Jeff Tackett, 1994 Topps #664

Safe or out? Let's go to Baseball Reference.

Angels at Orioles, 1993 season, Jeff Tackett catching, Tim Salmon running. Jeff went and made things easy for us by only appearing in one home game vs. the Halos in 1993: April 17, a Saturday afternoon game. Arthur Rhodes started, and bombed out in the fourth inning after putting the O's in a 5-0 hole. The Baltimore batters got all five runs back in the fourth against Chuck Finley, with Leo Gomez providing a three-run homer. But Brad Pennington did his Brad Pennington thing in the eighth, giving up a walk and a J. T. Snow triple to put the Angels on top to stay. In the ninth, the scene pictured on this card unfolded. Chad Curtis walked and stole his third and fourth bases of the game, and Salmon walked as well. Gomez threw away a Gary Gaetti grounder for the seventh California run, but then Rene Gonzales tapped a ball back to pitcher Todd Frohwirth. Frohwirth fired the ball home to nail Salmon and keep it a two-run game, but Angels closer Joe Grahe retired the heart of the Birds' order 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth and the Orioles lost 7-5.

The TL;DR version: he was out.

Jeff Tackett, 1993 Fleer Ultra #147

Hi there! Sorry for the unexplained absence yesterday. I had a few friends over to watch the Royal Rumble, my favorite WWE pay-per-view of the year. I spent the afternoon cleaning and the evening hosting, and never did find the time to squeeze in a bit of writing. These things happen.

Meanwhile, back in 1993, the baseball card industry's all-time favorite Oriole backup catcher had his likeness printed on another attention-grabbing card. (If you don't know what I mean, click the 'jeff tackett' tag at the bottom of this post to see some of the other noteworthy cards of Tackett's ouvre.) I know that a few catchers in the 1970s and 1980s were known for eschewing the customary regular batting helmet turned backwards as part of their defensive gear, and instead opted for a helmet with the visor completely missing. But these tended to be smooth and streamlined, kind of like a hard skull cap. The visorless helmet Jeff Tackett is wearing on his '93 Ultra card is more contoured than the batting helmets of his era, making it look more like the hockey goalie-style masks that started popping up in baseball later in the 1990s. But the longer that I look at this photo, the more it seems that the contours on Jeff's lid are tricks of the shadows and the straps that connect the helmet to the face cage. I don't often toot my own horn, but this is probably the most time (and words) that anyone has ever spent on examining Jeff Tackett's catcher's gear.

Jeff Tackett, 1993 Topps #6

For a backup catcher with a career batting line of .217/.300/.336 and 136 total games played, Jeff Tackett had some truly righteous cards. This 1993 Topps card, which holds a position of honor on the first binder page of the set (nestled snugly next to Tony Gwynn, no less), was my first exposure to Chris Hoiles' water carrier. Jeff gets the unique designation of being the first Oriole featured in the first card set that I collected as a kid, which was somehow 20 years ago. As vivid a story as this photo tells, with the catcher taking a moment to sullenly contemplate what seems to be a run-scoring play at the plate, it's not even the most visually compelling of his cards. You can see an art gallery's worth of Tackett action shots and portraits in my archives.

This card serves as a not-so-sneaky segue to the official launch of my 1993 Topps set blog. I've been kicking the idea around for months, but I wasn't about to toss another chainsaw into the fire until I'd wrapped up my 1965 Topps blog, which I finally got around to doing last weekend. I'm really excited to jump into this, since the set and its players hold a personal nostalgia for me that the truly vintage sets don't. There will be pithy remarks, a few less-known facts about each player, recollections of my childhood, historical and pop culture facts from '93, and a bit of wit and wisdom borrowed from Bill James. Be sure to bookmark the blog now, share it with the people you love, and get to reading! I've already posted an introduction of sorts, as well as the first card of the set. One down, 824 to go!

