!
But he did for 43 games in 1994 and he's got cards with Philadelphia. Again, I was barely collecting.
In 1997, I saw a game between the Cardinals and the Expos. I was actually working during that game and I was in the Cardinals' locker room for a decent period before the game.
Delino DeShields could have walked past me in that locker room and I didn't realize it. He led off the game for the Cardinals and went 0-for-4. None of it registered because until I uncovered this factoid, I didn't know DeShields played for St. Louis!
(It's possible that I did know that back in late 1996/early 1997. DeShields signed with the Cardinals as a free agent after the 1996 season with the Dodgers. His tenure with the Dodgers was so uninspiring that I'm sure I took note that he was gone. But I then apparently dropped that knowledge).
In that same game, Joe Orsulak played for the Expos.
Orsulak as an Expo? Huh, that's a new one on me.
I know Orsulak as a Pirate, Oriole, Met, even a Marlin. But he played his last season in 1997 with the Expos and was a late-inning replacement in right field in the game that I saw. Not anything that stuck in my brain and cards weren't there for me either. All I can find from his Expos days is this team photo card from '97.
One more Expo and one more player as I can sense you're getting sleepy as these aren't Hall of Famers.
I saw a pitcher named Scott Stewart close out a game for the Expos against the Dodgers in August 2002. He struck out the final batter to thwart a rally and clinch a Montreal win. But 24 years later, I have no memory of Scott Stewart even though he led the Expos in saves that season with 17.
So, that was a fun little exercise. I never could have done this if I was attending a game every other week. Who can afford that anyway? (You could also do something like this with minor league games, looking back in which players made the majors -- I've done that on the blog, too).
Hopefully there are more major league games in my future -- if only to forget about some player on some team years later. I love uncovering information like that.
I found most of this information, of course, through baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org, sites I visit multiple times a week like many baseball fans. While I still have the scoresheets for some of the above games, they are not as complete as what I can find on those two sites.
I have slowly been reading a new book by Jay Wigley called "How Retrosheet Saved Baseball History," which is all about the formation of the Retrosheet website and its creator, Dave Smith.
I'm only 50-plus pages in (you can tell I'm reading it because the book is all curled already) but it's fascinating to see the dedicated undertaking that was involved -- much of it before the arrival of the internet, mobile phones or even email.
My ability to gather baseball facts -- heck, even the content of this blog -- wouldn't be the same without Retrosheet and baseball-reference.
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