Texas Rangers CTNW Favorites #5
It has been months since I've made my Top 5 "Fan Favorites". For this one I've chosen to do the Texas Rangers. Additionally I've narrowed it down to the Hall of Fame pitchers who have worn the Rangers' colors. Here they are in the order of games pitched for the Rangers. I'm sure you can guess most of them, but you may be surprised by which Hall of Famer pitched the most games in Texas.
In 1989, Goose Gossage was released by the Cubs during spring training, was waived by the Giants mid-season. He was picked up by the Yankees where he finished out the season. After the season, the Yankees dropped him as well. Gossage spent the 1990 season in Japan pitching for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. Topps didn't make a 1990 card for him, "career-capper" or otherwise.
In 1991 he was signed by the Rangers where he pitched in 44 games, mostly middle relief. His days as a closer were behind him by then. Gossage was also missing from the Topps set in 1991, not even a Topps Traded card. They did make a 1992 card of him in a Rangers uniform. That would be Topps' last regular issue card of the Goose. This despite him playing 1992 and 1993 in Oakland and 1994 in Seattle. Seems like an awful lot of cards missing for a Hall of Fame pitcher, especially in the junk-wax era.
Gossage is still lacking a card for his stint with the Hawks. Calbee wasn't big on giving cards to "rookie" foreigners, I have to assume he joined the team too late to make the Takara Pro-Baseball or Lotte sets and BBM hadn't started yet. he was a surprising omission from the two Legendary Foreigners sets BBM issued in 2013.
ReplyDeleteGossage was on a Stadium Club with Oakland and the Mariners Mothers Cookies card.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I'm not suggesting his final card was in 1992. Only his final Topps regular issue card. He had major release cards from Fleer, Upper Deck, Score and Pacific through 1995. This was the height of the junk-wax era. I counted at least 18 different Gossage cards from 1993-1995 not including parallels.
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