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1981 Donruss George Riley (#588) - Card of the Day
Not sure if headlight baseball (or basketball or football or gardening or…) is a thing in the city or in the suburbs, but where I grew up deep in the corn country of Indiana, the nights can be really dark.
Luckily, the summer days are also really long, which gives kids plenty of time to dig in the dirt, solve mysteries, ride bikes, maybe do a few outdoor chores, play baseball.
At least, that’s how my group of friends spent our summer days, maybe peppered with a few games of Asteroids or Combat on the Atari while washing down some bologna sandwiches with grape pop.
Otherwise, we were on a quest to stay outside as long as possible and get as dirty as possible until the sun went down.
Sometimes, though, we ran out of daylight before we ran out of energy, or before our 40-inning game was done. And sometimes, dad would come home from a long day on the road and decide he had something left, too.
Those were the nights we’d pull the Rambler or the old Dodge pickup into the side yard and turn on the “stadium lights,” aka the headlights. The radio provided a bonus soundtrack.
The memories of those late summer nights “under” the lights are some of the sweetest and most vivid of my life, but they’re ones that don’t come up very often.
Sometimes I catch a whiff on a warm July night breeze.
Sometimes I come home late at night in the summer and hear whispers of long-ago headlight games among the trees.
And sometimes, I run across the 1981 Donruss George Riley baseball card, and it always hits me hard, like it’s the first time I’ve seen it.
As baseball cards go, this isn’t a very good one. It’s strange, even.
I mean, there stands Riley in the dark, against what I figure is the Wrigley Field ivy, looking sort of like a guilty deer in the headlights. Is he hiding a pack of cigarettes from his parents in that glove?
Did he sneak into 1060 West Addison Street and got caught red-handed by Chicago Blue?
Or is his mom calling him in for a late dinner and he hopes she doesn’t see him out there in the cornfield ivy and force his hand?
Maybe he’s just trying to avoid that final Cubs hook from manager Joey Amalfitano. Because, by the time this card saw the light of day (rimshot!), Riley was with the White Sox. And in the minors.
Whatever the case, this is how summer nights are supposed to be.
Too late.
Up to no good.
Awash in baseball.
So say what you will about George Riley and his career record of 1-5 with a 4.97 ERA. He’s a hobby superstar in my book, and his masterpiece is more than worthy of serving as a bookmark in your favorite Henry Huggins tome.
In fact, they go together like summer nights and baseball.
1973 Topps Rick Reuschel (#482)
Those 1980 Chicago Cubs — you know, the team for whom Riley did his graveyard shifting — were pretty bad, finishing 64-98 and in last (sixth) place in the old National League East.
But at least they had a primetime Big Daddy, who managed just an 11-13 record with a 3.40 ERA, but who also started a major league high 38 games.
Reuschel was a sort of career-level hard-luck pitcher, toiling for some bad teams, but he had both a comeback for the ages and one of the most underrated Hall of Fame cases you’re likely to find on the bump.
I took on his Cooperstown case, at least a little bit, on the blog a while back. Here is that piece if you want to read it (or argue).
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I hope your Monday turns out to be an underrated gem of the week and that it does NOT stretch out into the wee small hours. It stinks trying to do taxes or shovel snow or prompt AIs by the Rambler headlights.
I’ll tell you what.
But if you happen to have a shot at some nighttime “have a catch,” well, sleep can wait. Heaven by the yellow glow of an old AMC cannot.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam