2017 Reds Hall of Fame Ballot

It's that time of year again ... the ballot for the Reds Hall of Fame has been released. Every other year, fans get to vote in one player from the "modern era" and the year after the vote is held, said player is inducted. Here's who made the ballot this year ...

Aaron Boone, 1997-2003 (7 seasons)

Aaron Boone is part of baseball royalty. He's brother to Bret Boone, son to Bob Boone (who managed him during his Reds tenure), and grandson to Ray Boone.

Boone made his debut for the Reds in 1997 and anchored third base until he was traded to the Yankees in 2003. In 668 career games over seven seasons he hit .271/.334/.450 and was the team MVP in 2002, tying for the NL lead in games played with 162. In 2003, he made his only All-Star team and was traded to the Yankees at the trade deadline that year. 

After his brief half-season stint with the Yankees, he was injured for the 2004 season, came back in 2005 and bounced around from the Indians, Marlins, Nationals, and finally 10 games with the Astros in 2009 before calling it a career.

Adam Dunn, 2001-2008 (8 seasons)

Where to start with Adam Dunn?

Let's start with him slugging a minimum of 40 homers a year from 2004-2007 and 32 more in 2008 before being traded to Arizona. He finished 4th in Rookie of the Year balloting in 2001, made the All-Star team in 2002, and finished in the top 30 of MVP voting in 2004 and 2005. He's ranked 4th on the Reds all-time home run list, and ranks 3rd in Reds history in both slugging percentage and OPS.

In August of 2008, the Reds traded him, along with a minor leaguer to the Diamondbacks, getting Wilkin Castillo and Micah Owings in return. After leaving Arizona, he spent the next two seasons with Washington, then 4 years with the White Sox, and finished up with Oakland in 2014.

John Franco, 1984-1989 (6 seasons)

I don't remember much about John Franco's tenure with the Reds as that was before a time where I actively followed them.

He debuted in 1984, appearing in 54 games that season while accumulating 4 saves. From there, he would become the Reds top reliever in the mid-to-late 1980s. Over his time in a Reds uniform, he logged 148 career saves (3rd in Reds history), was a three time All-Star (1986, 1987, 1989), and finished his stint with a 2.49 ERA (6th lowest in Reds history).

After the 1989 season, the Reds traded him to the Mets for Kip Gross and Randy Myers, who helped solidify the bullpen for the 1990 World Series team. Franco would pitch the next 14 seasons for the Mets and then one more season with the Astros before calling it quits with 424 career saves, good for 5th all-time.

Danny Graves, 1997-2005 (9 seasons)

Danny Graves was arguably the best Reds relief pitcher of the late 90s to early 2000s. I remember when he would come in, it would be lights out.

Graves was acquired from Cleveland in 1997 and by the next season, he established himself as a dominant member of the bullpen. He really found his stride in 1999, racking up 27 saves with a 3.03 ERA in 111 innings pitched for a surprising team that won 96 games that season. He was a two-time All-Star (2000, 2004), is the Reds all-time saves leader (182), won the team MVP award in 2000, and pitched in 465 games over his Reds career.

Unfortunately, during the 2005 season, the relationship went south as did his performance and he was released mid-season. He was scooped up by the Mets, spent two months with them, and was released in August. The next year he appeared in 13 games with Cleveland and that was it for his big league career.

Scott Rolen, 2009-2012 (4 seasons)

I remember when the Reds traded for Rolen at the 2009 trade deadline. In exchange, they sent Edwin Encarnacion and a minor league pitcher to Toronto. At the time, I didn't like Encarnacion, so I was happy to see the Reds get a veteran like Rolen.

In the three full seasons he played for the Reds (2010-2012), the team made the playoffs twice but never made it out of the divisional series. Rolen was a two-time All-Star while with the Reds (2010 and 2011), is the only Reds third baseman to win a gold glove. Unfortunately, his last appearance for the Reds was in game 5 of the 2012 Division Series where he struck out to end the game and allowing the Giants to advance.

Before finishing his career with the Reds, he played for the Phillies, Cardinals, and Blue Jays and was a five-time All-Star, won 7 Gold Gloves, and was the 1997 NL Rookie of the Year.

Reggie Sanders, 1991-1998 (8 seasons)

The final nominee on the list this year is long time outfielder Reggie Sanders, who was the right fielder when I started following the team.

While playing in 9 games in 1991, his true rookie season was 1992 where he finished 4th in Rookie of the Year voting. He made his only All-Star game appearance in 1995 and was the starting right fielder on a Reds team that made it all the way to the NLCS that year, the last Reds team to do so. He also finished 6th in MVP voting that year. Over 8 seasons with the team, he hit .271/.353/.476 with 125 HRs (good for 20th in Reds history) and 431 RBIs.

