Wearing red

 

Today is National Wear Red Day, Facebook tells me.

Normally, I hate it when Facebook tells me things, it's always telling me things, lecturing me. I've often called it "Lecturebook." And I go out of my way to ignore what Facebook thinks I should do, should think, all that.

But you never know where you're going to get your inspiration.

I quickly ran through some of my favorite cards of players wearing red in my collection, just to show them off here. Most of these folks were wearing red long before we needed a day to wear red.

And I know what you're thinking: there's going to be an awful lot of Reds and Red Sox in this post. Sure, yeah, there might be. But I've been showing off people wearing blue about 80 percent of the time here, it's time to balance things a bit.

No order to these at all. Let's see red:

Eric The Red means more than ever when he's actually wearing red. I disqualified a whole bunch of cards because they tried to squeeze onto this post with a measly red hat. You need more than that. The torso must wear red, too.

 

 

I have long-adored the Expos red jerseys and have posted about them in the past. This is one of my favorite red Expos jersey cards. I'm not much a fan of Moises but I've been entranced by this card for 30 years now.

 

 

I really wasn't crazy about Heritage handled the combo cards in its mid-1960s tributes, using action shots instead of poses. But looking back, this is a pretty nice card with a couple of heavyweights living it up.

A classic. The first team I ever knew to wear red were the Cleveland Indians. Oscar's fouled off a pitch and fairly high, according to the guy looking up behind him.

A puzzling card, for the randomness in the '84 Donruss set, for the "Runnin' Reds" title (these are CARDINALS), for the appearance of Willie McGee, who apparently lost his red jacket and is hoping no one will notice.

But he makes up for it a couple of years later with this glorious gem. Red top, red hat, red banner. This thing is shouting red.

Manny Ramirez always looked like he just climbed out of a dumpster. But at least he color-coordinated his ratty threads.

Long ago I mentioned that card companies didn't really treat Mike Schmidt well with their card choices. But there are a few that slipped in that are quite great. This is one of my favorites from Topps.

 

Bonus points for three players wearing red and the word "red" used in the kicker. They should have changed the Super Star Special background to red in this card's honor.

 

Back to Trout. I was not impressed with his card in the 2019 flagship set. Just seems too far away and not clear. But when you add the Christmas theme it all goes together, the red jersey, the green wall. I like it.

 

Pete Rose manager cards are fun, this is my favorite and there's no doubt which color is on display.

 

The greatest of all "Wear Red" cards if you ask me. I only wish there was better photography when the Indians wore their blood-clot uniforms.

So there you are, some of the greatest red-wearers on cards. I'm sure there are many others. I whipped this up in like 20 minutes.

Thanks, Facebook. But it's the last time I'm listening to you.

(P.S.: I'm wearing blue).