Card #142: Dave LaRoche

Who Can It Be Now?
David Eugene LaRoche was born on May 14, 1948, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Well, actually, David Garcia was born on that date in Colorado Springs. His parents divorced when he was young, and Dave took on his stepfather's name as a child. LaRoche is actually of Mexican heritage, not French as his surname would imply.

LaRoche grew up in Torrance, California, and attended high school as West High School there. The California Angels drafted LaRoche in 1966 in the 20th round, but LaRoche did not sign with the Angels at that time. Seven months later, the Angels selected LaRoche again in the fifth round of the January Draft's Secondary Phase. LaRoche signed in March and reported to Quad Cities in the Midwest League...as an outfielder. After hitting a combined .227 over two stops, however, LaRoche came back to the Midwest League as a pitcher in 1968 to start his fast ascent through the Angels' farm system.

LaRoche spent all of 1968 in the Midwest League and showed some promise. Though neither Baseball Reference nor The Baseball Cube has complete stats for him in 1968, what we do know is that his ERA was good (2.36, though with 10 unearned runs in 84 innings) and that he walked 29 versus 80 strikeouts. That was sufficient promise for the Angels to move him to the more competitive California League for 22 innings in 1969 and then to the Texas League in El Paso thereafter. Rather than getting annihilated in that noted hitters' ballpark, LaRoche put up a respectable 2.94 ERA. 

He was assigned to pitch in Triple-A Hawaii to start the 1970 season. Throughout his minor league career, he almost always was a reliever -- a position which likely hastened his promotion to the major leagues on May 11, 1970.  His first task: face Carl Yastrzemski in the top of the 16th inning. He was able to get Yaz to fly out, and, in the process, picked up his first major league win when the Angels scored a run in the bottom of the inning. 

Being a reliever, though, put LaRoche in a fairly tenuous situation on the roster, it seems. After giving up 4 runs (3 earned) 5 days after his debut, either he was sent back to Triple-A or he did not appear for a month. I'm guessing it was Triple-A. After an appearance on June 14, either he was again sent back down or, once again, did not appear for nearly a month. But, once he was back up with the Angels in July, it appears that he stayed in the major leagues for good through both 1970 and 1971. Over those two season, he had success as well -- 121-2/3 innings, 107 strikeouts against 48 walks and a 2.88 ERA (supported by FIP).

Yet, when Harry Dalton was hired by the Angels to be its general manager after the 1971 season, the first trade he made was to send LaRoche to the Minnesota Twins for infielder Leo Cardenas. Minnesota manager Bill Rigney was very happy about the trade, saying that "LaRoche just may be the best left-handed relief pitcher in the American League." Even then, however, Dalton recognized that bullpen arms are fairly fungible: "Frankly, we felt it would be easier to come up with a replacement in the bullpen than a major league shortstop."

LaRoche spent just the 1972 season with the Twins, posting a 2.83 ERA and a 5-7 record and recording 10 saves in 95-1/3 innings. The Twins got better in 1972 over 1971, but it was not enough to save Bill Rigney's job or to keep LaRoche in Minnesota. Apparently, the feeling was mutual. According to Wikipedia (quoting from The Twins at the Met), Bert Blyleven said that LaRoche told a reporter that LaRoche wanted to be the Twins' player rep for the union because "all the player reps under Calvin Griffith get traded."

So, when the season ended, LaRoche got his wish and was traded again -- exactly one year after the previous trade -- this time to the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs gave up minor league pitcher Bob Maneely, pitcher Joe Decker, and pitcher Bill Hands to get LaRoche. 

The two years that LaRoche spent on Chicago's North Side were not good. His 1973 season was one of his worst in the major leagues -- a 5.80 ERA in 54-1/3 innings (4.65 FIP) -- and 1974 was bad enough to see him start the season as a starter in Triple-A before getting called up to the majors on May 15.

So, when the Cleveland Indians offered pitcher Milt Wilcox to the Cubs for LaRoche and outfielder Brock Davis on February 25, 1975, the Cubs jumped on it. Getting out of Wrigley and back in the American League appeared to agree with LaRoche. In his two and a half seasons as an Indian, he totaled 42 saves, set an Indians team record with 21 saves in the 1976 season (which has been surpassed many, many times now), and made his first of two All-Star Game appearances of his career in 1976.

Yet, by 1977, the Indians and LaRoche had failed to work out a contract for LaRoche to play with the team past the 1977 season. As a result, the team decided to trade him. This trade took LaRoche back to Anaheim along with then-minor league pitcher Dave Schuler in exchange for Bruce Bochte, Sid Monge, and $250,000 cash. 

After the trade, LaRoche stayed in California through spring training in 1981. The Angels had signed another lefty, former Brewer pitcher Bill Travers, as a free agent in the offseason to one of the worst-ever free agent contracts. Because Travers was going to have to make the team, LaRoche was cut. Travers pitched terribly, got hurt, and never made an impact in California, and LaRoche ended up joining the Yankees.

In New York, LaRoche gained notoriety for one unorthodox pitch: the "La Lob." Rather than describe it, here's a clip from This Week in Baseball to show you Gorman Thomas flailing at it, though my favorite part of the entire clip is seeing Thomas -- the guy who lived to hit balls out of the ballpark -- attempting to BUNT the Lob for a base hit.

LaRoche finished his career with the Yankees. The 1982 season for him was one spent on the Columbus shuttle, back and forth between the Bronx, as the Yankees identified him as the pitcher no one would claim off waivers when they optioned him back to Triple-A. 

In 1983, LaRoche did not make the Yankees team out of spring training. He decided to step away from baseball for a while that year to spend time with his wife Patty, who was pregnant with son Andy. But, once Patty got past the difficult stages of her pregnancy, LaRoche hooked on with the Yankees. He made one final big-league appearance on August 23, 1983 against Oakland. He tried to make the Yankees one last time out of spring training in 1984 but failed.

Mustache Check: Nope, LaRoche is clean-shaven here.

Family Ties
As fans of today's game likely know, Dave LaRoche has two sons that played major league baseball.  The older boy, Adam, came up in the Atlanta Braves system. After playing in Pittsburgh, Boston, Atlanta, Arizona, and Washington, Adam signed a 2-year, $25 million contract to play first base for the Chicago White Sox on November 25, 2014.