...Of course, there were six extra players who appeared only in the Gold parallel set, replacing the checklist cards. So that's 830 to go. Oh, and I can't forget the 132-card Traded set. So that takes us to 962 posts left to write. I wonder if I should do the 44 BlackGold inserts....

What have I started?

Jeff Tackett, 1993 Topps Gold #6

Plain and simple, I dig this card. I've always felt that it was a pretty unique action shot, with Jeff Tackett flipping the ball up in the air after a play at the plate. It just hovers there as Jeff wears an expression of slack-jawed disappointment. There appears to be a player or coach (Royals?) applauding in the visitors' dugout in the background. There's a lot going on here.

Jeff Tackett, 1993 Stadium Club #186

There are a lot of things that I would do if I were independently wealthy and had all of the free time in the world. For one, I would play a lot more Strat-O-Matic baseball.

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a fair chance that you know what I’m talking about. For the uninitiated, S-O-M is the most popular and enduring tabletop baseball game. Founded in 1961, the game is played using cards and dice. Each player in the major leagues has his own card featuring three numbered columns, each with 11 numbered results (walk, single, groundout, etc.). The outcomes are based on that player’s actual performance in the corresponding season; if you’re playing with cards from 1993, Chris Hoiles is going to have more hits on his card than Jeff Tackett. You roll a white die and two red dice to determine the outcome of the at-bat. The white die corresponds to the column (1-3 are on the batter card and 4-6 on the pitcher card), and the red dice correspond to the results in that column. Occasionally there will be two or more potential outcomes for that line: .i.e. HOME RUN 1-2/DOUBLE 3-20. That’s where the 20-sided die comes into play and plunges the game even further into geekdom. There are also at-bats that are dependent on the ability of the defensive players, and these (as well as stolen bases, hit-and-runs, bunts, etc.) are at the mercy of charts, and…I’m in too deep. I swear this isn’t as complicated as I’m making it sound, particularly if you play the basic version of the game rather than the advanced and super-advanced (!) versions.

To get back on track, let me tell you about how I discovered Strat-O-Matic. When I was a brand-new baseball fan back in the day (1993-1994), I used to see ads for the game in Baseball Digest, but I didn’t have the foggiest idea of how the game was played. One day we took a family shopping trip to the outlets in Perryville, MD and lo and behold, the Toy Liquidators had the full Strat-O-Matic game significantly marked down. It came in a box that may have been designed in the early-to-mid 1980s, judging from the full-color photos of players in polyester pullover jerseys with the team logos airbrushed out (that’s how unlicensed products did it back in the day, Upper Deck). I bought it without hesitation, and tore open the box in the back seat of the car on the ride home. I contented myself with separating the player cards from their perforated sheets, absorbing all of the names and numbers. Practically every player who took the field in an MLB game during the 1993 season was there; each team had a roster that ran 27 to 30 deep, and there were even two separate cards for each of a handful of players who changed clubs in midseason.

I played a handful of games solitaire-style, and had a good deal of fun determining batting orders and changing pitchers and inserting pinch hitters, and visualizing the simulated game that was unfolding with each roll of the dice. In my mind, there was something authentic and true about the way the game played when compared to the flashier, motor-skills-driven video games that threatened to replace it. But I never really attempted to play with the few friends I had (none of whom were as baseball-and-stats-mad as I was), and lost interest before long.

