Baseball card story from Rico Petrocelli

Rico Petrocelli was one of the first power-hitting shortstops. His 40 home runs in 1969 were an AL shortstop record for three decades. A two-time All-Star, he hit .251 with 210 HR and 773 RBI in his 13-year major league career. Now the owner of Petrocelli Marketing Group, which sells over 650,000 promotional items, he kindly shared this baseball card story.

"I don’t have any stories about mine or other players’ baseball cards but I do have a story about the photographer who took our photos in NY for the cards.

He was a jittery guy and every time he would take a photo of one of the players around the batting cage someone would goose him. He must have jumped five feet off the ground every time we did it. He cursed us but he had to take the photos of everyone before we left NY so he had to stay near the cage. The way he got back at us was to take a photo when we weren’t looking at him and would submit the worst photos of us he could take. Picking noses, scratching our crotch or rear end, making faces. He hated the next time we came in to NY. I don’t recall his name but we had a great time driving him crazy."

Thanks!