One-Year Wonder Pt. 19: Rocco Baldelli

Every once in awhile, the Red Sox pick up a veteran player for a year, or just the stretch run that was a star at one point that I become fascinated with. It's a player that is basically only a role player at that point in their career, but may show flashes of their old brilliance. It's so unusual to see them as a member of the Red Sox, that I try to find as many of their cards as possible. This series will be about some of those players.

It seems like there were a lot of these One-Year Wonders in 2009.  Rocco Baldelli joined Takashi Saito, John Smoltz, and Billy Wagner.  Baldelli though got a lot more cards made, and some pretty nice ones too.

Baldelli had been suffering from a rare mitochondrial disease for years to this point.  It sapped his energy and prevented him from reaching his full potential as a player.  He had not played in a full season since 2004.  It was a very unfortunate situation.  He was brought in to Boston in 2009 to act as a reserve outfielder, a job he performed capably. 

Baldelli made it into 62 games in 2009 and finished with a batting line of .253/.311/.433 with seven home runs and 23 RBIs.  It was his versatility as an outfielder that was his best quality.  He played all three outfield positions, designated hitter, and even a little third base.

Unfortunately, Baldelli continued to deal with his disease.  He returned to Tampa Bay the next season but then retired.

Season in Review: 2001

There was a lot of promise for the Red Sox in 2001.  Pedro Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra were superstars.  Manny Ramirez was signed to a huge contract.  Unfortunately  injuries decimated the team.  Garciaparra and Martinez each missed significant parts of the season.  Jason Varitek also missed half the season with an elbow injury.  Jimy Williams was fired partway through the season and pitching coach Joe Kerrigan was named interim manager.  Boston finished 82-79 but did finish in second place.

FIVE FAVORITE PLAYERS

Nomar Garciaparra

Garciaparra only managed to play in 21 games in 2001.  He missed significant time early in the season with a wrist injury from being hit by a pitch in 2000.  He eventually made it back but then was hurt again and was out for the rest of the season.  He was decent when healthy, hitting .289/.352/.470 with four home runs and eight RBIs.

Pedro Martinez

Martinez only pitched in 18 games, going 7-3 with a 2.39 ERA and 163 strikeouts in 116.2 innings.  He also missed significant time with injuries but was very impressive in the short time he was active.

Jason Varitek

Varitek was in the midst of a breakout season when he broke his elbow making an outstanding catch in foul grounds.  To that point he was hitting .293/.371/.489 with seven home runs 25 RBIs.  The injury stunted his development for a couple of years.

Trot Nixon

2001 was a breakout season for Trot Nixon.  The right-fielder batted .280/.376/.505 with 27 home runs and 88 RBIs.  He lead the team with 100 runs scored and was second with 79 walks.

Tim Wakefield

The knuckleballer was a valuable member of the team once again, doing anything that was asked of him.  He went 9-12 with a 3.90 ERA in 45 games.  He started 17 and picked up three saves.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Brian Daubach

Daubach put in another productive season in 2001.  He hit .263/.350/.509 with 22 home runs and 71 RBIs.  

Dante Bichette

2001 was Bichette's final season in the Major Leagues.  It was not a bad season either.  The former slugger hit .286/.325/.460 with 12 home runs and 49 RBIs.  

Derek Lowe

Lowe struggled in 2001.  He eventually lost his closer's role after blowing several games.  He was eventually moved into the rotation where he began to flourish again.  His record was 5-10 with a 3.53 ERA and 82 strikeouts in 91.2 innings.  He picked up 24 saves before leaving becoming a starter.

FAVORITE ACQUISITIONS

Manny Ramirez

After signing a massive contract, Ramirez proved to be everything he was expected to be, winning the Silver Slugger award and was Boston's only All Star.  He finished the season with a batting line of .306/.405/.609 with 41 home runs and 125 RBIs. 

Hideo Nomo

Nomo was signed as a free agent prior to the season and became one of the better pitchers on the team.  His first start was a no-hitter, the first for the Red Sox since 1965.  He lead the league with 220 strikeouts and 96 walks.  He went 13-10 with a 4.50 ERA in his only season with the Red Sox.

