Greatest 21 Days Baseball Profiles

When Johnny Paredes came to bat in the eighth inning of this July 1993 game, the outcome of the game had already been decided, his AAA Toledo team was up 8-0 . Paredes just wanted to continue what he'd been doing throughout the game, that was get hit, The Toledo Blade wrote . "I knew I needed a home run for the cycle, but I didn't want to do it. I was looking for five hits," Paredes told The Blade after the game. "I did it one time in 1987 and I wanted to do it again." Paredes ended up flying out to left, The Blade wrote . He would get few other chances to achieve the feat again. Paredes was playing at the end of an 11-season professional career, one where he'd made the majors in parts of three seasons . Paredes' career began in 1982, signed by the Phillies out of his native Venezuela. He played two seasons in the Philadelphia system, playing at rookie league Helena and single-A Spartanburg , then was released. Signing with the Expos for...

Don't miss today's player: Jesus Paredes Rosenblatt Stadium scoreboard from Aug. 25, 2010 with James Adduci stats. Adduci is the son of a CMC set player. Getting back to our August vacation , I've got a few posts still to get up from that. Today, I'll wrap up our visit to the now-closed Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha. I already briefly touched on our visit back in September. I rushed the post to coincide with the final game at Rosenblatt. But there were a couple other things I wanted to talk about. First, it was Vietnam Veteran's Appreciation Night and the Disabled American Veterans sponsored an Omaha Royals card set that was given away. We picked up two. Then there was the CMC connection at the game, the son of a CMC player and a coach from the set that was supposed to be there, but that I'm not sure was. The son of the CMC player was Iowa Cubs left fielder James Adduci, son of CMC player Jim Adduci. The coach was Iowa Cubs hitting coach Von Joshua. Back to the c...

(This is the first of two posts on this card . The player is identified on the card as Jesus Paredes, who played in the Expos system, but did not play for Indianapolis in 1990. The card was apparently intended for Johnny Paredes, who did play for Indianapolis in 1990. The feature on Johnny Paredes: Johnny Paredes, Four Hits .) It was late June in 1988 and infielder Jesus Paredes ' West Palm Beach Expos were taking on the St. Lucie Mets . Jesus Paredes started off helping his Expos to a lead. He would ultimately help lead to a loss, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel . Paredes led off the third with a single, then stole second. It was another single by teammate Quinn Mack that gave the Expos a 1-0 lead, The Sun-Sentinel wrote . Two innings later, it was Paredes' glove that failed him. Playing second base, Paredes booted a ball, allowing St. Lucie hitter Fritz Polka on. Polka ultimately scored, leading to a 2-1 Expos loss . That third inning hit was one of four Paredes ...

Tonight's post was supposed to be the completion of my 300th card featured. I hit 300 total reviews a few days ago. The discrepancy lies in multi-player cards and cards intended for one player but naming another. But the completion of the 300th card will have to wait until tomorrow. That is because the card the randomizer selected as the 300th is another error card, intended for one player but naming another. This is the card identified as Jesus Paredes, member of the 1990 Indianapolis Indians. The problem is, the player Jesus Paredes , a member of the Expos system, never played for the Indianapolis Indians in 1990 or any other time. In fact, he didn't play anywhere in 1990. He was out of baseball, according to his Baseball Reference stats . Who did play for Indianapolis in 1990 was infielder Johnny Paredes , according to Baseball Reference. Johnny Paredes played briefly in the majors in three seasons, with Montreal and with Detroit. A comparison with his 1989 Donruss card app...

John Flaherty was in a different spot in 1995 than he was a season earlier. In 1994, he was out to prove his old team made wrong decisions in bringing in other catchers to compete for the starting and backup jobs. "I want to show them that my hitting's come on and, hopefully, make them think twice about some things," Flaherty told The Associated Press in March 1994, two weeks before being shipped to the Tigers. But with the Tigers, he found a home. He only played 34 games for the Tigers that year. But the next, in 1995, Flaherty was in 112, hitting 11 home runs. By the end of June, his Tigers were going to Fenway . He told The Hartford Courant he felt he'd already proven the trade was a mistake for the Red Sox. It was time to move on. "This is my first time back at Fenway and I saw a lot of good people I played with in the minors,'' Flaherty told The Courant . "This is the organization that signed me and gave me the opportunity to play ...

The Tigers were already down to the White Sox 6-4. If they had hopes of coming back, they needed a stop. Matt Kinzer was called on to do that. It didn't turn out as Kinzer or the Tigers had hoped . Two singles, two walks and a double later and the White Sox had scored four more . Kinzer quieted down in the ninth, but by then it was too late. "I'm down right now, but I know it won't be my last chance," Kinzer told The Toledo Blade afterward. "Hopefully, I'll come on in a better situation next time and get the job done. I know I definitely didn't impress anybody." Aside from his second inning , Kinzer didn't impress anybody. He also didn't get another chance. Kinzer's outing that day was his first and last with the Tigers. It was also his ninth and last appearance in the majors. Kinzer's career began in 1984, taken by the Cardinals in the second round of the draft out of Purdue. Kinzer came out of Purdue, where he played bo...