Younger son Andy came up through the Dodgers system before spending three years in Pittsburgh (and playing together with his brother). Andy spent 2014 in the Toronto system at Triple-A Buffalo.  Dave cites to photos he received of the two taking practice swings together and of Andy making a play at third and throwing the runner out at first with a throw to Adam as being very rewarding to him.

Goody Two Shoes
In a 1982 news article, Dave cited to his faith and a religious experience that he and his wife Patty had gone through in 1979 as helping him to become more mellow.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
I very clearly remember that La Lob thrown to Gorman Thomas and, by extension, I clearly remember Dave LaRoche. Looking at LaRoche's lifetime stats, it appears that he always pitched well against Milwaukee. Of course, considering that LaRoche spent most of his career in the AL -- and that career included a lot of bad years for Milwaukee in the early 1970s -- I'm not all that surprised.

After LaRoche did not make the Yankees in 1984, he was hired on by the Yankees as a minor league coach. He spent the 1989 and 1991 seasons as the bullpen coach for the Chicago White Sox, sandwiching a season as the White Sox pitching coach in 1990. He then moved on with his pal Jeff Torborg to the New York Mets where LaRoche spent two more seasons as a bullpen coach. 

For the rest of his working career, LaRoche was a minor-league pitching coach. Indeed, in 2014, LaRoche came out of retirement to help the New York Mets fill a gap when the Brooklyn Cyclones regular pitching coach, Tom Signore, missed time due to an injury. But, as he says on his LinkedIn page, "I am un retired for 4 months. Then back to retirement."

Maybe Adam will buy his dad a new car or something.

Card #109: Dave Revering

Who Can It Be Now?
David Allen Revering was born on February 12, 1953, in Roseville, California. He was a prodigious slugger in his youth baseball days, being named to multiple all-star teams while playing for Bella Vista High School in Fair Oaks in suburban Sacramento. His play in high school gained attention from scouts, and he was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds with the final pick in the 7th Round of the 1971 June Draft. 

The Reds sent Revering to their Gulf Coast League affiliate in Bradenton to start his career, and immediately Revering made an impact. As you might be able to make out on the back of the card above, Revering hit 8 homers and walked 28 times in 167 plate appearances at Bradenton, slashing at .271/.398/.556.  Those are pretty impressive numbers anywhere you go. But, what all does not show you is that Revering put those numbers up in a league in which batters as a whole had a slash line of .238/.333/.302. Let me put it this way: Revering's 8 home runs represented 17.8% of all homeruns hit league-wide that season. He hit more homeruns than every team except the Royals and his own Reds (the rest of the Reds' team had 5 homers). In every respect, it was a very impressive debut.

While Revering could not and did not keep up the paces as a slugger as he moved up to Single-A Tampa the next season, he still showed impressive patience at the plate, a good batting eye, and good pop. He moved up to Double-A in 1973 and to Triple-A in 1974 -- all with the same skills all the way up the ladder.  

But then, at the ages of 21, 22, 23, and 24 covering the years 1974 through 1977, Revering was stuck at Triple-A. His 1975 season was not great, but 1976 and 1977 both were excellent years.  Why didn't he move up? 

That answer is pretty easy. He was in the Cincinnati organization. Cincy had eventual Hall of Famer Tony Perez at first. One year older than Revering -- and able to play third base credibly -- was Dan Driessen. Driessen became the starter in 1977 when Perez moved on to the Expos. Revering was stashed and stuck behind these guys, and in the age of "no free agents", Revering sat in Triple-A for over three full seasons.  His Triple-A Totals? In 465 games: 1795 Plate appearances, 92 HR, 318 RBI, 236 BB, 288 Ks, and a slash line of .279/.375/.523.  

These days, that would probably not happen. Revering was the type of player who was undervalued in the 1970s because his batting average did not reflect the hitting skills like OBP and SLG that are important in scoring runs.  I mean, what strikes me about Revering's skills in the minors is how high his OBP was every single year -- his worst year was in 1974 at Indianapolis when, at the age of 21 (4.1 years younger than the average player in the American Association that season), Revering had a .344 OBP (league average was .349). By 1975, a "Free Dave Revering" movement would have started up among the statheads of the baseball worlds to get Revering a chance to play somewhere.

His chance to play did come, eventually, in Oakland in 1978. Indeed, the only reason that his chance came was because he was out of options and would have to pass through waivers to return to Triple-A. Knowing this, the Reds tried to trade Revering to Oakland twice, essentially (more on that below), but in reality he was sent there in exchange for Doug Bair. On a very bad Oakland team saved from last place by the expansion Mariners, the now 25-year Revering appeared to leave his on-base skills at Triple-A -- .271/.303/.415. Yes, he slugged better than league average (which was .385) but he got on base less frequently (league OBP: .326).

1978 was Revering only 150+ game season in the majors. When Billy Martin took over, he employed something of a platoon system involving Revering and catcher/1B Jeff Newman. Revering also did not make any friends in the organization after the 1979 season. He was asked by Tom Weir of The Sporting News what the problem with the A's in 1979 was. His answer: "Our biggest problem is lack of talent. We have about five men who can play every day in the Major Leagues." When Weir asked for personal goals, Revering said, "to get out of here."

His wish was granted in May of 1981. Revering was sent to the Yankees with two minor leaguers in exchange for Jim Spencer and Tom Underwood. This trade led to a nice little short-printed oddity in the Granny Goose Oakland A's baseball card set that the San Jose Fuji finally chased down about a year ago, and it made Revering a little happier.

Revering, like Bob Lacey before him, had clashed with Billy Martin over playing time. Martin had buried Revering on the bench against both lefties and righties, using him only against tough righties. In the New York Times on his trade to the Yankees, Revering said that Martin had not played him against lefties or righties prior to the trade, "[t]hen he would pinch-hit me in the ninth against [Goose] Gossage. Have you ever tried hitting Gossage when you haven't played in a week? Have you ever tried hitting Gossage when you play every day?"

He had a point, but Revering did not capitalize on the opportunity with the Yankees either. Both his on-base skills and his power evaporated, and he struggled to make contact with the ball. Over the course of his Yankee career -- 45 games in 1981, 14 games in 1982 -- Revering slashed at .214/.276/.302. 

That inability to hit led the Yankees to seek help elsewhere for first base. Revering was sent to Toronto with minor leaguer Jeff Reynolds and third-baseman Tom Dodd in exchange for John Mayberry. Leading up to the trade, the New York Times noted that Revering had been unhappy due to his "uncertain status" with the club.  On the way out of town, Revering was quoted as saying "I'm happy to go. Now I'll get some playing time."

