2014 Playoffs: Royals Tom Gordon Rated Rookie 1989 Donruss #45

The World Series starts Tonight in Kansas City. During the series we have scheduled a couple of team related postings for the Royals and Giants. Tonight we open with a great Royals card from the past -  Tom "Flash" Gordon

1989 Donruss #45 Tom Gordon Rated Rookie

How great of card is this. The Royals Blue, the great big smile on young Tom Gordon, The Rated Rookie Logo. For me the icing is Gordon's uniform number '36' on the cap.

Tom Gordon spent the first eight years of his career as a Royal, the bulk of that was as a swing man.  He did have 16 starts and an impressive 17 wins (combined starts and relief). It was good enough to place Gordon 2nd in the 1989 Rookie of the year voting behind Gregg Olson (27 Saves, 1.69 ERA)

He didn't become a closer until age 30 (in 1998) when he took over the role for the first time as a member of the Red Sox. He led the league with 46 saves and made his first of 3 all-star teams.

Phillies fans remember Gordon for his three seasons he spent with the club near the end of his career. In 2006 he closed out 34 games for the Phils and made his final all-star team. Gordon was a member of the 2008 World Champion Phillies, but did not pitch after July 5th and was not involved in the postseason. He was part of the 2007 NLDS squad and did get involved in two games versus the Rockies.

1989 Donruss Rated Rookies
Rated Rookies is a 20 card subset of 1989 Donruss that runs from #28-47. Thirteen of the 20 cards are considered Rookie Cards including Tom Gordon above. The most significant RCs of the Rated Rookies are Ken Griffey Jr (#33), Randy Johnson(#42), and Gary Sheffield(#31). Ron Jones (#40) is the Phillies rep in the Rated Rookie 20, The subset also includes 1993 team member David West and Free Agent bust Greg Jeffries.  

2015 Hall of Fame Candidate
Yes Flash is on the 2015 HoF Ballot and as part of our candidates series I will check my Tom Gordon vote as a YES. Some folks may question this vote as Gordon was a good player with a long career, but they haven't factored in my affection for the Steven King Novella "The Girl Who Love Tom Gordon". For his tenure with the Phillies and for being named in a Steven King title Tom Gordon gets one HoF vote from Team Phungo 

#WS2014
Royals in 7. I don't feel either team is great, but I am hoping for a great series.

Sources & Links
2014 Playoff Cards 

2014 HoF Candidates

Baseball Cardpedia
baseball-ref

Swag from Night Owl Cards - 2014 Topps #296 Domonic Brown

Team Phungo took a mini staycation during the early part of this week, unfortunately we had to return to the real world and all of it's concerns yesterday. The stress of the first workaday under the early AM of DST was mitigated a bit by fun card package from Greg over at Night Owl Cards that I received upon arriving home.

2014 Topps Red #296 Domonic Brown

Dom Brown is the Phillies only young star. Ok, "star" may be a bit generous. Browns first couple of season have been mixed. There was a couple of weeks early in 2013 when Dom hit the cover off the ball, Phils fans like myself are hopeful that this is a glimpse into who Domonic Brown will be in the future.

2014

Brown is having a lousy spring. He his hitting .107 through his first 28 ABs, before hitting a triple on Wednesday he was yet to collect and extra base hit. I am hoping for much bigger things from Domonic in the regular season. His 27 dingers in 2013 led the team, although the bulk of those came during the aforementioned 12 home run outburst in May. If Brown can come up with similar power and reach base a tad more that would make me happy. Dom can also be a bit comical in the field this shows up in his dWAR number which is a negative, Brown is young enough that hopefully he can turn this around as well.

 More Swag

2013 Topps Opening Day #M-2 Phillie Phanatic
2013 Allen & Ginter's mini #247 Ryan Howard

Another Phils player that the Phanatic has high hopes for is Ryan Howard, who we talked about last week in our Phillies 2014+ feature. Here we have a nice 2013 A&G mini of Mr Howard. For whatever reason there seems to be a lot of cards of Howard in the field, which is a bit of a mystery as he is often a liability with the glove.

2002 Donruss Originals #233 Rated Rookie Anderson Machado

Nice retro card from somebody other than Topps here. Machado never held on at the major league level. He has been kicking around the minors and according to Baseball-ref was last spotted in the Italian League.

1992 Sargento Mootown Snackers #16 Terry Mulholland

Definitely one for the Phungo type collection here. Never saw any cards from this issue. Also one of my player collections is dedicated Mulholland, at some point I will get organized enough to post some checkers for those palyers.

Even More Swag

A nice mix of Inseerts, Oddballs, Stars, and Rememember Me cards. Thanks to NOC for all the Phils cards and the nice variety.