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1984 Topps USFL Fred Besana (#84) - Card of the Day
Right, so that’s not a baseball card up there. But that’s OK, for a couple of reasons.
First, that’s a USFL card, and those are pretty darn cool for children (or even adults) of the era.
Second, Fred Besana was a pretty darn good quarterback, originally selected in the fifth round of the 1977 draft by the Buffalo Bills. In the USFL, Besana was an early star, racking up the second-best QB rating behind Bobby Hebert in the league’s inaugural season (1983).
Besana also lined up behind center for the Oakland Invaders. Pretty cool in its own right.
“But what about baseball?” I can hear you crying out. “I want my baseball.”
Me too.
So here it is…
Fred Besana’s father was, well, Fred Besana.
And that Fred Besana was a pitcher who attended Sierra College and Cal State. By October of 1955, he was 25 years old and had been hurling for the then-unaffiliated Oakland Oaks for a bit.
That’s when the Baltimore Orioles came calling, grabbing Besana in what Baseball Reference said was “part of a minor league working agreement.”
The O’s were coming off a 57-97-2 season in 1955, and their pitching staff had posted a 4.21 ERA. There was lots of room — and willingness, apparently — to experiment.
And so it was that Fred Besana made his major league debut at the age of 26 on April 18, 1956. Manager Paul Richards plopped the rookie onto the mound in the seventh inning of an 8-4 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park.
Besana worked two scoreless frames, giving up two walks but no hits and striking out one.
The lefty found his way into six more games, including two starts, through May 13. His record stood at 1-0 but with a 5.60 ERA when the Orioles sent him to the minors.
Those numbers never changed.
Besana spent the rest of the season on the farm, then all of 1957 and 1958…and 1959. After being out of the game in 1960, he gave it one more shot in 1961 but never made it all the way back.
Besana also never appeared on a baseball card of his own, but he got to witness his son’s gridiron exploits. If he was paying close attention, Besana the Elder just may have encountered the Younger’s USFL card.
It would have been a fun birthday card for them to share every April 5 — baseball Fred Besana was born on this date in 1930.
Mr. Impossible Warming Up
Those 1956 Orioles were just about as bad (69-85) as they had been the year before, but they at least had some now-interesting names on the roster: Gus Triandos, George Kell, Dick Williams, Tito Francona, Billy Gardner, to name a few.
And in September, the O’s brought up 19-year-old Brooks Robinson for his second cup of coffee. He wasn’t quite ready for prime time but did log 45 plate appearances and hit his first home runs.
That was enough to land Robinson on his classic rookie card in the 1957 Topps set — he’d show up in wax packs for the next 21 years after that, too.
Unfortunately for collectors, everyone knew that 1977 was his last go-round, which gave Topps an excuse to skip making a regular card for him in 1978. They did give him a Record Breaker, though — you can read more about that one right here.
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And with that, I bid you a happy Friday and a splentastic weekend.
May all your plans go off without a hitch and all your hitters play like Eric Davis in April and May of 1987.
See you Monday, and thanks for reading.
—Adam