The Secret Weapon Better than a Value Pack Edition
The Secret Weapon is one of those Cardinals that every citizen of Redbird Nation adores. This season he has been away from his Third Base Coaches box because of some health issues.
Jose was born in Puerto Rico in 1963 and signed with the Mets in 1979 when he was only 15! Eventually traded to the Cardinals he would spend all of 1985 at Triple A Louisville. When he did make it the bigs the Wizard had shortstop locked up they would play Jose at different positions with 1987 being the season he played every position except catcher see above. As a Result Whitey Herzog would give him the nickname “The Secret Weapon”.
In 1988 he would actually complete the process and play catcher for a game. In 1989 he become the Redbirds starting 2nd baseman with only 5 errors in 851 chances. An injury in 1992 put him out for most of the season. After which he became a utility player until his retirement in 1996 when he failed to make the Birds roster out of Spring Training. After coaching in the Redbirds Minor League system he became a bench coach in 1998 for their MLB team and then 3rd base Coach.
St. Louis natives and Redbird Nation citizens the Sklar brothers had a one-hour comical special on ESPN where they went to the Baseball Hall of Fame to lobby for Jose to enter the hall. They collected signatures and gave a presentation to the HOF committee at the end of which a utility closet in the HOF was given his name. Here is the 5th part of the special when he gets his utility closet
Recently one of my favorite Ebay sellers had a lot of 31 al different Jose Oquendo up for bid for $3.76 w/$3.25 shipping. Unsurprisingly, I was the only bidder. Why would I spend $7.01 for this lot?
See the left hand corner card? Yep, that is a 2004 Topps Fan Favorites Auto. Score!
Well worth the price of the lot, sure I added a few base cards-6 in total in addition to the auto-to our collection. But adding to our Archives Auto Collection for less than the price of a value pack is always good.
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