But, as Mayberry had found out already, Toronto had Willie Upshaw playing first base literally every day -- 160 games worth -- so Revering found at-bats almost exclusively at designated hitter. 

In August, though, the Blue Jays decided to go in another direction. They designated Revering for assignment, assuming that he would report to Triple-A to continue collecting his $250,000 a year salary. The Blue Jays were wrong. Revering instead gave up the contract and became a free agent. 

A few days later, he signed with the Seattle Mariners. He again struggled to make contact and struggled to get on base. The Mariners chose not to renew his contract after that season, so Revering signed a minor-league deal to compete for the first base job with the Detroit Tigers. He did not win the job and told the Tigers that he did not want to play in the minors. So, the Tigers released him, and Revering left baseball.

Mustache Check: Yes, Revering makes it 10 cards in a row with a stache involved.

Trivial Pursuit
When the onset of free agency came in the mid-1970s, Charlie O. Finley threw a hissy fit about the whole deal. He decided to sell his players off to the highest bidder. When Bowie Kuhn stepped in and said that Finley couldn't just sell off his players, Finley started "trading" them away in de facto sales. 

One of the "trades" that Finley made was with Cincinnati after the 1977 season. Finley sent Vida Blue to the Reds in exchange for Dave Revering and $1.75 million. Kuhn was not amused and determined that this trade too violated his suddenly established rule of sorts against such sales. Therefore, Revering came over to the Reds for Doug Bair and a dollar value just under Kuhn's established limit of $400,000.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Dave Revering just abused Milwaukee pitching. He killed us.  Yes, it was only in 134 plate appearances, but he hit .298/.346/.484 against Milwaukee. He hit better against only the two 1977 expansion teams of Seattle and Toronto.  I definitely remember him abusing the Brew Crew, and, as it turns out, two of his career four homers against Milwaukee came against the closer on the 1981-1982 Brewers -- Rollie Fingers. In other words, those two homers had to have hurt.

Revering seemed to wear out his welcome quickly in a lot of places in the majors. In the discussion after the Vida Blue trade, a wire story ran about how he was going to refuse to go to the minor leagues no matter what Bowie Kuhn said about the Blue deal. We've seen some of his negativity and agitations about wanting to be on a different team above.

To me, the most telling story about Revering came in 1999. Bobby Cox had managed Revering with the Blue Jays. In 1999, Cox was trying to manage the ball of rage known as John Rocker. When asked about whether Cox had ever managed a "crazier" player (that was the word Cox used) than Rocker, Cox could not.  But, as SFGate put it, "the closest he came to coming up with a name was Dave Revering . . . ."  The same discussion was carried in the New York Daily News; in that story, it mentioned that Cox really didn't know if Rocker was crazy. But, as to Revering:

That was not the case with onetime Yankee Dave Revering, whom Cox had briefly in Toronto. "Revering I knew was crazy," Cox said. "I finally had enough of him when he swung at a 3-2 pitch that was a foot over his head and wound up getting Cecil Upshaw thrown out at third. After the game, I had a shouting match with him in the shower and released him right there."

Cox's memory isn't 100% wrong, but it's not 100% right. Revering's final at-bat in Toronto was a base hit in the first game of a doubleheader against Boston on July 28, when Revering pinch hit for Leon Roberts and singled off Bob Stanley. But there is a plausible situation in the first game of that series on July 26 against Boston in the top of the 4th inning. Upshaw was caught stealing on the front end of a double steal with Revering at the plate in an at-bat that ended in a strikeout against Red Sox starter Dennis Eckersley. Maybe Bobby made up his mind at that point to get rid of Revering.

So, what's Dave Revering up to these days? I know he lives in Utah, as many online autograph forum regulars probably know, and he's pretty good about returning cards autographed.  It appears that he is involved with HumaniTerra Designs in Las Vegas now, according to this LinkedIn profile.

Otherwise, he likes to hunt, fish, and shoot guns. Seriously, that's what I've got. For example, here are two videos of Dave Revering showing off a product called the D.O.A. Tactical Bench:

In terms of hunting and fishing, here are a few stories to review. First, Revering is buddies with Kent Danjanovich, the Senior Editor of Sportsman's News, which promotes itself as the official publication of Sportsman's Warehouse. Revering and Danjanovich -- who calls Revering his "fellow Pro-Staffer" -- went fishing in northern Manitoba at Big Sand Lake Lodge in 2009.

They also went goose and mallard hunting in Alberta in the Peace River area. They went fishing in Mexico at Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort. He went on a big-game hunt in Namibia in Africa (his photo is about 2/3 of the way down the page). Finally, here's a photo in which Revering killed a zebra and a gemsbuck. The write-up there also mentions that Revering killed a jackal, a warthog, and a kudu; indeed, there is even an ad showing Revering as the US contact for the South African hunting trips.

I have to admit -- I am not a hunter.  I don't have any problem with people who do it, though, and in many cases it is necessary for the preservation of the animals (such as whitetailed deer in the U.S.). But, it was tough for me to see photos on that African safari page of animals that I have only seen in zoos sitting there dead with a guy or gal with a gun roosting behind them. 

I couldn't do it, and it's not for me. As long as we're not killing off endangered species -- and the meat of the edible animals is eaten -- I don't have a problem with it.

Card #83: New York Yankees Future Stars

Who Can It Be Now?
The three players on this card all played in the majors, and two of the three had reasonably long and successful careers.  The guy who didn't has a tragic story to explain why.  Here we go.

1.  Stephen Charles Balboni was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, on January 16, 1957.  He grew up a Red Sox fan (with a wicked accent, as the interview in 1980 with former umpire Ron Luciano to which I've linked shows) in New England, and he attended Memorial High School in Manchester, New Hampshire. He was not drafted directly from high school.  As a result, he headed south to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.  There, he led the Tritons to the NCAA Division II College World Series in 1977 while being named to the Division II All-American team as a designated hitter.  

His hitting exploits led the Yankees to select Balboni with the 52nd pick overall (at the bottom of the 2nd round) in the 1978 June Amateur Draft.  The Yankees assigned him to Fort Lauderdale in the Florida State League, where the expansive ballparks ate Balboni's flyballs alive during his first season.  But, 1979 proved a different story -- Balboni crushed 26 home runs to lead the league by 8 over second place Lloyd Moseby.  Only 7 hitters had double-digit homeruns in the FSL in 1979, so that was some accomplishment.

He moved up to Double-A Nashville the next year and continued his hitting exploits -- 34 HR, 122 RBI, 162 Ks, 82 BBs, and a .301/.399/.553 slash.  The Yankees moved him to Triple-A Columbus in 1981, and it was more of the same.  This led to him getting his first taste of major league baseball in 1981, with two games in April followed by two games in September.  

Despite his minor league hitting, the Yankees just seemed not to like Balboni.  Perhaps it was his prolific strikeout rate, but rather than giving "Bye Bye" a chance in 1982, the team used a combination of John Mayberry, Dave Collins, Lee Mazzilli, Dave Revering, and Butch Hobson instead. Then, in 1983, the Yankees found a guy they liked much better than Balboni -- and can you blame them? -- in Don Mattingly.  So, after the 1983 season, Balboni was traded to the Kansas City Royals with Roger Erickson in exchange for minor leaguer Duane Dewey and Mike Armstrong.  

With the Royals, Balboni finally got to play.  He led the team in home runs in its World Series year of 1985 -- leading the league in strikeouts as well with 166.  He stayed there until 1988, when the Royals released him at the end of May.  A couple of days later, he signed with the Mariners.  Then, at the end of spring training in 1989, Balboni was traded back to the Yankees for a minor leaguer, Dana Ridenour.  

He stayed in New York through the end of spring training in 1991, when the Yankees released him.  The Rangers then picked him up and parked him at Triple-A Oklahoma City as an insurance policy at DH and 1B for Rafael Palmeiro, Julio Franco, and, to an extent, Jose Canseco and Juan Gonzalez.  With that logjam, it should come as no surprise that Balboni only got a cursory call-up at the end of the 1993 season.  That was the end of his major league career.

Mustache Check: You bet.  Balboni looks like an extra from the Super Mario Brothers game.

2.  Andrew Joseph McGaffigan was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, on October 25, 1956. He grew up in WPB, attending Twin Lake High School, and starred in baseball there.  He was drafted for the first time in the 36th Round of the 1974 Draft by the Cincinnati Reds -- one of just 8 picks in the round -- and did not sign.  As he said in an interview with Royals.Scout.com, the money on offer was nothing to speak of -- $500 a month, no bonus, no guarantees -- so McGaffigan's father urged him to attend college.  

So Andy signed on with the local Palm Beach Junior College for a couple of seasons.  Midway through his second year at PBJC, the White Sox drafted McGaffigan in the 5th round of the January Regular Draft.  Once again, because the money on offer was nothing -- pretty much the same as the previous offer -- McGaffigan turned it down to finish his degree.  

He moved on from PBJC to Florida Southern College -- the same school that Greg Pryor attended (and both, by the way, are in the Mocs Hall of Fame) -- and had an excellent two years there.  He was a Division II All-American in 1977 and helped lead the team to the Division II College World Series Title in 1978 (wrestling it away from Balboni's Eckerd Tritons!).  So, in 1978 (the same year that Balboni was selected in the 2nd round), McGaffigan was chosen by the Yankees in the 6th Round of the June Draft.

McGaffigan and Balboni were teammates in 1978 in Fort Lauderdale, again in 1980 in Nashville and in 1981 in Columbus. As was the case for Balboni, McGaffigan got a late-season call-up in September of 1981 and pitched reasonably well in middle relief in his two appearances.  Unlike Balboni, however, McGaffigan never played for the Yankees after that.

Instead, he either became the guy who was easy to get rid of or the guy who was always in demand.  

• He was traded for the first time at the end of spring training in 1982 with Ted Wilborn to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for Doyle Alexander.  
• He stayed with the Giants organization for two years before being traded to the Montreal Expos in exchange for what Baseball Reference called "unknown compensation".  
• He lasted in Montreal for a half-season before he was flipped to the Cincinnati Reds with a minor leaguer for Dan Driessen. 
• He stayed in Cincinnati until December of 1985 when the Expos got him back in a trade that saw McGaffigan, Dann Bilardello, John Stuper, and Jay Tibbs go to Montreal for Sal Butera and Bill Gullickson.
• After 5 years, the Giants decided they wanted him back and sent a minor league PTBNL to Montreal for him in April of 1990.  
• Three weeks later, the Giants cut him, and McGaffigan caught on with the Kansas City Royals.
• The Royals released him in July of 1991, and the Brewers signed him and sent him to Triple-A.  

Once the Brewers were done with him, McGaffigan was done with baseball.

Mustache Check: Yup, Andy's got him a crumb collector.

3.  Andre Levett Robertson was born on October 2, 1957, in Orange, Texas, a small town halfway between Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Beaumont, Texas, in the heart of oil refinery country.  Robertson was drafted directly out of West Orange High School by the Texas Rangers in the 12th Round of the 1976 June Draft but he chose instead to attend the University of Texas on a baseball scholarship.  He played well enough at Texas to be drafted in the 4th Round of the 1979 June Draft by the Toronto Blue Jays, with whom he signed.

For reasons unclear to me -- perhaps the team thought Alfredo Griffin would be their shortstop forever and that Andre would never get by him -- the Blue Jays sold Robertson to the Yankees following the 1979 season.  Robertson moved up the Yankee chain quickly in 1980 -- starting with Fort Lauderdale in the Florida State League and ending in Triple-A Columbus.  Robertson got his 1981 September call-up and played much more than his other two card-mates.  Apparently, by this point in time, the afterglow of Bucky Dent's 1978 homerun had long worn off and the Yankees were looking actively to replace him.  That happened in 1982 when Roy Smalley became a Yankee.  

But, things looked bright for Robertson nonetheless.  By 1983, he was getting decent playing time on both sides of second base -- Willie Randolph struggled with injuries that year.  New York Post hyperbole specialist Dick Young -- also known as the guy blamed for running Tom Seaver out of New York -- waxed poetic in June of 1983 about how the Yankees Andre Robertson and and the Mets Jose Oquendo, "are as good as any two shortstops who ever played in the same town at the same time. Maybe better."  

Probably not, but Dick had to sell newspapers.