FAVORITE MIDSEASON ACQUISITIONS

Ugueth Urbina

Urbina was acquired in a trade with the Montreal Expos at the July trading deadline for Tomo Ohka and Rich Rundles.  He pitched in 19 games down the stretch with a 2.25 ERA and saved nine games, striking out 32 in 20 innings.

Doug Mirabelli

After Varitek's injury it was clear that Scott Hatteberg was not going to cut it at catcher.  Boston traded Justin Duchscherer to the Rangers for Mirabelli who had a great season.  He hit .270/.360/.518 with nine home runs and was impressive defensively.

FAVORITE ROOKIE

Shea Hillenbrand

Hillenbrand made his Major League debut in 2001 at third base despite playing catcher, among other positions, in the minors.  Hillenbrand was not terribly good at drawing walks, picking up only 13 on the season, but he did hit .263/.291/.391 with 12 home runs and 49 RBIs.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS

Carl Everett

After a great 2000 season, Everett struggled quite a bit in 2001.  He was also a problem in the clubhouse.  Everett's numbers were down to just .257/.323/.438 with 14 home runs and 58 RBIs.  He also only stole nine bases.  He was traded for Darren Oliver after the season.

John Valentin

Valentin was still recovering from his injuries the previous season.  He came back to play shortstop after Garciaparra's injury.  But Valentin only made it into 20 games and did not produce well when he played.  His career with the Red Sox was over.

05/17-05/19: Red Sox Sweep Twins

The Red Sox played the Twins in Minnesota this weekend.  They had a four game set in Fenway a couple of weeks ago and the Twins won three out of the four so Boston was looking for a little bit of revenge in this set.  They had it.

05/17: Red Sox 3 (25-17) Twins 2

This game went into extra innings.  It was a low-scoring game with the Red Sox tying it in the seventh and winning in the tenth.  The seventh win of the season once again eluded Clay Buchholz even though he pitched very well.  Jonny Gomes won the game in the 10th with a sacrifice fly, scoring Dustin Pedroia.  Alex Wilson got the win and Koji Uehara took the save.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

CLAY BUCHHOLZ:  7 innings, 2 earned runs, 9 strikeouts, 3 walks

05/18: Red Sox 12 (26-17) Twins 5

It was closer than the score appeared.  Boston pulled way ahead in the seventh inning.  Ryan Dempster was wild, walking six in less than five innings.  David Ortiz had a big game, hitting two home runs and driving in six.  Daniel Nava also homered.  Craig Breslow got his first win of the season.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

DAVID ORTIZ:  3 for 4, 3 runs, 6 RBIs, 2 home runs

05/19: Red Sox 5 (27-17) Twins 1

John Lackey got the win after pitching six innings of one-hit ball.  He came out after a three hour rain delay interrupted the game.  But Andrew Miller, Koji Uehara, and Junichi Tazawa kept up.  Will Middlebrooks and Dustin Pedroia each homered.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

DUSTIN PEDROIA:  2 for 5, 3 RBIs, 2 runs, home run

1991 Topps #269 Joe Hesketh

In this series, I look at my first team set: 1991 Topps.  This was the set I started my baseball card collection with.

Joe Hesketh was never a player I had a ton of cards of.  I think that is more due to the fact that there just were not many cards of him.  This was my first one.  There were not a lot of cards of him made in 1991.  Hesketh only appeared in Topps in 1991.  He did get into most of the sets in 1992 but that was due to his outstanding 1991 season.

Boston was Hesketh's third team in 1990.  He also played for the Expos and Braves.  Hesketh appeared in 12 games for the Red Sox, starting two of them.  He struck out 26 in 25.2 innings and was a productive southpaw for Boston for parts of five seasons.

One Small Trade and a Bowman Blaster Break (With Tradebait)

Packages have slowed way down lately.  I have not been getting too many trades done.  It's depressing.  I need more going on.

