Saturday, August 12, 2017

Andy Tracy: Two Autographed Rookie Cards

Andy Tracy was by no means a baseball superstar in the Majors, but when he attended Bowling Green University, he starred at both baseball and football; he went back to his alma mater after retiring - he's currently the baseball team's hitting coach.

Tracy holds the distinction of having been drafted twice - first by the Philadelphia Phillies, then the Montréal Expos; it was in Montréal that he would have his best season (2000) in most categories, including games played (83), at-bats (192), hits (50), home runs (11), on-base percentage (.339), walks (22), and so forth. The only time he bested his 2000 batting average (.260) was when he had 5 hits in 12 at-bats with the Phillies in 2009, good for a .417 average.

He was also in the Phillies' organization when they won the 2008 World Series, but only appeared in 4 games (2 plate appearances) in the regular season and none in the playoffs. He was one of the most popular players on their AAA affiliate Lehigh Valley IronPigs, however, and once held the distinction of being the oldest minor-leaguer in the U.S.

And to think 2000 was his rookie year, things were looking up, he was backing up Lee Stevens (first base) and Michael Barrett (third base, before his move to catcher)... it did not quite turn out that way:
from BaseballReference
He signed two copies of his Rookie Card - #T2 from Topps' 2000 Traded And Rookies set in blue sharpie for me back in the day:
These Spring Training pictures will enable me to slot him as #66 in my Expos Numbers Project; he wore #46 (2000) and #22 (2001) in the regular season.

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