Saturday, March 14, 2009

'92 Leaf vs. The San Diego Padres

Since I called myself out in my last entry for failing to do so, now seems like a good time to feature some cardboard from way back when. As I was flipping through a stack trying to settle on eight to scan, each of these two jumped out at me as a perfectly poetic summary of forty years of Friar futility.










Ironically, these poignant portraits of hopelessness in action were snapped during a rare stretch of mild success. During my research process for this particular project (Doesn't that sound so much more credible than "While I was googling shit for my stupid blog that nobody reads..."?), I was somewhat stunned to find that the Padres of my youth weren't as bad as I 'misremembered'. I really had no idea that in the eleven seasons of 1982 (best year ever) through 1992 we had only three losing seasons:
'86, '87 and '90. The one thing that I found fascinating about 1990 is that Trader Jack McKeon and Greg Riddoch each managed half of the season and ended with identical .463 records. This is the point where I'm practically obligated to say "But I digress..."
Nonetheless, what the hell, Leaf? What possessed your people to believe that kids want to rip a pack of primos just to see their heroes looking like total asses?

2 comments:

  1. Keep 'em coming TTG. Even the "throw-aways" bring back memories.

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  2. Is it sad that I actually remember those cards? I actually thought Jerald Clark was going to be a really good player. . . . which didn't happen.
    We were actually OK in the late 80s and early 90s, but no one remembers, so I never actually bring that up.

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