Here's to the guys on the bench! R.J. Reynolds and how there is no shame in the common card

But I always liked this image of R.J. Reynolds

    I won’t get into how absolutely wonderful 1987 Topps baseball cards are. At least not again. Instead I want to focus on the image of Reynolds. Happy. Relaxed. Back in the dugout at some point in the 1986 season. Maybe after driving in a run. And lord knows the Pirates could’ve used all of the runs they could get in 1986. The team went 64-98 that season. The last truly bad season they’d have before the rebound. Before all of those bittersweet playoff seasons that began in 1990.

    I found myself thinking about R.J. Reynolds this morning. I was on my walk to work and listening to Dejan Kovacevic’s Daily Shot of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s a small daily 10-15 minute podcast that Kovacevic does daily for the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins...if hockey is your thing. In his Daily Shot of the Pirates, Dejan was discussing Ben Gamel, or rather the Pirates need to keep Ben Gamel come 2022 and beyond. I’m not going to get into Gamel too much here, except to say that Kovacevic made the point that on the Pirates, any Major League team for that matter, Ben Gamel would be a great fourth or fifth outfielder because of the hard-nosed yet fun way in which he plays the game of baseball.

    Admittedly...I'm a Ben Gamel fan. 

    But fouth or fifth outfielder?

    My Delorean mind immediately went back to R.J. Reynolds.

 

    When I think of fourth or fifth outfielders for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and especially during the time that I was a little bit more than emotionally vested in the team (1984-1992), R.J. Reynolds is one that comes to the top of my list. Though we did have a bit of a contemptuous start. The Pirates aquired Reynolds in a deal that would send one of my favorites, Bill Madlock to the Los Angeles Dodgets (a deal that would later also include another cornerstone of the those championship teams..and historical thorn in the side of any Pirates fan, Sid Bream), on August 31, 1985. 

Another dark day for a Pirates fan in the mid-80s But I did take quickly to Reynolds, who ended up batting a solid .308 in his first thirty-one games as a Pirate.

    And his 1986 Topps card was no slouch.

 
    From 1986 to 1989, R.J. was more of a third-ish outfield rather than a fourth or fifth. The Pirates were solid with Bonds (centerfield but ultimately moved to left field) and Andy Van Slyke in center. But with the decision to play Bobby Bonilla at third base, a number of guys got shoved out to handle right field, to the point where it became a platoon position. Who could forget such players as Mike “Rambo” Diaz or Darnell Coles (remind me to close with my Coles story). But of all of the players put in right, and at times filling in in left or center, it seemed as though good ol’ R.J. got the call the most.

    He was also a pretty steady bat off of the bench in pinch-hit situations.

 

    One of the things that I’ve loved about returning to The Hobby was meeting collectors who collect those fourth and fifth outfield guys. Or are avid collectors of any role playing, non-star player. The collectors who want their Lee Lacy cards Steve Garvey be damned. The collectors who put their Sixto Lezcano or Steve Kemp card in penny sleeves...not to drudge up the 1985 Pirates again. The collectors for whom after Lee Mazzili there is no greater God.

    Someone out there has to be super collecting Tito Landrum.

 
       I know I’ve got me a budding collection of this guy.

         For a while I kept my R.J. Reynolds card with the players whom I collected, or the star cards that I kept in their star boxes. Kept him right in there next to the Pucketts and Ripkens. But I was always embarrassed about stuff like that. LIke when a kid would being going through my cards, as kids were apt to do, and they’d hold up a penny-sleeve R.J. Reynolds card and show it to me, like they’d found mold or a cockroach in my collection. It felt unseemly to take so much care of a common card. Like I’d somehow soiled the box.

    So I'd take those guys out.

    Stick them in a team box instead.

    Fucking conformist.

    But those guys, the fourth or fifth outfields, the role players, those were the players that I always related to the most. The also rans. The common card but not common player. The ride the pine guys who get to come in when the game is really on the line. Two-outs, baseloaded and the pitcher coming to bat in the bottom of the seventh? Need a pinch-hitter? Someone who you can rely on? Who you gonna call?

    R.J. Reynolds that’s who.

     R.J. Reynolds played in almost six seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. During that time he emassed 475 hits and had a respectable .269 batting average. Reynolds was a part of the first Pirates team to reach the post-season since 1979, where he appeared in all six NLCS games getting two hits in ten at bats. After the 1990 season, R.J. Reynolds plays three years in Japan and one final season in the Mexican leagues before calling it quits at age 35. At last I heard Robert (R.J.) Reynolds was giving hitting instruction to baseball and softball players of all ages in Sacramento California.

    Now about Darnell Coles?

 
        It’s Sunday, September 21, 1987. The Pirates are down 6-2 in the bottom of the 6th to division rivals, defending World Series champs, and outright bad guys, the sinister New York Mets. Sid Fernandez is pitching. There doesn’t seem to be much hope in this one. Then a Bucco hits a single. Then Dave Magadan makes an error. Fernandez walks the next batter to load the bases. Who should come up next to the plate for the Pirates? None other than Darnell Coles.

    Coles had been with the Pirates just over two months. He’d been brought over in a trade with the Seattle Mariners, to play some first base, some third base, and, yes, to help out that platoon over in right field. When he stepped to the plate the fans weren’t expecting much. No one was expecting much...except for me.

 
    I was a thirteen year-old kid sitting in a reserved seat way above home plate. I think we got the tickets as part of the bring a can of Coke, get a ticket for $2.50. My family had drank a lot of Coke in the summer of 1987. I remember I had my scorecard. What kid didn’t back then? My old man looked at me and said, I hope he hits the goddamned ball out of here. That’s how dad’s spoke to kids back then. No pal. No buddy. Just a lot of goddamns.

    I wanted Darnell to hit that home run my dad mentioned. Wanted him to hit a grand slam. I wanted it so much that, offical score be damned, I drew a penciled line around the diamond in my scorecard and lightly wrote “HR” above it. Then I sat back to watch.

    And Darnell hit the home run.

    And the Pirates ended up winning 9-8 in the 14th inning.

    It was one of the most exciting baseball games that I was ever at.

    And the Mets watched the 1987 NLCS on TV that year.

    

    And when 1988 rolled around, my Darnell Coles cards went in the good box.  

    Maybe I should start rounding up my Ben Gamel cards?

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

If you'd like to learn more about the career of R.J. Reynolds you can do so HERE and HERE

***I know I've been promising that blog post where I tie racism to baseball cards in my own life...but it just ain't happening. I actually spent most of the week writing it, but in the end decided against posting it on here. For a bunch of reasons. The most obvious is that I couldn't tie the blog post to baseball cards as much as I wanted to. The other reasons are personal. But I'm thinking it will appear at some point. Probably not on Junk Wax Jay. I am working on creating a new version of WineDrunk SideWalk to showcase some of the writing I do. I don't know what that's going to look like yet, except it'll be very minimallist like this blog. But it will be coming soon. ****

NEXT FRIDAY: Our old buddy Russell Streur will be stopping by to take us back to Forbes Field.