A Venerable Old Card Part 33

Everyone seems to love these posts on Monday when I feature an old Minor League card.  Today, I am going to give the people what they want; an old Minor League card of a name baseball person.  Not a Hall of Fame player, not even really a good player, but definitely a Hall of Fame manager.  Interestingly enough, at the time this card was made this guy was one of the better prospects in the game.

Card please......

This Terry Francona Memphis Chicks card is out of the 1980 TCMA Minor League set.  TCMA made some really cool team sets back in the 1980s.  Not expensive cards in general and a really fun group of cards to collect.  

As for Francona's playing career, he started out with the Expos after being drafted out of the University of Arizona in 1980.  He was selected as the 22nd overall player in the draft after winning the Golden Spikes Award and the College World Series MVP after leading the Wildcats to the 1980 NCAA Championship....

Francona's troubles in the Majors can mainly be blamed on knee injuries, but he showed a lot of promise while playing in parts of two seasons with the Memphis Chicks.  In a total of 101 games with the Chicks, the future Hall of Fame manager batted .321/.350/.402.  Francona had little power, little speed, but there seemed to be a ton of players with this type of profile around Majors in the 1980s: no power, no speed, and no walks.