Player Profile: Greg Aquino

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I have two cards of Greg Aquino. This one is from 2005 Fleer.

Profile: Greg Aquino was the Diamondbacks closer as a rookie in 2004, with 16 saves and a 3.06 ERA. Injuries limited his effectiveness after that, however, and over the next five years he saved just one game while pitching to a 5.97 ERA for Arizona, Milwaukee, Baltimore and Cleveland.

Where he is now: In 2011 he pitched at Monterrey and Oaxaca in the Mexican League, going 1-0 with 3 saves and a 2.35 ERA in 16 games.

My memories: I wasn’t collecting many new baseball cards in the mid-2000’s, but they were giving out free packs of cards in front of Grand Central Station before Opening Day in 2005, and I got a pack of Fleer, and Aquino was in it, which is where I first heard of him. For a couple of years you could get free cards on Opening Day by both Grand Central and Penn Stations, but they stopped doing that several years ago.

Google Autocomplete results: He is first when you type Greg Aq. In fact the first nine entries that come under Greg Aq refer to the ballplayer. The last one is Greg Aquent, referring to Greg Savage, International CEO of a staffing agency called Aquent. There do not appear to be any other prominent Greg Aquinos.

Coming up next: The next profile will be Luis Aquino.