1. Tim Wakefield. This is a Chrome Platinum Anniversary parallel of knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. I bought this card from the same seller as one of the Sandy Alomar Jr. parallels I showed off awhile back (I was way ahead on Red Sox posts). There has not been a regular knuckleball pitcher in the Majors since R.A. Dickey retired in 2017. Steven Wright was still active at the time, but pitched in just 20 games in 2018, 16 in relief, and then just six in 2019. There have been a couple of short-term knuckleballers since, but nobody that stuck around. This is a travesty. The knuckleball is one of the most entertaining pitches to watch, but it's hard to throw well. Wakefield is one of my favorite pitchers of all time. He had a really good career with the Red Sox.
2. Alex Verdugo. The seller threw in a ton of base singles as extras. Mostly 2022 Topps and Chrome, along with some other randomness. Among them was this Verdugo card that was miscut pretty badly, but I still needed it. And it adds another Verdugo card. It puts me at 57. 100 remains an outside possibility this year.
I had hoped Wright would have been the latest in a long line of great knuckleballers. After suspensions for both PED and DV, he practically disappeared...
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree. I was a big fan of Wright when he broke out in 2016 and even started a mini player collection of him. Everything after that was very disappointing.
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