Andres Santana and the Quest for One Card Per Game

He did his best to join the club

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1990 Bowman Andres Santana (#230) - Card of the Day

This card is pretty amazing, both because it exists and because it has multiple siblings.

See …

The Giants signed Andres Santana as an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 1985 when he was 17 years old. He was just a scrawny kid, but he had talent on the diamond.

Over the next four summers, Santana honed his game in the San Francisco minor league system and grew into…well, a scrawny kid.

But after just 18 games at Single-A in 1989, Topps was on the lookout for a path to remake their revived Bowman brand. And what better way to do that than to issue rookie cards of any player who was even within shouting distance of the majors?

Since the San Jose Giants played in (duh) San Jose, and since those 18 games in 1989 came with the SJG, and since San Jose is shouting-ish distance from San Fran, well…

Topps called it good enough. So Santana got his rookie card.

And then, after 92 games with the Double-A Shreveport Captains in the summer of 1990, Santana also got a call-up to the big league Giants.

On September 16, manager Roger Craig brought him in as a pinch runner in the bottom of the ninth of a loss to the Astros.

Santana would pinch run four more times through September 29 without ever coming to bat, without ever stealing a base, without ever scoring a run.

And then, on October 3, Santana started at shortstop in the Giants’ last game of the season. He went 0-2 before being lifted for Robby Thompson.

Santana did drive home Mike Laga by grounding out with two on against Charlie Leibrandt in the bottom of the second inning, though.

Turns out, that was Santana’s only big league RBI.

In fact, that game was the end of Santana’s career in MLB, but he’d have (at least) four more big league baseball cards in 1991 thanks to Topps (Major League Debut), Score, Upper Deck, and Fleer (Ultra).

A pretty good Triple-A season in 1991, followed by a shoulder injury, got Santana traded to the Marlins in the 1992-93 offseason. He finished up with 61 games for the Edmonton Trappers in 1993 before really finishing up with 18 games in the Chinese Professional Baseball League in 1994.

In the end, Santana had more baseball cards than hits or even at-bats in the majors, which gives him something in common with the immortal Herb Washington.

We should celebrate all that, especially today as Andres Santana turns 56 years old. Happy birthday!

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1990 Bowman Wax Case - Wow!

Sure, you could beat the bushes (or eBay listings) to find a single Santana card to fill in your wantlist of players with fewer at-bats than games played.

Or you could take the 1980s and 1990s more-is-better hobby approach and buy this full wax case of 1990 Bowman cards (as usual, not my listing).

This monster has 24 boxes of 36 packs, each with 14 cards — that’s 12,096 cards in total. With a 528-card checklist, this case should yield 22-23 complete sets, and 22-23 Santana cards.

Of course, given the collation practices of the time, that could range from zero to a couple thousand.

Either way, this case is old-school fun at its best, including the 864 slabs of Topps bubble gum that come along for the ride.

Check out the full listing on eBay (affiliate link).

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OK, that’s all for this Monday, but let me leave you with a simple, maybe silly question…

Do you still collect baseball cards?

Interpret “collect” however you want — buy, trade, think about, sort, arrange, have, etc.

Feel free to expound in the comments if you feel so moved.

Thanks for reading — and today, for voting.

—Adam