After the 1998 season, he bounced around to seven different teams until he finally retired in 2007. In his overall 17-year career, he hit 305 HRs, had 983 RBIs and a career slash line of .267/.343/.487

As for who's getting my vote from this batch, I always enjoyed watching Aaron Boone play so that's who I'm going towards. As far as who will get elected, I think it'll be either Adam Dunn or Scott Rolen.

You've Got Mail #55: Waiting 'Til Next Year

Everyone's favorite blogger from P-Town, Tom, was doing a cardboard clearance of sorts recently. I happened to be the beneficiary of some his unwanted cardboard of both Reds and Indians, to which I was elated. While I won't show everything that was included, because if I did, you'd be here until next Tuesday reading this, I'll hit the highlights.

Here are some cards from the early 2000s in the form of 2002 Diamond Kings and 2000 UD Ionix. The number of sets that were out back then was mind boggling and most, if not all of the sets like these, I'd forgotten about. The Diamond Kings cards are everything you expect them to be with the artistic look and the white border. The most interesting thing that I noticed on these is that the artist is not Dick Perez, it's someone named Tano, which I couldn't find any information on after a quick search. Perhaps someone out there knows about this mysterious Tano?

UD Ionix is a set I barely remember as it showed up at the tail end of my initial collecting barrage. Come the late 90s/early 2000s I wasn't into cards as much as I had been before as I was in high school and I started working so cards sort of fell to the background. These cards are pretty cool though with the filmstrip deal at the bottom. The backgrounds seem very busy though with weird designs behind the players and being red on one half and white on the other. Regardless, I'm very happy to add these to my collection, especially considering they're of two of my favorite players from the era, Aaron Boone and Sean Casey.

These horizontals are really nice, the Larkin card especially with the big MLB logo in the background and the All-Star Game stamp on the front. However, the card I really want to talk about there is the managers card with Buck Rodgers and Tony Perez. One of these two didn't make it through the 1993 season. I'll give you a hint, it wasn't Buck Rodgers. Perez was hired to replace Lou Piniella who departed for Seattle after the 1992 season. After 44 games and a respectable 20-24 record, Perez was given the boot and replaced with Davey Johnson. To this day, no one is really quite sure what happened to cause Perez to be unceremoniously canned but as far as I know, this might be the only card that shows Perez as the Reds manager. In 2001, he got a second chance as manager of the Marlins going 54-60 in 114 games at the helm.

Since word has gotten out that I collect the Indians as well as the Reds, people have been more than happy to dump off their unwanted Indians cards to me and I've been more than happy to accept them. Everything from 1980s Sportflics cards to 2016 Heritage minors was included. With the Ramirez Donruss rookie, I think I now have every Manny rookie card there is to be had from the 90s. 

Now the three really, really cool things that were in this package. First, this from the 1981 Perma-Graphics credit card line. At first, I though it was some sort of membership card to a fan club or something. It's definitely a really cool oddball from a season where the Reds missed the playoffs despite having the best overall record in the National League.

Finally, my two favorite cards of the package. First up this Tony Perez card from the 1992 Kellogg's All-Star line. These would come out of boxes of Corn Flakes and I clearly remember having the Willie Stargell and the Mike Schmidt from this set as well. Sure, it didn't scan all that great but you'll just have to take my word for it that it's an awesome cards. Seeing this card (still in it's wrapper by the way), has inspired me to eventually chase down the other nine cards from the set, especially the two I had way back when. Oh, the times I wish I still had my childhood collection. 

Then there was this, a Nap Lajoie card from the 2014 Panini Hall of Fame 75th Anniversary set. The Crusade cards were an insert set in the product and came in many different colors and some, in fact, were die cut. The blue cards were just the basic cards of that insert set and I'm just happy to have it. I don't care that its not one of the colored parallels, it's just a nice card of a turn of the century star that you definitely don't come across every day. I might actually take this card and stick it in a penny sleeve and top loader and drop it in my box of "good stuff".

A big thanks to Tom for clearing out his closet and sending these my way. These were some great additions to my collection.

You've Got Mail #51: The Angels in Order

I really, really try to keep my cards in order. Right now, I'm undergoing a re-organization project that I've been working on and off on since the summer time. I've got most of my Reds cards in order with them all neatly stored and double-bagged in binders. Someone else who likes to keep their cards in order is Tom, over at The Angels in Order. He's slowed down on his blogging recently but emailed me a while back to confirm my address as he had some things to send over.

I remember Dick Perez being the artist for the Donruss Diamond Kings cards in the 80s and 90s but I had no idea that he did Allen & Ginter sketch cards in the mid to late 2000s. This particular card is of the 2007 variety, back when Adam Dunn would routinely launch balls into orbit from Great American Ballpark. I could imagine this definitely being a Diamond King card if Donruss hadn't gone by the wayside just a few years before.

