Mike Roesler's Smile Saw the Reds' Future
But then, who WASN'T stoked to have Tommy helms at the, uh, helm?
1990 Topps Mike Roesler (#203) - Card of the Day
Take a look at Mike Roesler’s 1990 Topps rookie card (above), and you’ll see a guy who looks just about as happy to be breaking in with a team headed toward a World Series title as you might expect.
Except…everything is not always what it appears to be.
In the case of that Roesler card up there, of course, the picture was probably taken sometime in 1989. The right-hander made his big league debut on August 9 that year, after spending five summers in Cincinnati’s minor league system.
By then, the Reds were already circling the drain, but not quite as quickly as manager Pete Rose was. Fifteen days after Roesler gave up two runs in three innings of relief against the Giants, Charlie Hustle was banned from baseball.
By then, Roesler had made five more appearances and sported a sparkling 5.91 ERA.
Interim manager Tommy Helms kept going to the rookie well after Rose departed, though. By the end of the season, Roesler had pitched 25 innings across 17 relief appearances, and he managed to lower that ERA to 3.96 along the way.
Not a bad start, but then Roesler turned 26 years old in the middle of that run — ancient by rookie standards. The problem was that Roesler took his time climbing the Reds’ minor league ladder at a time when the big league team was regularly competing for a division title.
Originally drafted out of Ball State in the 17th round in 1985, Roesler knocked off roughly one level of minor league ball per summer on his way to Riverfront.
With new manager Lou Piniella on board and the Reds trying to right the Machine and lay rubber between them and Rose’s burnt legacy as fast as possible, Roesler’s rookie efforts turned out to be too little too late.
On April 3, less than a week before Opening Day, Cincy flipped Roesler and infielder Jeff Richardson to the Pirates in exchange for Billy Hatcher.
You might remember Hatcher as the guy who held down a corner outfield spot on a more or less full-time basis for the Reds in 1990…and then hit .333 with a home run in the NLCS against his former team (yeah, Pittsburgh).
And then hit .750 in the World Series against the A’s.
Roesler, meanwhile, started the new season with the Pirates but was back in the minors after a couple of weeks. He stayed there the rest of the season…and in 1991, splitting time between the Pirates and Royals organizations…and in 1992 (Royals).
So maybe Roesler’s big grin on that red Reds rookie card doesn’t mean what it might appear to mean at first glance. But in the end, the man really did play a big part in Cincinnati’s only Fall Classic appearance since before Jimmy Carter faced off with Chevy Chase Gerald Ford on a cold Tuesday in November.
That’s more than reason enough to celebrate Mike Roesler today, his 61st birthday.
A Smile That Carried More Weight
Hatcher’s NLCS home run came off Pirates starter Zane Smith in the top of the second inning of Game 3 with catcher Joe Oliver on first base and two outs.
The Reds won that game 6-3 and took the series in six games leaving millions (maybe billions!) of Cincy fans grinning all winter long.
Like Roesler, a smiling Oliver appeared on a red Reds 1990 Topps rookie card, but there’s a fun twist to this one. Read all about it right here.
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That’s it for this Friday edition of Reds Homer Central. Hey, you sign up for the babblings of an old guy who lived through the 1983 and 1984 Cincinnati teams and lived to root another day, this is what you get on occasion.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
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