For Robertson, his life was twisted and broken by an event that occurred on August 18, 1983.  His friend from college (and the girlfriend of then-Philadelphia Eagles tight end Lawrence Sampleton), Shenikwa Dawn Nowlin, wanted to do some sightseeing in New York with Robertson. Robertson took a curve on the West Side Highway near 72nd Street too fast, and an improperly placed warning sign did not give him enough time to slow down. The result was that Nowlin ended up paralyzed from the waist down (which, by the way, did not stop her from becoming a lawyer in Dallas).  Robertson ended up with a cracked rib, a broken neck, a separated left shoulder, and a bruised right shoulder.

From that point forward, his career never fully recovered.  Whether it was because he lost his ability -- perhaps not, in light of his hitting his final year with the Yankees -- or whether the Yankees moved on without him, Robertson played only another 102 games in the major leagues.  He kicked around Triple-A with various teams -- the Braves (after being traded there in 1986 with Ken Griffey Sr. for Claudell Washington and Paul Zuvella), the Yankees, the Mariners, the A's, and the Rangers -- through 1989, but he did not make any further big league appearances after 1985.

Mustache Check: Robertson makes it a perfect 3-for-3 on this card.

Trivial Pursuit

Balboni still holds the Kansas City Royals team record for most homeruns in a single season with the 36 he hit in 1985.

Robertson was the first African-American to receive a baseball scholarship to play at the University of Texas when he matriculated there in 1976. 

Family Ties

Andre Robertson's brother Roderick Robertson was a third-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1986 out of high school.  Rod played minor league baseball from 1986 through 1995.  He never reached the major leagues despite spending four seasons and 380 games at Triple-A as a decent hitting middle infielder.  Rod did get the opportunity to play every position in 1995 for Rochester, though, including pitcher.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.

These guys never really became established major leaguers with the Yankees, so it's tough to say that Topps was "correct" in calling these three guys "Yankees Future Stars."  Of course, the Yankees only had 5 guys make debuts in 1981 for them -- three of which are on this card -- and Triple-A Columbus was the place that the Yankees stashed their big-league backups. At least all three players played a decent amount in the major leagues.

These days, the three guys on this card have taken paths as varied as their baseball careers. Balboni went into coaching -- first with the Royals and then with the Expos, for whom he managed the Vermont Expos in 2001.  After that, he was a hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals in the minor leagues.  Later on, Balboni caught on first with the Yankees and later with the Giants as a scout. 

Andy McGaffigan worked in the nonprofit sector during the 1990s putting together golf tournaments as fundraising events for charity.  Then, in 2001, he started work with Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company in retirement planning in Lakeland, Florida.  

After Robertson left baseball, he went back home to Orange, Texas, and did what most folks in a small, blue-collar town do -- he went to the local plant and got a job.  In his case, he started working on "Chemical Row" in DuPont's Sabine River Works.  It's the same plant in which his father worked for 38 years as a mechanic after his father was done playing football at Tennessee State University in Nashville.  Robertson's children went the academic route rather than the athletic route, with his son Ryan being the first-ever African-American valedictorian in his high school's history.

From recent interviews and stories about each man, all of them seem happy and, more importantly, fulfilled with how their lives worked out.  None of these guys were ever "stars" as Topps predicted (perhaps Balboni got close), but, just as importantly, all of these guys have contributed to their communities in their own ways. 

Card #75: Tommy John

Who Can It Be Now?
Thomas Edward John was born on May 22, 1943, in Terre Haute, Indiana.  Tommy is 71 years old, meaning that he avoided the entry draft and, instead, was signed by the Cleveland Indians out of Gerstmeyer High School in Terre Haute (a school which no longer exists).  He had been a high school basketball star and, according to his SABR biography, he was recruited by none other than the noted University of Kentucky basketball coach Adolph Rupp.

When John first signed in 1961 -- again showing how long ago it was -- he was assigned to Class D  Dubuque in the Midwest League.  He pitched well there, though he had some control issues. He moved up to Triple-A Jacksonville in the International League as a 19-year-old for the second half of the 1962 season, where he made 8 appearances and 7 starts in a league in which John averaged being nearly 7-1/2 years younger than everyone else.  According to John, he had no idea how to be a pitcher at this point in his career, and started learning only in 1962 from a player-coach in the Indians system named Steve Jankowski in Single-A. From Jankowski, John learned the classic art of pitching to contact and saving the 100% effort pitches for key points in the game when it was needed rather than throwing at 100% all the time.

His performance in Double-A Charleston in 1963 -- a 9-2 record, a 1.61 ERA, 12 walks and 45 strikeouts in 95 innings -- earned him a promotion back to Jacksonville in 1963.  He did not pitch badly there, and so the Indians gave him a late season cup of coffee that year.  He yo-yoed between Triple-A Portland and Cleveland in 1964, getting sent down in mid-July after getting lit up for 11 runs (10 earned) in 3-1/3 innings in his last three appearances for the Indians.  John's effectiveness may have been compromised by John trying to please Hall of Famer and pitching coach Early Wynn, who told John that John needed to learn a slider to go with the curveball and fastball he already threw.  To throw the slider, John made adjustments to his delivery which threw off his control.

After the 1964 season, Indians GM Gabe Paul tried to undo the unpopular 1960 trade engineered by Frank "Trader" Lane which sent Rocky Colavito to the Tigers in exchange for Harvey Kuenn.  Sportswriter Terry Pluto wrote about this -- and the ensuing years of misery that followed -- in his book The Curse of Rocky Colavito.  Indeed, one of the parts of the curse was that getting Colavito back caused the Indians to trade John.  In a three-way deal consummated on January 20, 1965, Tommy John, Tommy Agee, and John Roman were sent to the Chicago White Sox by the Indians.  The White Sox sent the Indians Cam Carreon (Mark Carreon's dad).  The third team, the Kansas City Athletics, received Fred Talbot, Mike Hershberger, and Jim Landis from the White Sox and then sent Colavito to the Indians.

John spent 7 years on Chicago's South Side, putting up a good ERA -- 2.95 (ERA+ of 117, putting him 17% better than league average) -- but only a fair-to-middling 82-80 record.  He was named to the American League All-Star team in 1968 and pitched a scoreless 2/3 of an inning in the AL's 1-0 loss.  Still, the White Sox of the late 1960s had declined significantly in John's time with the team -- going from the 2nd place team with a 95-67 record of 1965 to their low point of 56-106 in 1970 (a team so bad that they finished 9 games behind both the Kansas City Royals and the Milwaukee Brewers -- two teams that had come into existence the previous season).  