Speaking of keeping cards in order, I should have put these in order when I scanned them. Oh well. Needless to say, there was a nice variety here.

Until I saw these in the package, I'd never seen these cards before. They are definitely my favorites of the batch. These particular cards are from the 2007 SP Legendary Cuts line and have a really sleek design, at least in my opinion. Anything from the 2000s I'm definitely unfamiliar with so these are definitely needed. 

Speaking of cards that are needed, Tom also threw in a healthy stack of 1984 Topps for my ongoing set build. I still need to update the want list and should have some time to do that soon.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go get these in order.

You've Got Mail #18: Highly Subjective & Completely Arbitrary

I'm trying to spread out the trade posts with the other stuff I have planned for March but the fact that the trades keep coming in I've got to try to keep up somewhat. This nice PWE from Brian of Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary (my first official trade partner when I launched this blog) arrived at the tail end of the week a while back.

This PWE was stuffed full of random Reds goodness plus a bonus Bengals card. Since there were nine Reds cards, I'll cover them in batches of three. First up we've got the trio of Adam Dunn, Terry Lee, and Ryan Wagner. Of these three, Dunn definitely had the best Reds career. Wagner was a decent pitcher but never really stood out in a sea of mid 2000's Reds teams with horrible pitching.

Cool! Some Score Gold Rush ... and of Tony Fernandez, which is even better. Fernandez held down the hot corner for the Reds in '94, his only year with the Reds, after Chris Sabo headed to Baltimore as a free agent. Milton was a big free agent signing for the Reds and was pretty much a bust from day one. Kearns was a solid outfielder and I always love some Topps Total!

Our final trio, Billy Hamilton, Scott Williamson, and Ken Griffey. The more I see it, the more I like last year's Bowman, even though I'm not a prospector at all. The photo is just great too, with Hamilton in mid flight trying to rob a fly ball. The Williamson card is my first Topps Gallery card and  it's just as nice in person as I've seen it on the blogs. Finally, new cards of members of the Big Red Machine are always welcomed.

There was one football card in the envelope, this framed parallel of Jeremy Hill from last years Gridiron Kings set. This was in the same vain as the Diamond Kings set although Panini can actually use team names and logos since they have an NFL license. 

Thanks again Brian for another great PWE! The Twins stack is slowly growing for you and will be going out soon with my next wave of Super Trader packs.

You've Got Mail #5: Wes (jaybarkerfan)

Back in the summer, I ordered a flat rate box of cards from jaybarkerfan (aka Wes) as he was doing some housecleaning and offering up boxes of cards for those who are interested. A few weeks ago, the box finally arrived loaded with all kinds of goodies ...

It's always fun when I unearth some crazy oddball cards like this. The red bordered cards are part of a late 80s Reds team issue from Kahn's, I'm thinking probably '88. Then there's some Expos craziness with a Larry Walker Hostess card and a Casey Candaele Toys R Us. Finally, a Pete Rose K-Mart and a Chris Sabo Post Cereal. These are great!

Here's a really nice James Allen die cut autograph card numbered 42/100. I looked him up and it looks like he last played in 2014 with Bakersfield, sporting a 4-7 record with a 6.23 ERA, 64 K's, and 22 walks in 36 games. Yikes.

Speaking of numbered cards, Wes threw these in as well. I really like the Bailey gold mini and the photo looks like it's from after the game where he threw his first no-hitter.

Here's a bunch of older stuff that was included. The 82 Donruss will go towards my build of that and the 80 Topps helps out there. The others will go in the Reds binder.

There was also some newer stuff thrown in including 2010 Upper Deck

This really nice Frank Robinson Allen & Ginter mini.

Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns ... the former Reds outfielders of the future. Kearns was involved in the disastrous trade that saw him and Ryan Wagner sent to Washington in exchange for Bill Bray, Gary Majewski, Royce Clayton, and one or two others. The Reds ended up getting a few good years out of Bray while everyone else contributed roughly nothing. Dunn ended up having a pretty good last few years in the AL and just recently retired.

Two of the First Home Run insert cards. It's rare that you come across Josh Hamilton Reds cards so that's pretty cool. I dig the Bryce Harper too.

Closing out the Reds portion are these TCMA cards from 1980 commemorating the 1961 Reds, if only I could find more of these I might put together the team set.

The Reds cards were great but where Wes really did the damage was my 84 Topps set build, here are some highlights ...

There was a bunch more fun stuff included too that I didn't have time to scan in but suffice to say my 84 set is over a quarter of the way done now.

Thanks for the box Wes! I can't wait to see what the next box you send has in store for me!