Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Swamp Fox and a few others

Lonnie Paul Dade was a first round pick of the Angels in 1970, when they were just the California Angels. He made his major league debut for the Angels in 1975 and played two season in Anaheim before being granted free agency and signing with the Indians. He played in Cleveland for three seasons before being traded to the Padres for the Human Rain Delay, Mike Hargrove (of whom I have a rather unusual autograph). He played in 144 games during the 1979 and 1980 seasons at all the outfield positions and 2B and 3B. He played one season in Japan after that. I got the card off of eBay.
Mike Darr was drafted by the Tigers in 1994 and traded to the Padres in 1997 for Jody Reed. He played for three seasons with the Padres from 1999-2001, he played in 1988 games with 105 in 2001. He was beginning to be a regular on the Padres, but during spring training of 2002 he was killed in an auto accident. He was not wearing his seat belt and was legally drunk at the time of the accident, a friend of his who was also not wearing his belt was also killed. Pitcher Ben Howard, who was wearing his seat belt suffered only minor injuries in the single card accident. The Padres wore a black with Darrs' number 26 on it for the 2002 season. I bought the card on eBay.
Alvin Ralph Dark played in 1,828 games in the majors and managed 1,950 games in the majors, winning a world series in 1974 with the A's. He managed the Padres for 113 games in 1977 leading the team to a fifth place finish. He was known as the Swamp Fox for some reason. I got this card from ABC Unlimited.
Frank Gerald DaVanon played in a whopping 24 games in 1969 for the Padres. He was orginially drafted in 1966 by the Cardinals, then the Padres drafted him in the expansion draft and then after 24 games the Cardinals traded a couple of guys to the Padres to get him back. He played over 8 seasons in the major leagues. I got the card off of ebay.
James Houston Davenport was drafted by the New York Giants in 1955 and played his entire career for the San Francisco Giants. He retired in 1970 and became a coach, this card is a 1975 SSPC card when he was a coach for the Padres. I this signed through the mail a few years ago.

2 comments:

PunkRockPaint said...

I loved this post! The variety of the five cards is great: a base card, a certified auto, a manager card, a rookie stars card, and an oddball coach card. Awesome!

unclemoe said...

RIP Mike Darr.

moe.