While the Sox had bounced back somewhat in 1971, it probably was a welcome change of scenery in many respects in December of 1971 when the White Sox sent John to the Los Angeles Dodgers with Steve Huntz in exchange for mercurial third baseman Dick Allen.  With the Dodgers, John enjoyed three solid years in 1972 through 1974.  

He had an injury issue that shortened his 1972 season: bone chips in his elbow.  Today, we would see this issue and likely would start thinking that the pitcher was walking a fine line with his ulnar collateral ligament.  Then, it was a procedure to clean out the elbow for John in hopes that he could pitch without pain the next season.

And he did pitch without pain in 1973 and into 1974.  In fact, he started out so well in 1974 -- a 13-3 record -- that John and his wife were certain that New York Mets manager Yogi Berra (as the manager for the All-Star Game for the National League) was going to name John to the All-Star team.  Sally John told the story to the AP in 1976:

Tommy came home from the ballpark that night [of July 16, 1974] with huge ol' cow eyes.  It's the only time I've ever seen him angry.  I don't think anyone realizes how much the snub hurt him.  I hate Yogi Berra to this day for that.  I know that's bad for a Christian to say, but Yogi Berra cannot even be considered a human being after doing that.

Okay, Sally, sit down and relax.  The next night, though, things changed even more to the worse for Tommy -- it was the night that he snapped his UCL.

Dr. Frank Jobe was at the game for the Dodgers, as he always was, as the team doctor. After all the diagnoses were completed and everyone knew that John had torn the UCL, Tommy pushed Jobe to come up with something for him to be able to pitch again.  As Jobe recalled in 2000:

"You have to understand," Jobe says now, "there was no known procedure to fix something like that.  But Tommy told me, 'You've got to do something.  I don't care what it is, but fix me.'" . . .  "I have to give Tommy credit. I might not have taken on his case if he hadn't pushed me so hard."

So, on September 25, 1974, Jobe took a 6-inch strip of tendon from John's right arm and used it to replace and fix John's left elbow.  Complications arose.  A second, secret surgery took place in December of 1974 to clear up scar tissue that had formed around John's ulnar nerve and caused his left hand to curl up into a claw.  

John missed the entirety of the 1975 season rehabilitating his arm.  If the surgery had not worked and his career was over, he would have been just another 32-year-old former pitcher with a sore arm who finished his career with a 2.97 ERA, a 124-106 record, and good stories to tell his children and grandchildren.

Instead, he came back in 1976.  He enlisted the aid of his teammate and kinesiologist Mike Marshall and Dr. Jobe and rebuilt his mechanics.  As was said in a 1984 interview with Robert Markus of the Chicago Tribune:

When he was just starting as a pitcher in high school, John explained, his coaches told him he was throwing the ball across his body and "that it was the worst thing in the world. They told me I had to do what they called 'open up.' I worked and worked to 'open up.'  

But that put a lot of strain on the elbow and could have been the reason for the injury.  In rehabilitation, I did a lot of talking with Dr. [Frank] Jobe and Mike Marshall and found that throwing across the body was not as bad as people said it was back in 1961.  In fact, it's a pretty good way to throw effectively.

It clearly worked for John. He enjoyed his finest seasons in the major leagues in the years 1976 through 1980.  In 1976, he ran out of gas down the stretch and went from 10-1 to 10-10.  Despite the 10-10 record at a time when win-loss record mattered a lot, John was named the National League Comeback Player of the Year in 1976.  As his former teammate Mike Marshall put it, "At that moment [of John's first start on April 16, 1976], Tommy John became the comeback player of the year."

From 1977 through 1980, though, John put up impressive numbers for any pitcher -- whether working on a reconstructed elbow or not, whether aged 34 through 37 or not.  He put up an 80-35 record, a 3.12 ERA (ERA+ of 124), gave up just 45 homers in 975 innings, made the All-Star team three times, finished as the runner up in the Cy Young Award race twice, and even garnered attention for MVP.  He also swapped his Dodger whites for the pinstripes of the New York Yankees after the 1978 season when the Dodgers refused to meet his demands in free agency.    

John was a regular in the post-season between 1977 and 1982.  He missed out on pitching in the post-season in 1979 only because the Orioles pipped the Yankees to the AL East Title that season.  In 1982, he pitched for the Angels against the Brewers in the ALCS, winning game one but taking the loss in game four.  He stayed with the Angels until 1985 when, at the age of 42, the Angels released him.  His career was not done yet.  The Oakland A's picked him up for the rest of that season but did not sign him after that.  

In 1986, then, John entered the season without a team.  Surprisingly, however, on May 2, 1986, the New York Yankees gave John another shot.  John got a bit lucky -- a 2.93 ERA v. a 4.17 FIP shows that -- but it led the Yankees to keep him on board until the end of May in 1989.  Shortly after his 46th birthday, the Yankees released John.

Mustache Check: No whiskers for Tommy John here.  Sorry Night Owl.

Trivial Pursuit
We all know now that Tommy John was the first pitcher to undergo the tendon-to-ligament transplant surgery that Dr. Jobe pioneered in 1974.  According to Tommy John himself on Twitter, the second pitcher to have the surgery performed was Brent Strom. 

Strom's career did not turn out as well as John's did, however.  I'm assuming that he underwent the surgery in 1977 since he missed 1978 entirely.  Strom never made it back to the major leagues.  I wonder if pitchers today would be as quick to get the surgery if Strom and not John had the surgery first.

Bonus Trivia:  According to his SABR biography, Tommy John enjoyed a 26-year career in major league baseball.  The only two players to have longer careers of 27 years each were Nolan Ryan and Cap Anson.

Totally Gnarly
John decided to retire in 1989 rather than trying to hook on with another club.  He jokes today that his decision to retire came about from the fact that Mark McGwire got two hits off him.  McGwire's father was a dentist in Southern California who counted Tommy John as a patient, so, as John claims to have said, "When your dentist's kid starts hitting you, it's time to retire!"  

Not to be a spoilsport, but that's a better line than it is a truth.  After all, if giving up hits to Mark McGwire was John's impetus for retiring, he waited three years too long.  In an August 24, 1986 game at Yankee Stadium, then third baseman Mark McGwire went 3-for-5 against John.  In fact, McGwire's first inning double off Tommy John was McGwire's first major league hit.

I think he should have used Novocaine.

