Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Autograph Frankenset #8

On November 13, 1989 David Francis Dravecky announced his retirement from Major League Baseball.  He had battled cancer and returned to the Majors but in 1989 as he was pitching against the Expos his left arm broke.  It snapped so loudly and he fell so quickly that Will Clark though Dave had been shot.  As his arm was healing it was broken again as the Giants celebrated winning the NLCS.  In 1991 he had the major portion of his left arm amputated.  
On November 13, 1989 David Francis Richards was born in Portland, Oregon.  My wife and I had decided to name our second son David, our oldest is Daniel.  So we were looking through my Donruss Padres team sets to see what others had teamed with David (Donruss had a habit of putting players full names on the backs).   We had been impressed with the way Dave Dravecky used his cancer and what had happened to him in his testimony, so we decided to name our son after him.  They have met once when Dravecky came to town for a book signing when our David was 6 or 7 years old.  This year it will be 30 years since Dave Dravecky retired and our son will turn 30.  I don't see this card being replaced in the Frankenset.
It has already had a challenger, I found a Daniel Dae Kim signed card from Lost but it is card #8 and will not be going into the Frankenset.  
The Frankenset page has been updated.  

1 comment:

The Angels In Order said...

Eeech, I remember that footage of his arm breaking, very upsetting. Prob one of my favorite DK sets though.