By almost any measure John Burkett had a very nice Major League career. Over the course of 15 seasons he had a winning record, 166-136. He was an All-Star in 1993 and then again in 2001. He was a solid starter for the Texas Rangers from 1996 to 1999 and won the Rangers very first postseason game against the hated Yankees on October 1st, 1996.
But at some point he must have angered the people at Topps. Because in 1999 they used the picture above for his baseball card. John was pitching in the American league, so the only time he would come to bat would be in an interleague game on the road. He started a grand total of one interleague game away from home in 1998 and had exactly three at-bats. Meanwhile he had started 32 games that year and pitched 195 innings. But they sifted through all the pictures of John that year and came up with this one, taking a swing so ugly it could have been me standing in there!
They done him wrong, I tells ya!
No comments:
Post a Comment