When Omar Met Davey...Coming and Going
It's a rough road from Junk Wax to Cooperstown
1989 Fleer Dave Concepcion (#156) - Card of the Day
A few years ago, it looked for all the world like Omar Vizquel was marching toward Hall of Fame enshrinement. After playing in the big leagues for 24 seasons — until he was 45! — and accumulating nearly 2900 hits and eleven Gold Gloves at shortstop, Vizquel garnered 37% of the writers’ vote in 2018. By 2020, that had grown to 52.6% and the ground was swelling behind him.
But then, as the world sank into a pandemic, some unsavory stories about Vizquel broke (look them up at your own peril), and his HOF support plummeted. In 2024, his seventh year on the ballot, he managed a measly 17.7%. With three years left on the ticket, it’s now more likely he falls off completely than punches his Hall ticket.
Vizquel wasn’t the first longstanding standout at short who struggled with the Hall of Fame ballot, though.
According to Baseball Reference’s Similarity Scores, Cincinnati Reds legend Davey Concepcion is the fifth most similar batter to Vizquel. Like Little O, Concepcion played seemingly forever (19 years) and into his forties (40). Davey was also stellar with the leather, winning five Gold Gloves.
He likely would have won more if he hadn’t run headfirst into the prime years of a lad named Ozzie Smith.
Most importantly for the Reds, they plugged Concepcion in as their shortstop in 1970 and left him running more or less uninterrupted until Barry Larkin took over in 1986. In between, the Big Red Machine came and went, and Pete Rose went and came. Concepcion was the bridge between the budding dynasty of the early 1970s and the exciting Riverfront Resurrection in the mid-1980s that eventually led to a World Series title in 1990.
Davey was gone by then, retiring in 1988 with 2326 hits, two Silver Slugger awards, nine All-Star appearances, and an All-Star Game MVP award (1982) under his belt.
Unlike many retiring superstars of the era, Concepcion actually appeared on three career-capper cards in 1989, including pasteboards from newcomers Score and Upper Deck.
But Fleer was the only “old-school” card company to send Concepcion out with a full slate of stats:
As it turned out, all of Concepcion’s accomplishments were enough to keep him on the Hall of Fame ballot for his full 15 years of eligibility, but not enough to help him top even 17% of the vote in any one year. He’s also fallen short in two subsequent Veterans Committee ballots.
Within a couple of years, Vizquel will join Concepcion in that Cooperstown nether region, forever outside the writers’ ballot and waiting for their next shot at the Veterans.
Want one more Davey/Omar parallel? Try this hobby-shaped bond on for size…
Vizquel’s first major league cards came late in 1989, after his debut season with the Mariners. Among those were cards in 1989 Topps Traded, 1989 Score Traded, 1989 Baseball’s Best and The Rookies, and 1989 Upper Deck Hi Series.
Oh, and 1989 Fleer Update (#U-62), with those thick gray bands and a smallish photo of a shortstop in a batting stance:
Looks sorta familiar, huh?
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Merry Christmas and happy collecting! May the hobby elves fill your stockings with 1982 Kmart cards…or whatever baubles are on your wantlist.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam