What is even better is that Reuss pointed to a couple of sites worth checking out. Here is a link for his personal website at JerryReuss.com and a flickr page featuring pics of his Baseball cards from his 20+ years of professional Baseball.
In Reuss's honor, Night Owl Cards is running a poll asking what is his best card. Go here to vote. I personally like his 1984 Topps card. After all, he is wearing Dodger Blue and it features his very identifiable windup I grew up watching as a young Dodger fan.
BTW, in doing some minor research for this post I came across a fascinating story about Jerry Reuss. From a 1975 story in People Magazine: When pitcher Jerry Reuss took his wife, Ann, on the Pittsburgh Pirates' final swing to the West Coast last season, the management nicked him with a $500 fine. Jerry, to be sure, had paid for her commercial flight (spouses are non grata on the team charter jet) and the extra hotel tab, but still had violated a Pirate regulation. As a result, in a sport built on arcane records, Reuss came up with a new one for the book: he was the first player to file a grievance action to establish the right to sleep with his own wife.Read the rest of the article here. It goes deep into the difficulties a Baseball life can have.
Slight correction: Reuss is "a" favorite player. My favorite of all-time is The Penguin.
ReplyDeleteThat People article is fascinating. Crazy stuff. People don't realize what ballplayers go through sometimes.
Good stuff :)
ReplyDeleteThat's excellent. Reuss comes back to St. Louis nearly every January for the Cardinal's Winter Warmup. Isaac got his auto this year (http://ikescards.blogspot.com/2010/01/st-louis-cardinals-winter-warm-up-2010.html) and Jerry couldn't have been nicer.
ReplyDeleteHere's a gallery of pics from the Warmup (Jerry is actually galleries 1 - 3): http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?evgroupid=0&userid=stlfanphoto&gallery_id=1902731&sv=1 Isaac is pic 98.