A College Kid And His Famous Cousin

Listen, friends.  I have had this post drafted for a while and really like the cards that I share at the end of the post.  I am well aware of what happened to the NC State baseball team last week.  More than happy to discuss the team itself, their play during the regular and postseason, but I am not getting into a debate about COVID or vaccines.  

I have always enjoyed collecting cards of players on the NC State baseball team.  It still amazes me that there are baseball cards of kids in college and high school.  In the past, I have dabbled with cards of Trea Turner....

Carlos Rodon 

and Will Wilson, just to name a few.  

After much searching, I have found that there is only one player on this year's team that has a baseball card.  I was a little surprised that none of them appeared in the USA Baseball U-18 sets, or more didn't make it into a Perfect Game set, which is where I found the card for this post.  

This is the team's catcher, Luca Tresh.  He led the team in home runs this season and is currently listed as the 84th best prospect who can enter the MLB Draft this year.  I am sure he will get selected, but there are a ton of college catchers in this year's draft.  I did a quick count, but there are at least 3 other catchers from just ACC schools rated ahead of him.  NC State has had a good run of catchers in the Draft lately with Andrew Knizner (Cardinals) and Patrick Bailey (Giants).  

Hopefully, he lands somewhere good and gets a few baseball cards.  

On to the Yankees connection.  Luca Tresh's cousin was a player on the 1960s Yankees teams, Tom Tresh. The first time I heard this fact, I had to go dig through my 1960s commons.  I knew the name but knew nothing about him as a player.  

Here is my 1968 Topps Tom Tresh card.  

Not the best condition even with a generous crop job on the corners, but he's actually a pretty interesting player and person.  He's a much better player than I realized.  Here is my quick rundown on Tom Tresh in the form of a bulleted list.  

+Tresh won the 1962 American League Rookie of the Year

+Played almost 1,200 games, almost all with the Yankees hit more than 20 home runs 4 times during his career.  

+Tom Tresh and Derek Jeter were the only 2 modern shortstops to start as rookies for the Yankees on Opening Day.  

+Hit a go-ahead home run against the Giants in Game 5 of the 1962 World Series.  

+Tresh made the American League All-Star teams in 1962 and 1963 

+He won a Gold Glove in 1965 

Tresh retired before the 1970 season.  He ended up working an administrative job at Central Michigan University where he also made an important invention to help out the school's baseball and softball teams.  Tresh called it the "Slide-Rite".  

You've seen these before.  

 

This is the second baseball player/inventor I have posted this year.  

Anyway, I was happy to add a card of a current NC State player and I enjoyed learning about Tom Tresh for this post.