Ladies and gentlemen, your 1990 Hutch Award winner! Um, what? I had to look that one up. Apparently, the Hutch Award is given annually to "an active player who best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive desire to win." (from Wikipedia). The award was created in honor or Fred Hutchinson, a major league pitcher who died of cancer in 1965. Most of the recipients were players who overcame a tremendous amount of adversity (usually health-related) to be productive major league players. For example, Tony C won it in 1970, 3 years after being hit in the eye. Dave Dravecky won it in '89 after coming back from the removal of a cancerous tumor. And most recently, John Lester took it hom after kicking lymphoma's ass and becoming one of the top lefties in the AL.
So it's not an honor to take lightly. Which is good because if it wasn't for the famous play at the plate that won the Braves the NL pennant in 1992, Bream would be mostly forgotten.
Now the card itself. Ah those stupid Pirates hats. Couldn't be more annoying to a self-proclaimed stripe-hater. Seriously, what was up with those damn caps? Pittsburgh should have just gone all the way and had the players wear pirate hats like the one in the logo. But other than that and the fact that Bream looks like he's trying to take a crap on the first base bag, the card is decent. Bland photo but not terrible.
Those Pirate hats came about in 1976, when the Pirates and Cardinals went to the pillbox hats to celebrate history because it was the Bicentennial. The Cardinals realized it looked stupid and quit it (if you want confirmation, look at a lot of their 1977 cards....if I remember right, there may have even been stripes on the batting helmets). The Pirates, however, carried this on for a while, I'm not sure how long, but it apparently went on until 1986.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! The 1987 is one of my favorite sets. Brings back a lot of great memories!
ReplyDeleteI have this card signed ttm by Bream. He was way out on "The Slide" in 92.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mets Guy, I appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteThe entire National League wore a pillbox hat in warmups for the 1976 All Star game. The Pirates and Carinals wore them going forward.
ReplyDeleteSee here: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3239/2603589541_62fefda284_b.jpg
1986 was indeed the last year the Pirates used the hats, changing them for the 1987 season.