There were all sorts of cool players and memories I could have picked to spotlight on this week's #MyCardMonday post. So, I picked something out of left field.
Seriously, this guy was the team's left fielder. I picked the card for a few reasons. First, it came out of the Topps Total set. As I am sorting out the different sets from the mid 2000s I am finding that I do not actually have an entire Topps Total set, but I also can easily say that I have more than 80% of all of them. Considering they are 990 cards it would be a shame to blow up the sets and start over, so those are going to go on my to do list somewhere. It's already pretty full, but I am not really going anywhere.
So, why Reggie Sanders. Most people who followed the Cardinals, or the MLB Playoffs in 2005 remember the Pujols/Lidge home run, but they do not remember Reggie Sanders sinking the Padres in the first round. The Cardinals played the Padres and Sanders set the tone for the series by driving in six runs, including a grand slam, in helping the Cardinals to win the first game.
Sanders was one a pretty memorable 1990s/2000s baseball player. He spent the first half of his career with the Reds and then seemed to spend about six or seven years playing for someone new every year, but somehow always managed to end up in the playoffs. More likely, it just seemed that way. His other cool career highlight was that time that Pedro Martinez blew a perfect game to drill him in the ribs with a pitch in the eighth inning.
Nice! Reggie was one of my favorite Reds players. He was the fifth player in MLB history to have 300 Homers and 300 Stolen bases (there have been several more to join him since then), and he won a world series with the Diamondbacks in 2001. A very solid career, I bet he has a lot of fans scattered around the country with all the teams he played for.
ReplyDeleteI had a long conversation about this with my brother in law ,regarding the little guys/unsung heroes who come up big In key spots but tend to get overlooked.It happens way to often.Look at Edelman last night In the Super Bowl.What a gamer.
ReplyDeleteI had a "chance meeting" with Sanders last fall in all places, North Myrtle Beach, SC. My wife and I were on vacation. We were having breakfast in our room when I received a tweet from Sanders that he was going to be appearing at a Dick's Sporting Goods' grand opening in North Myrtle Beach in about two hours. Needless to say as a Reds' fan, I jumped in the shower quickly and headed to North Myrtle Beach. He was very accommodating. A funny story though came from that. There were two guys that looked to be in their 60's standing there. One said to the other "You know who that is?" The other guy "No". The first guy said "That is Deion Sanders". It was all that I could do to keep my composure. Both of them went to get a baseball to have him sign. They probably still think that it was Deion Sanders. LOL
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