Sunday, August 21, 2016

Venerable Old Card Part 25

I was really excited about an old 2000 Bowman autograph I picked up last week for a whole dollar.  Not many people get excited about Steve Cox, and I actually never saw him play as a Durham Bull, but I am really happy to have this card hanging out in my box of autographs....


Love those old Devils Rays cards.  

While few baseball fans know Cox, the ones that do probably remember him as a really average player on some really bad Devil Rays teams.  For his four seasons in the Majors, all with the Devil Rays, he posted a .262/.340/.417 line with 39 home runs and 72 doubles.  Nothing to write home about.  However, before he got to the Majors he was a pretty special player with the Durham Bulls..

Cox spent two seasons playing with everyone's favorite Minor League team.  During his first season with the team, also Durham's first as a Triple A team and first as a Rays affiliate, he hit around .250 with 13 home runs, 67 RBIs, and an otherwise fairly missable stat line.  In his second season with the Bulls in 1999 Cox would win the International League MVP while posting one of the best lines in the history of the team..

The MVP hit .341/.415/.588 with 25 home runs, 49 doubles, and 127 RBIs.  Remarkable season.  At the end of the year Cox was called up to the Devil Rays where he started his Major League career.  He might have had a small impact in the Majors, but is still remember by the die-hard baseball fans for producing one of the greatest single season lines in the history of the Durham Bulls.  

3 comments:

  1. Never heard of the guy... but he had one heck of a season in 1999 for them Bulls.

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    1. He was actually an A's prospect at one point and the Rays took him out of their Minor League system in the expansion draft. Cox had good numbers his last two seasons in the A's system at Huntsville and Modesto. Baseball America had him rated as a Top 100 prospect his last season as an A's prospect in Double A.

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    2. I guess I need to do a better job of following A's and Padres prospects. ;)

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