You've Got Mail #69: Mark Hoyle

I can't believe it's already May. It seems like just yesterday it was Opening Day and now Memorial Day is creeping up. Crazy. What else is crazy is this PWE that arrived unannounced from Mark Hoyle. 

A nice bunch of random Reds for the binders. I think the Reggie Sanders card might be a duplicate but I'll need to double check. Alfredo Simon (nicknamed "Big Pasta" last year) was signed by the Reds for 2016 to eat up innings in the starting rotation last year. Simon ultimately disappointed by giving up tons of runs and being generally unreliable. He ended up going on the DL with shoulder issues and was quietly released.

A trifecta of cool Tom Seaver cards from the 1992 Pacific Tom Seaver set. Seaver was acquired by the Reds in June 1977 in exchange for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, and two others. In six seasons with the Reds in the post Big Red Machine era, he amassed a 75-46 record and a 3.18 ERA pitching in 158 games. He also made two All-Star teams before being traded back to the Mets in December of 1982 for Lloyd McClendon, Charlie Puleo, and a minor leaguer.

Mark definitely paid attention to my team collection list and threw these in among others for me to add to my Expos and Indians collections.

Fleer Ultra sets are looked on pretty fondly in the hockey card world, especially this particular set. While the Devils didn't make the playoffs this year, they did win the #1 overall pick the NHL Draft Lottery this summer. 

Finally, here's the gem of the PWE, a 1939 Play Ball of Buddy Myer of the Washington Senators. Myer was one of the early Jewish stars of baseball and spent 17 seasons in the bigs, mostly with Washington and just under two years with Boston. His best season looks to have been the 1935 season hitting a gaudy .349 for a lowly Senators team that finished 6th in the AL that year. He was also an All-Star for the first time that season and won the batting title and finished 9th in total bases. He retired after the 1941 season to focus on his construction business, of which he had just been granted a government contract to build army camps. His final stat line after calling it a career was .303/.389/.406 with 38 career home runs, 1,174 runs, 848 RBIs, and 2,131 hits. An interesting note I found while doing research is that 15 of his 38 career home runs were inside the park home runs, with 13 of those coming at Griffith Stadium in Washington. He would eventually settle in Baton Rouge and suffered a heart attack in May 1974 and eventually passed away on Halloween of the same year. He was posthumously inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.

This was a really fun PWE to sift through, especially for the Buddy Myer card. Thanks Mark for sending these my way. I really appreciate it.