This is the small trade package I got yesterday.  I moved a bunch of base Cardinals cards from 2013 for these cards:

1.  2005 Studio Portraits Gray/Sepia/Diamond Kings Curt Schilling #d/30.  There were approximately 8,256 different variations of these Studio Portraits inserts.  I now have one each of Schilling, Carl Yastrzemski, and Carlton Fisk.  I like them but I probably will not go way out of my way to acquire a bunch of them.  Now if they had included Jason Varitek in the checklist I would probably make an exception.

2.  2001 Topps Gold Mike Lansing #d/2001.  Mike Lansing did not have a long career with the Red Sox.  The team was forced to take him and his salary on in a trade with the Rockies in order to acquire Rolando Arrojo in 2000.  He did not do much for Boston, but he did make a tumbling catch late in the game during Hideo Nomo's no-hitter which saved the feat.

3.  2012 Topps Gypsy Queen Mini GQ Red Carlton Fisk.  I like minis quite a bit but I am not obsessive about them.  I do like to get a lot of Fisk cards, mainly because of the fact that I love catchers.

4.  2010 Topps Gold Jason Bay #d/2010.  I love the action shot on this Bay card.  I really liked watching Bay in his short stint with the Red Sox.  He had an incredible 2009 season for the Red Sox and did a great job replacing Manny Ramirez in left field, plus he was not nearly as much trouble in the clubhouse.

Today I went to court in a nearby town.  I sometimes like to stop at the stores in other towns to see if I have any better luck with packs.  It sounds strange, but it worked last year.  I was having terrible luck with Topps Series 2, only managing to pull two Red Sox cards out of several blasters and rack packs.  That and a number of doubles of the two cards I had.  Just bad collation.  So I picked up a blaster in the other town when I had a hearing and did really well.  Today I went for a Bowman blaster.

1.  2013 Bowman Top 100 Allen Webster.  This card made the entire box worth it.  This is my first card of the pitcher who is one of the keys to last year's huge trade with the Dodgers.  What a great-looking card.

2.  2013 Bowman Prospects William Cuevas.  Based on the information on the back, it would appear that Cuevas has talent, unfortunately he was 22 in A-Ball.  I am not sure he has more of a ceiling than a middle reliever, if he ever makes it to the Majors.  Not a big-time prospect.

3.  2013 Bowman Jon Lester.  Lester has been terrific this year.  Always happy to add cards of him.

And next we have the tradebait.  Anyone want anything?

I have been having real good luck with retail this year.  This is my first auto of the year, but I have pulled three relics.  That's pretty crazy.  This was a pretty good break with the orange parallel, auto, mini refractor, and of course the Webster card.

05/14-05/16: Red Sox Take 2 of 3 from Rays

This may be the way I do these things from now on.  It is just easier to discuss the series as a whole rather than in individual games.

The Red Sox won two out of three games from the Tampa Bay Rays.  It was the first series win the Red Sox have had in the last couple of weeks.

05/14: Rays 5 Red Sox 3 (22-17)
This one started off promisingly with a three run home run from David Ortiz in the first inning.  But that was pretty much it for the offense the rest of the game and John Lackey imploded in the fourth inning, giving up five runs, capped by two runs scoring when Mike Napoli lost the ball in the lights on a pop up.  It was an embarrassing way to lose.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

DAVID ORTIZ:  1 for 4, 3 run home run

05/15: Red Sox 9 (23-17) Rays 2
Game 2 went much better as the Red Sox exploded for eight runs in the third inning thanks to a grand slam by Stephen Drew.  Will Middlebrooks later homered as well.  Jon Lester was very good, giving up only two runs in seven innings with no walks.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

STEPHEN DREW:  2 for 3, 2 runs, grand slam

05/16: Red Sox 4 (24-17) Rays 3
The Red Sox trailed until the ninth inning 3-1.  Then Fernando Rodney was wild, walking the bases loaded.  With two outs, Middlebrooks came up and doubled, driving in three runs to give Boston the lead.  Junichi Tazawa nailed down the ninth inning.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

WILL MIDDLEBROOKS:  1 for 3, 3 run double, walk

Red Sox With No Cards Pt. 4: Gary Gaetti

Wait, Gary Gaetti was with the Red Sox?  Yep, just look at the above picture for proof.  In 1999, Gaetti was signed as a free agent in early April to help out at designated hitter.  He was 41 years old.  There are no card of him with the Red Sox though because he played just five games with the Red Sox before retiring.  He had eleven plate appearances drawing a walk and not recording a single hit.  He struck out three times but did manage an RBI.  So yes, it makes sense that there are no cards of Gaetti with the Red Sox, but it is still disappointing.

