Day Eleven: Danny Tartabull

First of all, this is one of my very favorite baseball cards of all-time. I have been setting the image to show as a large picture on these posts pretty much, but for this Tartabull gold cup (second year card) Topps 87 I needed an extra large. What a dynamic card. 87 Topps is my favorite set of baseball cards (and therefore my favorite trading cards period) with the wood panel borders and the bloc letters. Throw the gold cup (which is just so fucking cool.) and the action shot of The 'Bull and the mid 80's diamond logo Mariners stuff. Pretty much my favorite Mariners card. I am pretty sure I still have a copy somewhere. Anyways, what about Danny Tartabull. Well, there is actually a lot to say about the man himself.

Danny Tartabull is the first baseball player I committed to memory. Pretty wild to think about that all these years (and thousands of misspent hours) later. But it was The 'Bull that first created space in my four year old brain. We had probably gone to games in 85, but my first memories of the Kingdome and the Mariners come in 86. I have vivid memories of going to a California Angels game and peeing my pants because they were Oshkosh overalls and I didn't know how to take them off. But I remember seeing The 'Bull bat and my dad saying to his friend Doug who was at the game with us, "This guy is really good." And I put that in my four year old peepants brain. Danny Tartabull is "really good." And it was true. Danny Tartabull was really good. That year he probably could have won the ROY if not for Canseco and Joyner (Wow, couple of steroid heroes right there). He had amazing numbers that year. I wasn't cognizant of any of that (I couldn't get hooks off overalls, but then again, I'm not sure I'd be able to do that now) as a four year old kid, but I knew that Tartabull was the best player on the 86 Mariners. And that was the only year he played for them. He was a high strikeout guy before people expected that, so I feel like there might have been some of that bias, and his glove was never great over the course of his career. He was one of those guys that you find a spot on the diamond for him so that he can give you his 25-30 homers (that was a lot lot back then). Anyways, the 'Ners dealt Tartabull to the Royals for Ken Phelps. Not a great trade. In fact, quite a bad trade really. An ugly blemish on an already withered and putrid history of trades that is a list of sorrows and failures from 77 to 20, BUT! and this is a caps but. It is much easier to swallow the Tartabull trade because Tartabull becomes Ken Phelps, and as any Seinfeld fan knows: Ken Phelps becomes Jay Buhner. And thirty years later I can totally deal with that. And speaking of Seinfeld.

Tartabull is the best baseball actor on Seinfeld. In fact, I am pretty sure he is the only player with more than a bit role. He weathers the storm with road raging George and then can't shake hands with a fan because that fan has a middlefinger cast (which George thought was an obscene gesture). Goddamn that is a great episode and Tartabull really plays it great. I enjoy thinking about Danny Tartabull's career. He played great baseball for a lot of years. He is one of those guys who was never a superstar but was always right there. A really nice career. I like guys like that. Here's to Danny Tartabull, George Costanza, and not peeing my pants at a California Angels game this year!

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