Posts Tagged ‘1990’

Greg Harris

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 by Nerdicus Finch

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Apparently, Mr. Harris was a switch-pitcher! From Baseball Library:

Harris’ unusual ability to pitch with both hands led to some tension between him and the Red Sox, who forbade the ambidextrous hurler from throwing lefty. GM Lou Gorman insisted it would “make a mockery” of the game, leading Harris to grumble, “Boston is so conservative. People are afraid to try anything.” In a muted show of defiance, Harris usually chose to wear an ambidextrous glove on the mound.

But just before his retirement, while pitching for the Expos in 1995, the veteran hurler finally became the only twentieth-century pitcher to throw from both sides of the mound. After Harris (pitching righty) retired Reggie Sanders to start off the ninth inning of a game against the Cincinnati Reds on September 28, 1995, he turned around to face the left-handed Hal Morris.

Harris issued a free pass, thus becoming the first ambidextrous major-league pitcher since Elton “Ice Box” Chamberlain of the American Association in 1888. Nerve-wracked, he stayed a southpaw and induced a ground-out from Eddie Taubensee, closing out the inning by retiring Bret Boone as a righty. The last pitcher to use both hands in a pro game had been Bert Campaneris, who did so in 1962 while playing for Daytona Beach in the Florida State League.

Pretty awesome stuff. Hopefully we’ll see something similar from Yankees farmhand Pat Venditte in the not-too-distant future.

“Funny” Cards, Volume 3: Hall of Fame Caliber Player Edition

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 by Nerdicus Finch

Tim Raines should be in the Hall of Fame and, hopefully, he will be in the not-too-distant future. But making a case for Raines’s enshrinement is not the purpose of this post. Rather, this is the third entry in Nerd Baseball’s “funny” card series and it features Raines’s 1990 Topps card. Isn’t it strange how some baseball card companies used the player’s nickname, while others didn’t? I guess it was an editorial decision. Thankfully, Topps decided to use Raines’s nickname on its 1990 card, otherwise my ten-year-old self would not have been able to come up with yet another incredibly literal “funny” card.

rock-raines6A few notes on this “funny” card:

  1. I’m surprised by how much the rocks actually look like rocks. Based on some of my other efforts, I’m going to have to assume that I had my sister make the rocks.
  2. I obviously preferred Scotch tape to glue stick, although the glue stick might have been the better choice for presentation purposes.
  3. I found this “funny” card in a box of old baseball cards at my parents’ summer home this past weekend. There were several others in the box as well, none of which are funny, and all of which I plan to feature on Nerd Baseball.