Bonus Gnarliness: If you have a spare $1,295 laying around, you can purchase a limited edition print directly from Tommy John's website.  The print features four different MRI photos of Tommy's UCL ligament signed both by "Patient Zero," Tommy John and the Late Dr. Frank Jobe.  Proceeds go to two different organizations: the "Let's Do It Foundation," an organization whose goal is to end the need for Tommy John Surgery and the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention.  The second organization reflects the fact that John's youngest son Taylor committed suicide by a prescription drug overdose in 2009.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
This entry has taken a ton of time to write in large part because Tommy John pitched for 26 years, had a groundbreaking surgery, and generally is a nice Indiana boy who married a college cheerleader.  It's tough to make calls as to what to include when there is literally too much information.  I mean, he wrote a book.  He was traded in 1982.  He managed in the minor leagues.  He's engaged on social media.  There's a lot going on here.  That said, Tommy John to me was and is a Dodger because that is when he first came into my consciousness as a baseball player.  The fact is, though, that John pitched 8 years for the Yankees and 7 years for the White Sox versus 6 years for the Dodgers.  

The question that has to be raised about John, though, is the obvious one: is he a Hall of Famer?  It's a very close call and it depends on how much "credit" you give to him for being Dr. Jobe's Patient Zero, I think.


Before his surgery, John was a pretty good pitcher.  Certainly, he had some good years for some bad White Sox teams in the late 1960s, but his totalled stats for that period are good but not great:  124 W, 106 L, 2.97 ERA (3.16 FIP), 28 shutouts, 1273 strikeouts (5.3 K/9) versus 633 walks (2.6 BB/9).  His average season was a 10-9 record with 180 innings pitched.  In those days, that would be a low innings total for a starter.

After his surgery, John turned into a total "pitch to contact" innings eater.  He played with better teams, however, and that shows in his stats: 164-125 record (18 shutouts), 3.66 ERA (3.56 FIP), 972 strikeouts in 2544-2/3 innings (3.4 K/9) versus 626 walks (2.2 BB/9).  His average year -- with numbers tamped down by the 1981 strike and the mercifully early end to his 1989 season -- was 12-9 in 182 innings with 200 hits allowed and 69 strikeouts.

The BBWAA considered John's candidacy and his overall career mark of 288-231 every year for 15 years between 1995 and 2009.  His percentage of the vote got no lower than 18.7% (1999) and no higher than 31.7% in 2009 -- the last season bump.  

Evaluative methods based on statistics are mixed for John as well.  He did not lead the league often or even finish in the top ten with frequency in any of the major categories -- Black Ink score of 11 versus 40 for the average HOFer, Gray Ink score of 134 versus 185 for the Average HOFer.  

On the other hand, he scores a 112 on the HOF Monitor, which means that his longevity and his pitching for good teams helps him tick a lot of those boxes; indeed, 25 of his 112 points come from his 288 wins.  The HOF Standards Test, which attempts to normalize the players in the Hall on a scale of 100 puts John at 44 and a likely HOFer at 50. And looking at similarity scores, the only two players on John's ten most similar pitchers who are not in the Hall are Jim Kaat -- #1 on the list -- and Tony Mullane (#8).  But, to be fair, those beyond Kaat are not all that similar to John.

Even using WAR/WAR7/JAWS is a mixed bag.  John does pretty well with WAR due to the long career -- 62 for him, average pitcher in the Hall is 73.4.  WAR7 and JAWS attempt to measure career peak more, and those are not kind to him -- 34.7 WAR7 (wins above replacement in his peak 7 seasons; HOF average is 50.2) and 48.4 JAWS (combines WAR and WAR7; average HOF pitcher is 61.8).

What do you do with a problem like Tommy John and his HOF candidacy?

Part of me is the sentimentalist.  It says to reward the guy who stuck around so long, who overcame all the obstacles that life threw at him (I didn't even mention the issues with his son Travis in 1981, after all), who was a groundbreaker in sports medicine.  

The calculating, rationalist part of me looks at John's candidacy with a jaundiced eye.  Would we even care about a pitcher with 288 wins over 26 seasons (which comes out to an average of just 13 wins a year) if not for the fact that John is a good-looking, tall, lanky lefty who pitched for two of baseball's most storied franchises and, oh, yeah, he has an elbow surgery named for him? 

Compare him to his most comparable fellow pitcher, Jim Kaat, for just a moment.  Both pitched for a long time.  Both finished with over 280 wins -- Kaat at 283, John at 288.  Kaat also pitched for the Yankees for parts of a couple of seasons (1979 and 1980).  John is slightly better in WAR for his career, Kaat is better on the Hall of Fame Monitor (130 vs. 112), and both are at 44 on the HOF Standards Monitor.

I have gone back and forth on this, and in the end, I think he should go in.  Joe Posnanski made a compelling case for the fact that, taken as a whole, John's career is groundbreaking -- for being Patient Zero -- and distinguished.  Posnanski noted that Tommy John had 13 no-decisions in which he pitched eight or more innings and gave up one or fewer runs.  Those 13 games going John's way would have given him 301 wins and we wouldn't be having this discussion. 

So, initially I was going to say no way, but I'm now convinced.  While John would be a borderline Hall of Fame inductee, I think he should be in the Hall based on the overall body of his contributions to Major League Baseball.  Yes, being desperate and having it work out positively matters sometimes.

Card #45: Rick Cerone

Who Can It Be Now?
Richard Aldo Cerone was born on May 19, 1954 in Newark, New Jersey.  He attended high school at Essex Catholic High School and college at Seton Hall University.  While at Seton Hall, he played in the 1974 Amateur World Series and won a gold medal alongside fellow future major leaguers Steve Kemp, Ron Hassey, Marv Foley, and Barry Bonnell...and why three future major league catchers were necessary for an 11-day competition, I do not know.

After his junior year at Seton Hall, Cerone was drafted 7th overall by the Cleveland Indians in the 1975 June Amateur Draft.  It was the same draft and same round in which Rick Sofield was drafted, and Cerone turned out to be the most successful first round pick that year.  

On his signing, the Indians sent Cerone directly to Triple-A Oklahoma City.  Cerone hit .250/.375/.350 at OKC in 170 plate appearances.  He came up to the majors that same year in August for a few games, and then again for three games at the end of the season for a mediocre Indians team managed by Hall of Famer Frank Robinson.  Cerone followed a similar pattern in 1976: start the year in Triple-A (this time in Toledo) and then get called up for 7 games starting in August.  

