I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 56 - Joe Magrane

The beginning of Joe Magrane's career with the Cardinals was more successful than many baseball fans remember.  He started the seventh game of a World Series, won an ERA title, led the National League with a 161 ERA+, had a top 5 Cy Young Award finish, and nearly led the NL in wins one season too. 

That was just his first three seasons.  

The Cardinals selected Joe Magrane in the first round of the 1985 MLB Draft with the eighteenth overall pick out of the University of Arizona.  He quickly made his way through the Minors in a year and a half, making his Major League debut with the 1987 Cardinals.  As described above, his first three years in the Majors were great.  Everything you could hope to get out of a first round draft pick and more.  

If you look through a stack of Joe Magrane baseball cards you will probably notice that half of his cards are all-star cards and the whatnot from 1990.  Magrane was a serious contender for the Cy Young in 1989 and probably should have led the League in wins.  

He had a Diamond Kings card.  

I should have prefaced the statements above by saying that he was all of those things, Cy Young contender, before the month of September.  The Cardinals finished that month below .500 and probably cost Magrane all of those individual awards.  It was brutal.  

Here's another card commemorating 1989.  

During the months of July and August Magrane went 11-1 and entered September with a 18-7 record.  He started six games during September and he walked away with an 0-2 record for the month.  Magrane's last two starts of 1989 were a seven innings of shutout pitching, five strikeout, but a no decision to the Phillies.  His last start was a seven inning, one run allowed loss to the Pirates.  So, that's 15 innings with 1 earned run and he recorded a loss out of those two games.  Just terrible.  

This was the season that the Cy Young Award was given to Padres reliever Mark Davis.  Sigh.  

Magrane still got all of these All-Star cards out of it.  

So, this is a 1990s Cardinals post, so we should move on and talk about something outside of Magrane's 1989 season.  To start the 1990 season, Magrane went 0-6.  The Cardinals were terrible that season, but it's not like they let him down.  Magrane was really mediocre.  You put mediocre on a last place team and you get a 10-17 record.  

Towards the end of the 1990 season he hurt his elbow and lost nearly two years.  All of the 1991 season and most of the 1992 season.  The Cardinals brought him back in September of 1992, sort of a late season, in-season, addition to the club.  He did not pitch well.  

Magrane still got a few cards during these years.  

Like all early 1990s players, one of the best places to find some good cards is in the Stadium Club sets.  Magrane has a bunch of studio style pictures on his 1992 and 1993 cards from this product.  I really prefer his 1991 card, which shows him pitching in a game.  

His 1992 Topps card is similar, but with more action.  

Back to his career.  

The Cardinals kept Magrane around for the first half of the 1993 season, but eventually released him.  Magrane ended up signing with the Angels where he played out the 1993 and 1994 seasons.  The Angels cut him towards the beginning of the 1995 season, after which he bounced around the league for a year signing with the Cubs, Expos, and White Sox.  

The White Sox were the only team that ran him out there to pitch a few games.  It did not go well, but he did get an autograph in Leaf Signature, who didn't, for appearing in a dozen or so games.  

While his career on the baseball field did not really go as planned, Magrane has made a nice name for himself around sports as a broadcaster.  He has worked for the Rays as a play-by-play announcer, NBC during the 2008 Olympics, but more recently has worked as a commentator on MLB Network.  

Not the most notable Cardinals from the 1990s, but still a memorable player.  Especially for his efforts during the 1989 season.