Today's 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge prompt is:
A card of a player who would go on to manage your favorite team.
The Reds have had a number of player-turned-managers. Lou Piniella may have been one of the best ex-player managers of the Reds (at least during my lifetime) but the player that immediately came to mind for me for today's prompt is none other than Cincinnati's own Peter Edward Rose.
Pete Rose is, by almost all accounts, a fairly terrible human being (at least morally). However, he was undeniably talented...and his scrappiness/toughness made him an instant favorite in a town like Cincinnati that prides itself on being a blue-collar, tough kind of place.
By the time Rose became manager of the Reds, Cincinnati was well past its heyday of the Big Red Machine. Instead, the 80s Reds were mostly a middling machine missing a few key cogs. They would, happily, put together one dominant wire-to-wire World Series winning team in 1990, but by then Rose was banned from baseball for his moral (betting) transgressions.
Perhaps most interesting about Rose and managing is the fact that Rose was a player and manager. Oh sure, his best playing days were well past him - but still, you don't see player/manager on a baseball card much these days (in fact, was Rose the last player manager in the game)?
Here are the rest of the 30-Day Baseball Card prompts:
A card of a player who would go on to manage your favorite team.
The Reds have had a number of player-turned-managers. Lou Piniella may have been one of the best ex-player managers of the Reds (at least during my lifetime) but the player that immediately came to mind for me for today's prompt is none other than Cincinnati's own Peter Edward Rose.
Pete Rose is, by almost all accounts, a fairly terrible human being (at least morally). However, he was undeniably talented...and his scrappiness/toughness made him an instant favorite in a town like Cincinnati that prides itself on being a blue-collar, tough kind of place.
By the time Rose became manager of the Reds, Cincinnati was well past its heyday of the Big Red Machine. Instead, the 80s Reds were mostly a middling machine missing a few key cogs. They would, happily, put together one dominant wire-to-wire World Series winning team in 1990, but by then Rose was banned from baseball for his moral (betting) transgressions.
Perhaps most interesting about Rose and managing is the fact that Rose was a player and manager. Oh sure, his best playing days were well past him - but still, you don't see player/manager on a baseball card much these days (in fact, was Rose the last player manager in the game)?
Here are the rest of the 30-Day Baseball Card prompts:
I really miss seeing MLB licensed Pete.
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