Night Owl Cards

  I shelled out for an off-condition card of the interestingly named John O'Rear to get me within one of completing the 1980 TCMA Albuquerque Dukes set that I have loved since I was a young teen. I'm in a bit of card buying freeze right now but I'm fortunate in that my tastes aren't that expensive. All that's left to finish the set is Don Crow. Yeah, not Scioscia or Stewart. Don Crow. But that doesn't matter for this post. Neither Crow nor O'Rear were in the back of the book that I cared about when it came to upcoming Dodgers prospects. Before Bowman became a prospects thing, I figured out who the hot prospects were in the Dodgers' organization by turning to the back pages of the team yearbook that I had ordered. Here is the first prospects page in the first Dodgers yearbook I ever bought, the 1977 issue. Here are the next two pages. In my mind back then, those were all of the Dodgers prospects. And I wanted all of them to make the major leagues and kick...

Who hasn't had the dream of suiting up for a major league team and stepping into the batter's box for one major league at-bat against a major league pitcher? Extending that fantasy a little farther, who hasn't had the thought of somehow getting a hit during that major league at-bat? Perhaps it is a late swing, an inside-out swing, but you manage to bloop the ball over the second baseman's head. A ducksnort. Then, in the ultimate sign of fantasy, there on first base, you call time, the manager sends in a pinch-runner and you exit the game never to return. Your career batting record is forever listed as 1-for-1. You batted 1.000. According to my brief research, there are around 80 players in major league history that finished their career batting 1.000. Many of them received just one at-bat and made the most of that single opportunity, never to be heard from again. It's not easy finding cards of these guys. Several played before the 1900s. Perhaps if I looked aro...