A 1980s Card Part 21- 1986 Topps Cesar Cedeno

If I sorted my Cardinals cards by the type of player they were for the team, I would go ahead and put Cesar Cedeno and Will Clark in their own section.  Same story, but Will Clark is for another day.   If you watched baseball during the 1970s and 1980s you probably best remember Cesar as a toolsy outfielder for the Houston Astros, or maybe the Cincinnati Reds. 

Cesar could do a little bit of everything. 

He has almost 200 career home runs, more than 400 career doubles, and over 500 stolen bases.  Throw in five Gold Gloves, four All-Star Game appearances, and you've got a really good career.  Cesar is not a Hall of Famer, but definitely a great of his era.  Plus, he and a bunch of Astros players were in the end of The Bad News Bears.  

I think Bob Watson has the glasses and J.R. Richard is wearing the jacket on the bench.  Ken Forsch maybe sitting next to J.R. Richard?  

What is really important here is that Cesar was on the Reds at the start of the 1985 season and was terrible.  He played 83 games in Cincinnati, hit .241, and had almost zero power.  The Reds already had Dave Parker, Eddie Milner, Gary Redus, and Nick Esasky in the outfield, plus a young Eric Davis and Paul O'Neill both made their debuts that summer with the Reds. They traded Cesar away to the Cardinals at the end of August in a waiver deal for a Rookie League pitcher.  

Who can blame them?  He was taking up a roster spot.  

Cesar went from looking like a guy at the end of his career to a player who belonged in the middle of a Major League All-Star Game lineup.  During his September with the Cardinals, Cesar hit .434 with 6 home runs and 19 RBIs.  He had a .750 slugging percentage.  While he did not hit well during the playoffs, it's hard to imagine the Cardinals would have gotten there without his bat down the stretch.  

His biggest contribution might have been a game winning extra inning home run off of Jesse Orosco against the Mets in a late September matchup which featured dueling shutouts by John Tudor and Dwight Gooden.  

It all rightfully earned Cesar a few cards during the summer of 1986 as a Cardinal.  

  

He actually signed as a free agent with the Dodgers at the end of 1985, but quickly reverted back to the declining player who played for the Reds during the first half of the season.  Still, as a Cardinals fan I enjoy his cards with the team.

I especially love the back.  

I know the print is small, but the .434 batting average and .750 slugging percentage are rather glorious looking.  His stint with the Cardinals was short, but definitely worthy of being remembered on a baseball card.  

A great movie from 1986 was The Money Pit.  

A Venerable Old Card Part 6

I spent a little bit of time in Northern Michigan during the Christmas holiday.  I still did my normal writing for this blog, along with my work at the Cardboard Connection.  When I am in my office at home I watch Netflix, or put my ITunes on shuffle, something for background noise.  I did not really have those options while I was in Michigan so I spent some time watching old Cardinals games or listening to old concerts.  Fun stuff.

A few of the games I watched were of the 1985 Cardinals.  I liked the Cardinals throughout my childhood, my father is from St. Louis, but the early years of my life were spent in a few different places.  People in my house watched the Cardinals, I liked playing baseball in my yard, collecting cards, and would check out a little baseball when people in my house watched a game.

I moved to St. Louis at some point during the summer of 1984.  The Cardinals were not so great that year, so 1985 was the first year that I got to experience a winning Cardinals team.  I am sure that people may recall players like Ozzie Smith, Vince Coleman, Willie McGee, Terry Pendleton, maybe even Jack Clark on those 1980s Cardinals teams.  However, the team also had some good supporting players around depending on the year.  One of the best was Cesar Cedeno, who played for the team during the last few months of the 1985 season.

Many my recall Cesar Cedeno as a member of the Reds or Astros.  Some may also remember him as an extra in the "Let Them Play' scene in The Bad News Bears.  Bob Watson got most of the speaking lines in that scene, but Cesar is there......

During the first half of the 1985 season Cedeno played for the Reds and posted a .241/.307/.336 slash line.  Hardly anything to write home about, so the Reds traded him to the Cardinals for a Minor League pitcher.  In all, Cesar only played a total of 28 games in a Cardinals uniform, but hit .434/463/.750 with 6 home runs, 4 doubles, and 19 RBIs in only 76 at bats.  He provided the final push to help the team get past the Mets, who were really good that year, and into the playoffs.  Not a great video, but this was a big home run in a September game against the Mets.  

The next season Cedeno made a brief appearance with the Dodgers, but retired after the 1986 season.  He obviously does not have many Cardinals cards, but they might be my favorites in the Cardinals sets from that year.  Well, outside of the Vince Coleman rookie cards......

So, for this week's Venerable Old Card post I am going to go with the 1986 Donruss Cesar Cedeno card.  He had one card in Fleer, Topps, and Donruss and they are all portrait style cards.  Still really cool that all of the card manufacturers managed to get him into sets considering he only played a brief time with the Cardinals.  Not necessarily a stand out card, nor a Hall of Fame player, but still a really cool card if you spent time watching the Cardinals in the 1980s.