Card Shop Buys and Pack Breaks from My Birthday Weekend

As I mentioned a few days ago, it was my birthday on Tuesday.  It was also my grandmother's birthday and my mother-in-law's birthday.  It was also Mother's Day yesterday.  So yeah, it was pretty busy.  I went back to my hometown over the weekend and had a chance to go to the card shop that I used to go to all the time when I was growing up.  The owner knows me pretty well and always pulled Red Sox for me.  He has not been doing it lately because it has been a long time since I have been back, but he still had an old pile, so I flipped through it and found some stuff.

This is the result of my search.  The Kevin Youkilis is the copper parallel, which was 2007's version of the black parallel due to the fact that all of the cards were black.  Manny Ramirez is numbered 10/10.  Then there are some random David Ortiz cards and the Bowman Draft base card of Jose Iglesias which was number 6 on my Most Wanted list.

Then I bought a box of 2009 Topps Heritage High Number.  I still need a lot of cards from that set and they are prominent on my Want List, so if anyone has any of them, please let me know.  This was not a terrific box for me honestly.  I pulled the below cards.  Each pack contained two cards from 2009 Update and Highlights, which explains the Takashi Saito.

And now, for the tradebait from the weekend pack pickups.  If you see anything you want and have some Red Sox for trade, preferably from my wantlist, please comment or email me to trade.

The McCutchen has been traded.

Red Sox Drop 2 of 3 from the Blue Jays

Boston continued to struggle this weekend losing two of three from the Blue Jays.  I was away all weekend so I was not able to do this for each game.  I am not going to get too in-depth into the summaries, I might just list Players of the Game.

MAY 10, 2013: Red Sox 5 (22-14) Blue Jays 0

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

JON LESTER: Complete game, 2 hits, shutout, 5 strikeouts

May 11, 2013: Blue Jays 3 Red Sox 2 (22-15)

Clay Buchholz pitched well but stand-in closer Junichi Tazawa gave up the game-winning home run in the ninth inning.  Boston needs Bailey back soon.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

CLAY BUCHHOLZ: 8 innings, 2 earned runs, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts

May 12, 2013: Blue Jays 12 Red Sox 4 (22-16)

Ryan Dempster did not have it in this game at all.  Boston was crushed by five home runs, two by Jose Bautista.  The injury bug came back and took David Ross (concussion) and Shane Victorino (ribs).

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

MIKE NAPOLI: 3 for 4, home run, double, 2 runs

Mailday 05/08 and Pack Break 05/09 and Some Tradebait

The last few days have been pretty busy for me.  Boston has been terrible over the last week which has kind of sucked the fun out of blogging about them. 

The one trade package I received so far was a small one.  I sent a Nolan Ryan SP from Gypsy Queen to an individual in a nearby very small town (oddly enough) for two cards from 2012 Bowman Chrome, the Jacoby Ellsbury base and the refractor of Boss Moanaroa, one of my favorite names in the Red Sox system. Moanaroa is an aboriginal native of Australia.  His brother Moko once played in Boston's system as well.  Boss is more talented and stands a slightly better shot at making the Majors, but I am not holding my breath honestly.  I would love it if he makes it, it just does not seem all that likely.

Yesterday was my birthday.  To celebrate I bought a blaster of 2013 Bowman and a blister pack of 2013 Heritage.  I did not get any Red Sox out of the Heritage which was disappointing.  I got the following from the Bowman blaster:

I am counting the Prospect Challenge card because I always count them if they have a picture of a Red Sox player on them.  In this case it is Matt Barnes.  