I still have my Strat-O-Matic game set, including the 1993 player cards and the 1995 player cards that I ordered by mail at a later date. A few years ago I brought the game out on a whim and decided to play out the entire 1993 season for all 28 teams...no, I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time. Why do you ask? Anyhow, I got very gung-ho about it. Mocked up a scoresheet in Excel and began with Opening Day, using the schedules that were available on baseball-reference.com. I played out the games one-by-one, again managing both squads and keeping score. I actually made it through a couple days of the season (in a few weeks of real time) before getting sidetracked and letting the project fall by the wayside. I still have the box scores sitting on my hard drive, and I occasionally wonder how the season would have unfolded. Would the Blue Jays, White Sox, Phillies, Giants, and Braves again be the cream of the crop? Could the streaky Orioles stay in the pennant race with a little more consistency? Might Ken Griffey, Jr. or Frank Thomas make a run at 61 home runs? This inquiring mind still wants to know. I’ve even toyed with the idea of resuming the arrested season and posting game recaps to a new blog, complete with scans of era-appropriate cards of the noteworthy players. Of course, this is a pipe dream at present, as long as I have two blogs and a website to maintain. Then there’s the pesky demands of day-to-day life, what with a full-time job and several hours of sleep and family and friends all requiring considerable pieces of the 24-hour pie.

But who knows? Maybe someday I’ll carve out an hour or two a day for those paper stand-ins of my childhood heroes. Haven’t you always wanted to hear a lottery winner say that he intends to celebrate his fortune by quitting his job and playing tabletop baseball?

Jeff Tackett, 1994 Score #136

I'm bored. Let's do a little photo sleuthing.

To start, let's confirm that this picture was snapped during the 1993 season. That's the Orioles' 1993 All-Star Game patch on Jeff Tackett's left sleeve, so we're good to go there. The pinstripes and blue uniform number outlined in gold indicate that the opposing catcher is a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. (You might have also spotted the Brewers logo on his shin guard.) In 1993, Tom Lampkin wore #22 for the Brew Crew, and he was indeed a catcher.

Both of these guys were reserve players, so hopefully it won't be hard to pinpoint the game in question. Checking Lampkin's 1993 Batting Gamelog on Baseball-Reference.com, we see that he played only two games at home against the Orioles - June 14 and June 16. Looking over both box scores, we'll see that Tackett played in only the June 16 game...and it was not pretty. While Jeff singled and walked in three at-bats while giving starter Chris Hoiles a breather, the O's were pounded to the tune of 7-2. Starter Mike Mussina earned just his third loss of the season by giving up all seven runs in six and two-thirds innings.

So, can we determine the result of this play? Consulting the play-by-play, we're looking at the top of the fifth. The O's are trailing 3-0 when they mount a rally against Milwaukee starter Jaime Navarro. They load the bases with three walks, and Brady Anderson follows with a line-drive double to right field to score a pair. The runner on first, Tackett, winds up at third. But the rally ends there. Mark McLemore hits a grounder to first, and the O's catcher inexplicably breaks for home. First baseman John Jaha cuts him down at the plate for the fielder's choice. Cal Ripken, Jr. follows with a double play grounder to third, and Baltimore fails to score another run in the game.

The next time I do one of these, I've got to make sure that the Orioles actually won the game.

Jeff Tackett, 1995 Stadium Club #168

Jeff Tackett, mid-1990s backup catcher du jour, was also the go-to guy for politically themed movies during that era. It may be a surprise to newer baseball fans, but Baltimore was once the place to be for the President of the United States on Opening Day. After the Senators left for Texas following the 1971 season, the Orioles were the closest team to the White House for over three decades. With that in mind, the movies Bob Roberts (1992) and Dave (1993) each depicted the Commander in Chief character throwing out the first pitch at Camden Yards to an O's catcher. As you may have guessed, none other than Jeff Tackett was up to the task on both occasions.

To be honest with you, I haven't seen either movie. I'm much more eager to talk about this glorious card, which I have titled, "Mullet of Fury". I bought pack after pack of 1995 Stadium Club, mostly for the beautiful photography, vibrant colors, and classy design (at least on the front). On this card, we see one of the marginalized role players of the team taking a quiet moment to strap on the tools of ignorance. He is stoic and proud, his carefully trimmed mullet glistening in the afternoon sun. Truly, Jeff Tackett defines "business in the front, party in the back"...and yet, somehow it seems to be "business in the front, slightly less business in the back".