Thursday, February 5, 2009

Young Superstars #10 - Kevin Seitzer


Seitzer began the 1987 season as the Royals starting first baseman, but traded places with George Brett eventually. He went on to have a remarkable rookie year, .323/15/83 with 207 hits. Any other year and he probably would have been awarded the AL Rookie of the Year, but '87 was the year of McGwire. For ten years he was a fairly productive hitter and an adequate fielder.

The number 10 patch on his sleeve is for the late Dick Howser, manager of the Royals between 1981 and 1986. He fell ill before the 1986 All Star game, though he still managed the game to an AL victor, but he never managed again. It was discovered that the had a brain tumor and after surgery he attempted to comeback in 1987, but died during spring training.

Seitzer was the hitting coach for the Diamondbacks in 2006 and it looks like he'll be the hitting coach in KC this year.

This is a very, very blue card. It rivals that very blue Bo Jackson card in '88 Topps. We've got a blue border, blue uniform, guy in blue sitting in front of an absolutely terrifying blurry blue mascot.

Look at that thing... just look at it.



It requires four virgins a day (breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner) or it jumps the wall and eats everyone on the field...



You must appease the blue thing.

Kevin Seitzer's career statistics

5 comments:

MMayes said...

I do not remember the Royals having a mascot like that. I wonder if Grimace and Mayor McCheese went to a game and Grimace got the aisle seat.

Ben said...

He's wearing an away jersey and the blue wall looks kinda like the Skydone in Toronto. So my first thought was that the blurry blue mascot is BJ Birdie. But I don't remember his head being so big.

The Royals mascot is a lion.

night owl said...

Wow, that's great. There should be more mascots in the background of card photos.

Ben said...

There's a State Farm commercial where LaBron James is dreaming of playing for the Cleveland Browns. There's some scary-ass mascots or something in the background there.

I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to that commercial, still in a bit of a haze, and it scared the hell out of me.

Unfortunately, we won't be seeing any more mascots in either series 1 or 2. I'm kinda surprised, really. 99% of these cards are in game action shots (a few I think are batting practice or spring training) with the stands visible in the background. You'd expect a mascot to pop up every now and then.

Andy said...

Four virgins...laf!!