Apparently, those 14 games convinced the Indians that they did not need Cerone around.  To be fair, the Indians appeared to have no clue what they were doing at this point.  They traded two catchers -- Cerone and Alan Ashby -- to the Toronto Blue Jays.  Cerone went to the Jays because the Indians were fixated on getting Rico Carty back to the team after the Jays grabbed him in the expansion draft.  Joining Cerone in the trade for Rico Carty was John Lowenstein.  Lowenstein spent spring training with the Blue Jays before he was traded -- back to Cleveland.

Cerone again split the 1977 season between the majors and Triple-A.  In a weird anomaly created by expansion, Cerone actually spent his time in Triple-A with the Houston Astros Triple-A Affiliate in Charleston, Illinois because Toronto did not have a farm system level above short-season A ball.

In 1978, finally, Cerone was in the majors to stay (other than rehab assignments).  He split time at catcher with Alan Ashby for a terrible Blue Jays team.  He finished with a .223 AVG, a .284 OBP, and a .298 SLG -- wow, are those numbers ugly -- and an OPS+ that was 36 percent below the average player in the league.

The Blue Jays were seemingly impressed by these numbers and let him play 136 games as a starter in 1979.  Cerone hit for a little bit more average and power -- .239 AVG, .358 SLG. 

Despite this, Cerone was still somewhat in demand.  After the 1979 season, the Blue Jays sent Tom Underwood, Ted Wilborn, and Cerone to the New York Yankees in exchange for Chris Chambliss, Damaso Garcia, and Paul Mirabella.  The Yankees were looking for someone to replace the irreplaceable -- Thurman Munson -- after Munson's death in a plane crash on August 2, 1979.

Perhaps because he was back home and playing for the team that he loved as a child in Newark and against all odds and statistical projections, Cerone had his best season in the major leagues in 1980.  He hit 14 homers, had 85 RBI, hit .277/.321/.432 (his only SLG above .400 in his career), and finished seventh in the MVP race behind George Brett, Reggie Jackson, Rich Gossage, Willie Wilson, Cecil Cooper, and Eddie Murray -- and ahead of Rickey Henderson and Robin Yount, among others.

Cerone never again reached those lofty heights.  Certainly, as a catcher, injuries took their toll, but Cerone simply turned back into what he was before 1980 -- a solid defensive catcher whose hitting would be a negative if he had to play regularly for his team.  The Yankees traded for Butch Wynegar after the 1981 season, and Wynegar (a switch hitter) took over the main catching duties.  Cerone was buried on the bench a bit by Billy Martin in 1983 -- a year that Cerone described as, "a tough time.  In 1983, Billy was 91-0.  The 71 losses he blamed on somebody else".  

Yogi Berra barely used Cerone in 1984, paving the way for Cerone to be traded to the Atlanta Braves for pitcher Brian Fisher.  His time with the Braves was unremarkable; one Braves blog calls Cerone the #9 worst Atlanta Brave ever.  Perhaps because of this, the Braves decided that they would rather have Ted Simmons's skeletal remains on their bench in 1986 and traded Cerone and two minor leaguers to the Milwaukee Brewers for Simmons. From there, Cerone went back to the Yankees, then to the Red Sox, then back to the Yankees, then to the Mets, and then to the Montreal Expos.

Cerone did have one brief year of glory as a backup in 1990, though, on his third tour of duty with the Yankees -- he had his one, and only, .300+ AVG in a 49-game, 146 plate appearance season.  Otherwise, he was in demand as a backup catcher who would be stretched as a starter.

We Got the Beat
If you had to ask me what player or players I would have expected needing to come up with a new headline for related to being a musical talent, I would have gone through at least fifty or one hundred names before I got to Rick Cerone.  But, that's why we have this Go-Go's classic from 1982 here -- because someone used vinyl to record Rick Cerone's singing voice for posterity.

Yes, in 1981, Rick Cerone and The Dusty Road Band released a song called "A Long Run Home." It was a song recorded for the benefit of earthquake victims in Italy.  The New York Times in 1981 referred to it as an "uptown country-western song." I have not yet been able to find a version that you can listen to online.  I also did not look too hard to try to find it.

Freeze-Frame
While not technically a screen appearance, the New York Times article by Murray Chass linked above notes that Cerone was hired by something called "10" Jeans -- whom he selected over Jordache -- to promote their blue jeans.

Trivial Pursuit
I've lost the citation, so forgive me for that, but here's a very trivial note: Rick Cerone was both the first player to debut and the last player to retire from the 1975 Draft class.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
On a personal level, I met Mr. Cerone after one or two Brewers games in 1986 when he spent his one year in Milwaukee.  He was pleasant and quick to sign autographs for kids, from what I recall, and he enjoyed talking to people about baseball even after games. There weren't enough players like that even then, so it was always appreciated.

Rick Cerone was a decent player for a long time, and in 1982, there was an open question as to whether the 1980 season was an aberration or whether it should be the expectation. Certainly, in the offseason after 1980, people thought Cerone was going to be the next Yankees catching star.  It didn't turn out that way for him, but he led a successful career.

Indeed, his baseball playing career led first to an eight-year stint behind the microphone for the Yankees and Orioles in the 1990s.  After that, Cerone brought baseball to Newark by founding the Newark Bears and the independent Atlantic League in 1998 (he later sold his interests in both).  He is so well respected in Newark that the city named its best baseball field for him -- it's Rick Cerone Field at Branch Brook Park.  Indeed, Cerone was named one of 40 "New Jerseyans We Love" by New Jersey Monthly magazine along side such luminaries as Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen -- at least at some point.

Cerone is also active in charitable events.  He has participated in at least one golf tournament to benefit the Sean Kimmerling Testicular Cancer Foundation, named for the former WPIX anchor and pregame announcer for the Mets who died of the disease in 2003 at the age of 37. He was honored as Man of the Year by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Northern New Jersey and Rockland County Chapter for his "hands-on help in raising awareness and funds towards diabetes research."

Today, if you want to meet Cerone and have some money to spend on it, you can.  Would you like Rick to join you for lunch? It's just $2,750.  He will even come to your wedding for that price.  If you'd rather play a round of golf with him, that will run you $3,500.  For a personal appearance, you can get an hour of Rick's time for $4,400.

Wow, he charges lawyer rates.