Baseball card stories from Bob Tufts

Bob Tufts pitched seven years of professional baseball, including three years in the majors with the Giants and Royals. After his baseball career he was a Vice President at the investment bank Jefferies & Co. and now teaches at Manhattanville College's sports management program. He kindly took the time to reply to my inquiry about his baseball card experiences.

"I was only on one card - a Giants future stars card (below) along with Chili Davis and Bob Brenly. So it is by default my favorite card. I don't have any memory of people putting on the wrong glove or writing an obscenity on the bat etc. - we were milder in the late 70's/early 80's.

One of my favorite cards is the Cal Ripken Orioles future stars card. One of the players was Bob Bonner, who became a Christian missionary in Zambia. He was a shortstop - what if he had played better and forced Ripken to third base in 1982?

The minor league cards were interesting. In Shreveport, they took pictures and made buttons as opposed to cards. I didn't like it, but it probably made it easier to identify stalker fans wearing your picture on their clothing.

There were some cards done by a collector in Phoenix when I played AAA ball in 1980 and 1981 and in Omaha in 1982. In 1980 I wore my minor league silver glove award glove when they took the picture, which gave it an odd green glow.

There were also the jewishmajorleaguers.org card series cards which used a far skinnier and far hairier version of yours truly than currently exists.

I collected cards as a kid, but do not indulge in the habit now."

Thanks! Some readers may remember that Bonner said something similar about his own card here.