What a card: This is the second of three Pete Rose cards in the set. Rose was named the Reds' player-manager in August 1984 and Topps took the opportunity to issue both a card of Rose as a player and as a manager. This is the manager card.
My observation on the front: I like how "Rose with his hat off" signifies "the manager card."
More opinion from me: Topps did issue multiple cards for player-managers of the 1970s, Frank Robinson and Joe Torre, but in a different way. Managers were shown as small inset head shots on the team checklist card at the time, so Robinson and Torre appeared on the team checklist and had their own solo card.
Something you might know: Rose is the most recent player-manager in MLB history. He both played and managed for the Reds until 1986.
Something you might not know: The Reds retired Rose's number 14 on Sunday. The first player to have his number retired by the Reds was Johnny Bench, whose number was retired in 1984, about one week before the Reds reaquired Bench's former teammate, Rose, and named him player-manager, and 32 years before Rose's number was retired.
My observation on the back: According to my research, Rose actually was acquired by the Reds on Aug. 16, 1984. Cincinnati sent infielder Tom Lawless to the Expos in the deal.
The blog wants to speak now: The News category is updated.
2 comments:
Regardless of what he did outside of baseball, he should have had his number retired long ago. He also deserves to be in the HOF, it's not for me to decide but it should happen before he dies rather than posthumously.
I'm in favor of his ban, and kind of annoyed he's getting the hero treatment by the Reds still. I know he bet on his own team, but he was jeopardizing the long term health of his pitchers, the season, etc, by doing so. And he lied forever about it. And when he finally came clean he did it on the same day as that year's HOF announcement, taking the attention away from the guys who deserved it.
Talent and career? Absolute HOFer. But he broke the rule you just can't break...
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