The fifth metatarsal of Alan Sadler 's left foot had been broken four times since the past season, The Palm Beach Post wrote . There were the two times he broke it playing basketball, the one time running and the fourth time just walking on a golf course. But he was still being looked at to start -- as the punter on the football team. "The only way he can break it again," University of Maryland trainer J.J. Bush told The Post in September 1982, "is to break the stainless steel screw Dr. (Stanford) Lavine put in recently. If it's not one thing it's another with this guy." And, if it wasn't football with Sadler, it was baseball. Sadler also pitched on the University of Maryland baseball team, finally choosing baseball as his full-time sport , turning pro and starting eight seasons as a professional. He just wouldn't start, or do anything else, in the majors. Sadler started his pro career in 1984, selected by the Brewers in the 11th round ...

I stopped by the local pharmacy the other day to print out some pictures from our August vacation and picked up one of those 24-packs of Topps cards, you know, the one with the gum. It was a rather uninteresting pack, for those Elvis Andrus and Vladimir Guerrero cards. Of course, both are integral parts of the 2010 American League Champion Texas Rangers. And both will be playing right there at AT&T Park tonight for Game 1 of the World Series. The vacation photos remind me that I still have some vacation posts to write about, a vacation we went on two months ago. Among the posts, probably the least pressing, are some 2010 Topps cards I picked up at a couple Casey's General Stores back home. They also remind me of another vacation, three years ago, the one where that photo of AT&T Park is from. That vacation was actually our honeymoon, that included attendance at the 2007 All Star Game and Home Run Derby. I'll get to that a little bit more later. For now, I've got a c...

Rusty Richards was pitching that night, his second major league start, in Houston for the visiting Braves. But it might as well have been a home game for the right-hander. Richards grew up in Houston. Everyone he knew, or so it seemed , was there. "I had 32 passes and I'm sure there were a lot more (friends) here," Richards told The Associated Press . All those friends, however, didn't see a good outing from their hometown pitcher . He went just four innings and gave up three runs. But, what no one knew at the time, was that that night, they saw Richards pass the halfway point in a major league career that spanned just three games. Richards made the majors that September after four seasons in the minors . He began in 1986, taken that January in the seventh round of the draft. He played that first year at the rookie Gulf Coast League Braves. In 1987, he hit single-A Sumter and single-A Durham , going 9-13 between them, with an ERA of 4.16. At Sumter, in M...

I was fully prepared to start off this post with a breakdown of some Hoofdklasse Honkbal , but that will have to wait for a little later. But first, I have to note the big change in the Yankees coaching staff . That change was the firing of CMC set member Dave Eiland . Eiland was among my first features on this blog and, as such, it was a pretty sparse feature. So I'll have to get back to it again, hopefully after he finds another team. But, back to 1982 Topps and the Hoofdklasse Honkbal. This Topps pack was the last pack I picked up on our recent trip to Cooperstown . It was also the most expensive, marked at $6. There's a good reason for that, of course. That's the possibility of getting the Ripken rookie. Before anyone asks, no I didn't get the Ripken rookie. I did get the coveted Kent Hrbek rookie, though. There are actually two reasons this is the Hoofdklasse Honkbal Edition. The first is because of the guy to the left, Stan Bahnsen. Bahnsen was a veteran of 16 maj...

Alex Diaz was no Ken Griffey Jr., that was clear. But, when Griffey went down for three months with a wrist injury in the summer of 1995, there Diaz was, patrolling Griffey's center field in Seattle's Kingdome. Diaz just went out to play his own type of game . "They need to understand what type of game I play," Diaz told The Associated Press just over a week after Griffey went down. "I'm not a power hitter like Ken Griffey Jr. I play pretty good defense, I have a pretty good arm and I can run. I'm the type of guy who plays hard and tries to help my team in every game." Diaz played in 103 games for the Mariners that year, his fourth in the majors. He got 27 RBIs on the year and stole 18 bases. His average was .248. But he did help get the Mariners along to Griffey's August return, en route to Seattle's first division championship. That season in 1995 came Diaz' ninth season in professional baseball. Diaz was signed by the Mets ...

As I mentioned earlier, the 1981 Fleer set obviously came out nine years before my CMC set. But there are players from the 1981 set in the CMC set, either still as players or as coaches. I'm not sure exactly how many, I tried to figure that out, but got bored quickly. But there there, trust me. In my first two packs of 1981 Fleer I picked up in Cooperstown , I struck out completely, having to rely on checklists or derivative CMC connections. This third and final pack, however, fittingly was last. There were not one, but two, count them, two direct CMC set members in this pack. That's them up top. Aurelio Rodriguez and Harry Spilman. I featured Spilman back in June , actually just before Manny Ramirez' return to Fenway. That was fitting because Spilman was right there at the beginning for Ramirez, getting young Manny to call his mom. That's the 1981 and 1990 Spilmans side-by-side. Those observant enough to notice might see an extra 'l' on Spilman's CMC card. ...

The big story of the day was the pitching of Georgia's Hugh Kemp , according to The Gainsville Sun . Kemp struck out 11 Florida Gators and gave up only three hits in this April 1983 contest, the first of two on the day. "We had our chances in the first game, but the credit has to go to Kemp," Florida coach Jack Rhine told The Sun . "The kid's a competitor and a first-class guy." Kemp became the story enough for the Reds to take notice. Cincinnati selected him that June in the 13th round of the draft . But, while his story would include eight seasons in professional baseball , his story ended without him reaching the majors. Kemp started that first year for the Reds at short-season Billings and he pitched well. He went 9-3 with a 2.21 ERA . The next year, he made single-A Cedar Rapids, going 11-9 with a promising 2.79 pitching mark. For 1985, Kemp divided time between three levels, single-A Tampa, AA Vermont and AAA Denver. His ERAs at AA and AAA in...