Here is the tradebait.  As you can see it was a good day for Chase Headley and Ryan Zimmerman.  I also got two nifty Pirates refractors.  I am currently in talks to trade one or both of them, but if anyone has any trade offers, please comment here.

05/09: Twins 5 Red Sox 3 (21-14)

The Red Sox are officially slumping.  Bad defense, not enough offense, and pitching problems have taken a once-promising season and plunged it into doubt.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

JOHN LACKEY: 7 innings, 1 earned run (5 total), walk, 8 strikeouts

05/08: Twins 15 Red Sox 8 (21-13)

I don't even want to discuss this one.  It was ugly from the moment it began.  Allen Webster still has some seasoning to do.  I have serious concerns about Felix Doubront's velocity.  Boston fell into a tie for first place.  Just an ugly game.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

JONNY GOMES: 1 for 4, grand slam, 5 RBIs

Quintana Mailday 05/07

I have mentioned previously that Carlos Quintana was the first of my "unknown heroes".  I really liked Quintana when I first got into baseball.  I am not really sure why.  So I was thrilled when this buyback from 1990 Leaf showed up on Ebay.  Numbered to just 20, it is a rare card.  Even though I have the original, which is certainly not hard to find, I had to add this one. 

05/07: Twins 6 Red Sox 1 (21-12)

This was a frustrating game all the way around.  Lots of things went wrong.  To start with, there was no offense.  Boston managed only four hits, the only run came on Jarrod Saltalamacchia's home run in the ninth. The defense was bad, particularly errors by Saltalamacchia and Pedro Ciriaco that put the game out of reach.  Craig Breslow was terrible in relief of Ryan Dempster.  And to top it all off, both David Ross and Will Middlebrooks left the game with injuries.  Just a bad game all the way around.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

RYAN DEMPSTER: 7 innings, 5 hits, 4 runs, 2 earned runs, walk, 8 strikeouts

Trade with Nolan's Dugout

Recently Night Owl posted about a package that he received from me.  I read through the comments and Kyle from Nolan's Dugout said that he had a number of Pacific singles and asked if anyone wanted to work anything out.  I loved Pacific so naturally I jumped on the possibility and contacted him to work something out.  I sent some of his set needs in exchange for the following:

Pacific focused quite a bit on Hispanic players, particularly in the early years.  Jose Canseco was obviously a big star in the early 1990's so Pacific produced a lot of cards of him.  When I was first getting into baseball my older brother was an Oakland A's fan and particularly a fan of Canseco (he stopped watching them when Canseco was traded to the Rangers).  So it always seemed so strange to me that he was a Red Sox DH for a couple of years.  He is one of those players that I always like to get, despite his, shall we say, issues, off the field.

Thanks Kyle! Hope to trade again!

Mailday 05/06

It's time to catch up on yesterday's random packages.  I am going to be cooling it on Ebay for awhile so I will definitely be looking to do some more trading.

Up first is a pretty big trade I pulled off on one of the forums for some random cards of Griffey, Jeter, Pujols, and the other usual culprits that almost everyone collects.  In this first scan is a bunch of the Ted Williams .406 cards.  I have quite a few of these now.  Perhaps I should shoot for all of them.  The only problem with them is recycling the same picture for every single one.

It was not all Ted Williams though.  I also added these cool cards as well.  That's a very nice blue refractor of Jason Bay with a terrific action shot of a catch against the Green Monster.  I am not sure what the T205 cards were, probably something like Turkey Red inserts from a couple years ago.  Then there is the Trading Card History of Josh Beckett, no that's not a Heritage card from this year.  Finally, I really do not have a lot of Josh Reddick cards for some reason.  This one helps a little.

Up next is a small trade in which I gave up a few base cards from Gypsy Queen.  The Will Middlebrooks was the target.  That is the photo variation only available for the mini.  The Felix Doubront was a throw-in that I was not expecting but am thrilled with because I am a big Doubront fan.

Finally, there is this card I got off of Ebay.  This is a nice-looking silk card of John Lackey.  Lackey is not terribly popular with Boston fans yet, but if he has a good year he will be.

