Another former batboy - Jim Lefebvre

The Dodgers must have had some farm system among their batboy ranks. Not only was Steve Garvey a batboy, but GCRL informs me that Jim Lefebvre was a batboy as well!

The 1965 Rookie of the Year made his big league debut just six years after being a batboy for the Dodgers.

Something else he has in common with Steve Garvey: acting. IMDB lists eleven acting roles between 1967 and 1990, including Batman, Gilligan's Island, and Knight Rider.

Steve Garvey

I've learned a lot recently about Steve Garvey from writing this blog. Yesterday I wondered if any former major leaguers had been batboys. Rod from Padrographs pointed out that Garvey had been a batboy for the LA Dodgers. In fact, he even wrote a book called My Bat Boy Days!

That's the second time in a month a commenter had an interesting tidbit about Garvey. Last month, GCRL (who in part named his blog after Garvey) wrote about some great habits Garvey has that players today could certainly learn from: "Garvey would often bunt for a hit to try to break out of a slump. He also had some sort of regimen for hitting the ball to the opposite field."

As a fan who started following baseball in 1986, I didn't realize how big a star Garvey was. In my experience he was a faded veteran on the Padres who only made the news for paternity suits (which embarrassed the people who named a junior high school after him). Kind of obscured his status as one of the biggest stars of the late 1970s.

What other trivia did I not know about him besides having been a batboy?

He now works as a greeter for LA Dodgers VIP season ticket holders. Some retirees become greeters at WalMart - he's got basically the same job with the Dodgers.

He acted on a bunch of TV shows and movies in the mid-nineties. His first credit is as "Dr. Corey" in a 1993 episode of Baywatch.

His daughter Whitney's godfather is Bryant Gumbel.

His son Ryan is a top high school baseball prospect.

He lines up his colognes by the amount unused.

Passing on the skills

Here is a cool 1994 Collectors Choice card of Wilson Alvarez demonstrating his pitching grip to an awkward-looking teenager in a White Sox jersey.

Is he the batboy? I guess the bat and ball boys would have an opportunity for a lot of free big league baseball instruction. However, as far as I know no former batboy has ever made the major leagues.

A bit of revenge

The 1987 Astros get a bit of revenge on the Mets on the 1988 Donruss card of the late Dave Smith. The game is July 26, 1987, and Smith has come on with two outs in the bottom of the eighth in a tie game, replacing Dave Meads, who has just given up a base hit to Darryl Strawberry to load the bases. Smith is facing Kevin McReynolds, and the at-bat doesn't go well for Smith - he walks in the go-ahead run!

However, the Astros bailed out Smith in the top of the ninth, tying the game on a Gerald Young single, then blowing it open with a three-run home run by Billy Hatcher off of Mets closer Jesse Orosco. Smith then pitched a scoreless ninth to get the win, his second of the season.

Meanwhile, two hundred miles upstate, it is Hall of Fame Day, as Catfish Hunter, Billy Williams and Ray Dandridge are inducted into Cooperstown. No Hall-of-Famers participated in this game, however, though Nolan Ryan and Gary Carter were both presumably at the game.

Wall things sent

Well, I sent across the wall things from the previous post. I'll let you know if they get used in the future.
By the way yesterday I forgot the best baseball card of them all - F*** FACE!

Send me wall things!

Are any of you familiar with Viral Video Film School? It is a pretty funny weekly short featuring clips from funny internet videos revolving around a specific theme, like "pranks" or "winter". It can be found online on its own site as well as youtube, hulu, etc. It is also part of a TV show called InfoMania, which is kind of a high-brow combination of The Soup and Tosh.0, which runs on an obscure cable channel called Current.

What does this have to do with baseball cards? The host of the "film school," Brett Erlich, does each piece in front of a wall covered with weird and funny pictures sent to him by viewers. At the end of each "lesson", he tells viewers to "Send me wall things!" I thought it would be cool to send him some of the best baseball card images and see if he puts up any. Below are some that I think are good - let me know what other cards you think would be good to send!

The quest for 28 begins!

When Joe Girardi first joined the Yankees in 1996, number 28 belonged to hurler Scott Kamieniecki. Now Girardi is wearing that number as he tried to bring the Yankees their 28th world championship. That quest begins tonight in Boston.

Of course, it being April, the Red Sox might well win, as this is their time of the year. The fall, usually belongs to the Yankees. Hopefully, this year as well. Go Yanks!

And to all you readers, good luck to your team this year as well!

A slide so nice they showed it twice

Donruss and Topps photographers must have been jostling for position to get this popup slide by Jack Clark on July 30, 1991. The pictures appeared in both the Donruss base set and the Topps Stadium Club set for 1992.

The action occurred in Boston's ten-run third inning, in a game they won 11-6. The Red Sox had just chased former BoSox hurler Oil Can Boyd from the game with a Carlos Quintana grand slam followed up by base hits by Clark and Ellis Burks, and were now going to work on reliever Wayne Rosenthal. Tom Brunansky was the first batter Rosenthal faced, and his single brought Clark to third on the play seen on these cards. Quintana would end up getting six RBI in the inning, and Clark actually made the final out.

It was not all good news for the Red Sox, though. Pitcher Jeff Gray was taken to the hospital before the game after what was thought to be a seizure after the team's morning workout. The seizure turned out to be a stroke, one that ended his career.

Predictions: NL West

1. Giants - the NL West has quietly become a pretty strong division. The Giants, with two young aces (Lincecum and Cain) and other exciting players like Sandoval and Posey, are my pick to take the division.

2. Dodgers - still a good team, but any team that starts Vicente Padilla on opening day just doesn't have the starting pitching to overcome the Giants.

3. Rockies - I keep going back and forth on the Rockies and Dodgers, but the Dodgers seem just a little bit better. Could win 90 games and finish third. Few teams make the playoffs two out of three years and have such a low profile nationally.

4. Diamondbacks - I thought they were a little bit disappointing last year. I wouldn't be surprised to see them finish over .500, but this division has suddenly gotten a lot more competitive.

5. Padres - Always sad when the biggest story going into the season is if your one star will get traded.

Predictions: NL Central

1. Cardinals: Two aces plus two premier hitters make the Cardinals the team to beat in the Central.

2. Brewers: They seem to be one front-line pitcher away. In 2008 they traded for one; can they do so again?

3. Reds: They have a lot of good young players, especially pitchers, so I keep thinking it's their year. I'm starting to think they may need a new manager to better realize their potential.

4. Cubs: To tell the truth it's a little hard to get interested in the National League Central.

5. Astros: These teams at the bottom of the division are worse than bad: they're boring.

6. Pirates: A 25 year old baseball fan who started following the sport at age eight has never seen a Pirates team with a winning season.