What a card: Rickey Henderson's first appearance as a Yankee on a baseball card came about after a Dec. 5, 1984 trade in which Oakland sent him to New York for Stan Javier and pitchers Tim Birtsas, Jay Howell, Eric Plunk and Jose Rijo (something tells me the A's needed pitching).
How'd that go: Rickey found his power game in New York, reaching 20-plus home runs for the first time in 1985 (24) and then topping that in 1986 (28).
Backatya: You would think it would be easy to find all the major leaguers who played in 162 games as a rookie but it isn't. After looking at a long list of leaders in games played, I gave up. I do know that Dick Allen played in 162 games as a rookie.
Back-to-back: I believe Henderson is looking to sign an autograph in the Traded photo. I wish we could see more.
This is also the third straight time that players arriving with the same teams are featured back-to-back in the set. First it was the Braves (Haas and Harper), then the Rangers (Harrah and Harris) and now the Yankees (Hassey and Henderson).
The flagship card was originally blogged on Nov. 16, 2012.
The blog wants to speak now: The News category is updated.
In 1985 the Yankees visited Seattle for a doubleheader that happened to be on my birthday. My family surprised me by taking all of us to both games. In game one Rickey Henderson hit a foul ball that landed in the seat next to me. I missed it but an older gentleman behind me grabbed it. A couple of innings later he gave it to me and i have it in a ball case to this day.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Baseball Almanac web site, the AL record for most games played by a rookie is currently 163, set by Hideki Matsui in 2003, while the NL record is 162, held by Dick Allen, Johhny Ray, and Jeff Conine.
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