Dan T. Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 This is the best thing I've read in months. It involves a lifelong baseball journeyman, boredom with traditional baseball poses, a threatened mutiny, and Super Glue. Worth the read. I want to have a beer or three with this guy... https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27425987/guy-ball-crotch-story-funniest-baseball-card-ever-made Keith Comstock played on four major league clubs as a journeyman reliever, but his professional career is most often remembered for one thing: a ball to the crotch. Thirty years ago -- in what otherwise would have been a forgotten minor league set -- Comstock appeared on one of the most memorable baseball cards ever made. Here's the story of how it came together, in his words. When I was a kid, being on a major league baseball card was a top-of-the-checklist kind of thing. It was like a life's dream. You'd keep the superstars, and you'd put the other guys in your bicycle spokes. With the career I had, I was the guy you put in the spokes. I was drafted in 1976, and it took me eight years to reach the majors. I was traded or released so many times, it was hard to keep count. In 1983, the Oakland A's sold me to the Detroit Tigers for $100 and a bag of balls. I had to deliver the balls. For much of my career, I'd get moved to another team and my wife would pack up the Chevy Vega with our kids and they'd follow me. One time, it took my wife three days to reach my next assignment. On the day she arrived, I found out I'd been demoted. By the late 1980s, I'd been up and down a few times -- with Minnesota, San Francisco and San Diego. I never had a major league baseball card of myself, until 1988. That's when the Topps card company produced my first real card, like the ones I collected when I was a boy. I'm throwing a pitch in the photo. I was so happy when I saw the card, really humbled. When I got that first card, I didn't keep it. I sent it to my mom. It was like validation for everything that I'd gone through, like here was proof I was a major leaguer. The cool part of that 1988 card is it became a sought-after error card within the Topps set. There was something wrong with the coloring of the "Padres," so I got a little notoriety for that. I couldn't wait to show up in another set. I was demoted again. The same year I got my first Topps card, I was sent to Triple-A Las Vegas, playing for the Stars. I was 32 years old and it was sometime in the late spring when the minor league card photographer showed up. By then, I was just barely hanging onto the game. I had so many minor league cards of myself that I was getting bored with them. Plus, it was kind of a downer. You didn't want to be in a minor league set. You wanted to have a big league card. And, honestly, another minor league card was a reminder of how my career was going. There was absolutely zero creativity with minor league cards. You should see my old ones. There was the balance position, where the photographer tells you to raise your leg, like you're ready to throw. There was the one where you extend your throwing hand, like you've just released a pitch. There's the one where you're standing with a ball and glove, doing nothing. Like I said, zero creativity. I'd done so many of those that I was sick of it. So was everyone else. The photographer who showed up that day was shooting for the 1989 ProCards set, so we were doing this for next year's cards. He had his hat backward, like you might expect from a photographer. While that guy was setting up for the shoot, my teammates started talking about how they wanted to sabotage their own cards. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27425987/guy-ball-crotch-story-funniest-baseball-card-ever-made ... Finally, it was my turn. The photographer asked me what I wanted to do, expecting I'd do one of the basic poses. I thought about it for a second, and then it came to me: "I want it to look like a comebacker hit me in the nuts," I said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forehead Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 I read this a day or two ago, incredibly funny. I always enjoy these behind the scenes baseball stories, there's so many of them in the history of the game. The one I was reading this morning was Jason Grimsley's Mission Impossible routine to steal Albert Belle's corked bat from an umpire's dressing room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted August 23, 2019 Author Share Posted August 23, 2019 6 minutes ago, Forehead said: I read this a day or two ago, incredibly funny. I always enjoy these behind the scenes baseball stories, there's so many of them in the history of the game. The one I was reading this morning was Jason Grimsley's Mission Impossible routine to steal Albert Belle's corked bat from an umpire's dressing room. Do you have a link to post? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forehead Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 1 minute ago, Dan T. said: Do you have a link to post? https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/11/sports/yankee-ends-real-corker-of-a-mystery.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky21 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 Thanks for posting Dan. Good Friday afternoon chuckle. 😁 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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