Random Awesome Photos: World Series Celebrations

I had to put these two together.  As a Red Sox fan the 2004 World Championship was one of the happiest days of my life.  Then, just three years later, they did it again.  I chose these two cards to show off because they depict the immediate aftermath of the final out of the two World Series wins.

The Jason Varitek card is from 2004 Donruss World Series.  More particularly it is from the special extended box set after the Red Sox won.  Donruss produced cards of all the players from the World Series roster except Kevin Millar who was ineligible for membership in the Players' Union due to being a former replacement player.  The checklist included players like Curtis Leskanic, Pokey Reese, and Mike Myers.  The Varitek is notable because it shows Tek leaping into Keith Foulke's arms immediately after the last out had been recorded at first base.  There are also celebration shots shown on the cards of Foulke and Doug Mientkiewicz.

The Jonathan Papelbon is from 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces.  Yes, Papelbon is kind of a douchebag and it is particularly evident on this card.  This comes from immediately after Papelbon striking out Seth Smith swinging to end the World Series.  The excitement in Papelbon's face is palpable.

05/06 Walk-Off Win: Red Sox 6 (21-11) Twins 5

Clay Buchholz had his first rough start of the season giving up four runs in six innings.  He still struck out nine though so his impressive year has continued.  Boston won on walk-off fashion thanks to singles from Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Will Middlebrooks in the 11th and the winning run scored on Stephen Drew's single.  Shane Victorino and Dustin Pedroia both homered for the first time this season.  Joel Hanrahan blew the save and looks to be headed to the DL for the second time this season and joining fellow closer Andrew Bailey.  Bad bullpen luck.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

STEPHEN DREW: 4 for 5, home run, double, 3 RBIs, tied game in seventh, won game in 11th

PWE Bomb from Backstop Cards

I had a small army of PWEs show up in my mailbox over the weekend from Marcus from the fantastic Padres blog Backstop Cards.  I had a plethora of Padres cards just sitting around and approached him about a trade.  Below are the cards I got in exchange.

I needed the Vicente Padilla because the 2013 Topps is likely the only card there will ever be of him with the Red Sox and the parallels have been a little hard to get. The Youkilis and Lester cards were both on my wantlist.  The Fred Lynn (who cares about the other guys? even though George Scott was a former and future Red Sox at that point and oh yeah R.I.P. John Mayberry) was a card he had in a tradebait post.  The others were throw-ins and I am happy with them.  I had not had a 2012 Bowman Platinum purple refractor and Garin Cecchini is hitting very well this year.  I like the Desert Shield cards and they have been hard to find.  I now have five.  The Ortiz gold is terrific as well.  I did previously have the Williams and Egan but that is perfectly fine.

Thanks Marcus!

Maildays 05/03 - 05/04

I am catching up on the weekend's mail here.

Up first was an incredibly small trade in which I gave up one Wal Mart blue parallel and got a Target red parallel in return.  Daniel Bard has not been the same since 2011, hopefully he will get it together and get back to the dominant setup man he once was.

I have mentioned before that I have not done much with Panini.  This time I had to make an exception.  It is not every day you can add a game-used (hopefully) bat piece of a Hall of Famer from the 1910's.  I did not previously own a game-used piece from Tris Speaker.  My previous earliest player for my Red Sox collection was Rick Ferrell, though I did once have a Home Run Baker bat card.

Then I got another one of the five-card factory set only bonus packs.  I am not sure these are the best representatives they could have gotten to drum up interest in the factory sets.  Manny Delcarmen was a popular player due to being from the Boston area.  Jed Lowrie was fairly popular but not really a highly sought-after card.  Then there is Sean Casey, David Aardsma, and Kevin Cash who were just sort of there.  I am thrilled with the cards because I did not have many of any of them, but not sure how much of a big draw those players were for the factory set.

Finally, another Panini card.  I had to add a Jarrod Saltalamacchia autograph to my Red Sox collection.  I can not tell from this picture, but it looks to have been taken from earlier in his career.  He has short hair and appears clean-shaven.  Neither of which has been true for quite awhile.