Saturday, February 25, 2012

Stan Jefferson: Hero Off The Field

I'm a big fan of '89 Topps. Such a simple, timeless design. The colors look great. Other teams didn't get so lucky; the Phillies and Angels got stuck with purple and pink for some reason.

Gotta admit, I didn't really know much about Stan Jefferson other than that he existed. Turns out, he played parts of six seasons with six teams; we got him from the Mets in the Kevin-for-Kevin trade. He also played for the Yankees, Orioles and Indians before his final season with the Reds in '91. He had 469 plate appearances for the '87 Padres; he stole 34 bases that year despite getting on base only 29.6% of the time. In his other five Major League season he had only 451 plate appearances and 26 stolen bases. After an attempt to get back in the game as a replacement player, he became a NYPD officer and was a Ground Zero first responder. I found a great article about his career and the horrors he faced after 9/11; I'll stop typing so you can go read that.

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