Monday, February 13, 2012

1994 Phillies - The Missing Links

1995 Pacific #337, 1994 Mellon Phillies #45, 1994 Flair #169 and 1990 Best Spartanburg Phillies #10

One of the things I've enjoyed about this Missing Links exercise as well as the process of researching each of the Topps Phillies posts is that I'm rediscovering players I had completely forgotten about.  For example, and I mean this as no offense to him, but I have little to no recollection of Andy Carter pitching for the Phillies.  Now obviously, Andy Carter did pitch with the Phillies and I'm sure he remembers it well, but his time in Philadelphia has been completely lost in the fog of my memory.  Contributing to my shoddy memory is the fact that Carter only ever appeared on one Phillies baseball card.

There were 40 players who appeared with the Phillies during the shortened 1994 season.  All but two of them ended up on at least one Phillies baseball card.

3 Cards or More
35 Players

2 Cards
Tom Quinlan (24 games in 1994) - 1994 Sportflics Rookie/Traded #67 and 1995 Pacific #337
Shawn Boskie (18 games in 1994) - 1994 Mellon Phillies #45 and 1994 Topps Traded #53T

Technically, Randy Ready only appeared on two cards representing his second stint with the club (1994 Phillies Team Issue Update and 1995 Phillies Team Issue), but he appeared on a ton of Phillies cards from his first go-around between 1989 and 1991.  The Dickie Noles rule is once again invoked.

1994 Phillies Team Issue
Update #50
1 Card
Andy Carter (20 games in 1994 and 4 games in 1995) - 1994 Phillies Team Issue Update #50

With all the dozens of sets released in 1994 and 1995 geared specifically towards a team's prospects, it's very surprising to me that Carter never ended up in mainstream set.

0 Cards
Bob Wells (6 games in 1994)
Tom Edens (3 games in 1994)

Wells started his professional career in the Phillies organization in 1989 and he climbed the minor league ladder until finally getting the call in May 1994.  He appeared in 6 games with the Phillies, pitching fairly decent over his 5 total innings.  His Phillies career line is 1-0 with a 1.80 ERA.  Wells was waived by the team in June and picked up by the Seattle Mariners, where he'd appear in parts of the next five seasons.  He also pitched for the Twins from 1999 to 2002, at one point serving as the team's closer for part of the 2000 season.  Wells has a 1994 Fleer ProCards card featuring him with the Reading Phillies that I have yet to add to my collection.

Edens came to the Phillies at the end of July when they traded Milt Thompson away to the Houston Astros.  He appeared in just 3 games with the Phils, although like Wells, he had a fairly decent line - 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA over 4 innings pitched.  A little over a week after he was acquired though, the players' strike began and Edens tenure with the Phillies was over.  He appeared in 5 games with the 1995 Cubs before calling it a career after 7 seasons.

Past Missing Link Posts
1990 Phillies - Louie Meadows
1991 Phillies - Dave LaPoint
1993 Phillies - None

4 comments:

Matthew Appleton said...

To this day, I've yet to track down a complete set of the Phillies Team Issue update from 1994. I keep looking, so hopefully someday I'll find it. In the meantime, could you send me a list of the cards from the update? I don't even have that to work from right now.

Jim said...

Here you go:

3 Billy Hatcher
21 Tom Marsh
24 Mike Lieberthal
31 Randy Ready
33 Fernando Valenzuela
42 Toby Borland
48 Paul Quantrill
50 Andy Carter
-- All-Stars - Vukovich, Fregosi, Podres, Dykstra, Jones, Jackson, Duncan
-- Phillie Phanatic

Steve F. said...

Anyone know whatever happened to Andy Carter? I have this vague recollection he suffered some sort of workplace injury maybe 10 years ago, and I think i recall a fundraiser for him, but I can't find anything about it on the web. I hope he's doing okay.

Jim said...

I had no idea about Andy Carter and my search turned up nothing as well. Sure hope he's OK now.