Thursday, May 10, 2012

#47 - Dave Rozema


What a card: This is the final card of Dave Rozema with the Tigers, the team with which he spent the first eight years of his career. He signed as a free agent with the Rangers in December of 1984 after helping the Tigers to a World Series title.

My observation on the front: Rozema looks like he's offering the card collector a beverage.

More opinion from me: I love shots at old Tiger Stadium.

Something you might know: Rozema was a rookie sensation in 1977, winning 15 games and finishing fourth in the A.L. Rookie of the Year voting. His career went into slow decline after that and he missed virtually all of the 1982 season after he tore ligaments in his knee while attempting to deliver a karate kick to the Twins' John Castino during a brawl between the two teams. Rozema was carried off the field on a stretcher and didn't play the rest of the season.

Something you might not know: The karate kick story is the most-often cited example of Rozema's well-known flakiness. But here are a few other examples:

1. He used Brillo pads to wash his new car
2. He missed the team bus when he overslept after judging a wet T-shirt contest
3. He shoved a bar glass into the face of teammate Alan Trammell, leading to 47 stitches near Trammell's eye
4. He fell on a flask in his back pocket, requiring 11 stitches in his hip


My observation on the back: Major softball question with the trivia quiz.

The blog wants to speak now: The Ballgames and Movies categories are updated. A new boxer debuts and there's a new No. 1 movie for the first time in 1985.

2 comments:

Jeff Harris said...

He and Gibson partied hard back then. I wonder what Trammell said to Rozey to set him off?

Brandon said...

The first time I ever saw this card, I had purchased a small binder of '85 cards from a classmate. I got them dirt cheap, in fact I think I traded some GI Joes for them.
If I recall correctly Rozema was goofing around when he somehow smacked Trammell with the glass.