Spike Owen 1989 Donruss – Sully Baseball Card of the Day for January 30, 2017

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While I was taking a train to a game at Yankee Stadium in the early 2000’s, I saw film critic Jeffrey Lyons was on the subway with me. We both appeared in the HBO Documentary Curse of the Bambino. I truly doubt if he recognized me from that.

We are both Sox fans and I decided I would try to stump him with a trivia question. I brought up Spike Owen, the starting shortstop on the ill fated 1986 Boston Red Sox. I asked him “What was Spike Owen’s real first name?”

He didn’t know.

I told him “Spike. His mother’s maiden name was Spikes, so Spike is NOT a nickname for him. That is his actual name.”

I took that as a moment of pride for me that he didn’t get it.

I don’t ever remember buying a pack of Donruss cards in 1989, but my eyes do not deceive me. This card does indeed exist in the shoebox inside my closet. The picture and stats on the back show Owen in his third and final season as a member of the Red Sox, 1988. He was reduced to a bench player and often a pinch runner for Jim Rice during the Morgan Magic Division Championship year as Jody Reed became the every day shortstop. He appeared in a single at bat in that year’s ALCS.

But he was indeed a member of the 1986 pennant winner and would have been a beloved figure in Boston had that final out been recorded.

Owen was a college teammate at University of Texas with Rogers Clemens and Calvin Schraldi. He was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in 1982 and by 1983 was the Mariners starting shortstop and in 1986 was named team captain. He was the leadoff batter for Seattle on the night when Roger Clemens struck out 20 batters. Owen himself fanned twice.

That same year, he was packaged with Dave Henderson to the Red Sox for a bunch of bodies including Rey Quinones and Mike Trujillo. With that, Owen got to play in the post season with the Red Sox. Owen was excellent in the ALCS against the Angels, batting .429, slugging .524 with an OPS of 1.002. Naturally Red Sox manager John McNamara pinch hit for him twice in close games in the series.

He continued to hit well against the Mets in the World Series. When his Mariners and Red Sox teammate Dave Henderson homered to lead off the 10th inning of Game 6 of the World Series to give the Red Sox a potential World Series winning lead, Owen met Hendu at home plate. He stopped and said something to him. I have no idea what it was, but I felt it was a special moment between two players who were toiling in obscurity in Seattle now 3 outs from winning the World Series.

Annnnnnd it didn’t happen.

After his time in Boston ended with the 1988 ALCS, Owen was dealt to Montreal where he started for four seasons.

After a year with the Yankees, Owen landed with the Angels, the very team he helped beat in 1986. He played well in the strike shortened 1994 season but lost his starting job to Gary DiScarcina in 1995. He pinch hit in the one game playoff between the Angels and Mariners for the 1995 AL West crown. He was retired by Randy Johnson. It turned out to be his final big league at bat.

Owen has a new baseball home in the Rangers organization. He has been a minor league manager and a major league third base coach. He will start the 2017 season as the manager of the class A Hickory Crawdads.

All the while, he goes by that first name, the same one I used to stump Jeffrey Lyons.

10 reasons why Red Sox fans should root for the Rangers in the World Series

OK, we now have our World Series match up. I personally was hoping for a Tigers and Phillies World Series so we’d have a Verlander vs. Halladay.

Then I wanted Tigers vs. Brewers…
So naturally I got Rangers vs. Cardinals.

Now my fellow Red Sox fans might be wondering who they should root for… those who can bring themselves to watch baseball in the post on field and off field collapse of the Red Sox.

Well, one thing is for sure, you should root for a seven game series, which baseball needs more than a resolution to the Dodger and Met mess.

But what if it comes down to a 7th game and a tie score in the 9th?
Who should Red Sox fans root for?

It’s an easy call.
Root for the Rangers… let me count the ways.

10 Reasons Why Red Sox Fans
Should Be Rooting For The Rangers

1. Not one member of the Rangers 25 man roster has a World Series ring

OK, that’s not a Red Sox related reason, but it is pretty cool when you think of it.

If the Rangers win the World Series, every single player in the pile would be celebrating their first title. Having a whole team where it is the greatest moment in their life for ALL of them? That’s pretty awesome. (The Molinas, Pujolses, Carpenters and LaRussas all have theirs.)

2. If the Rangers win, would Nolan Ryan’s “Let them pitch” style would be the direction of the new Red Sox.

The Red Sox need to rebuild their pitching staff and it will take more than banning fried chicken from the clubhouse to do it.

I fear coddling of pitchers more than the Colonel’s secret recipe. I think it has already claimed Clay Buchholz and the old Sox management hasn’t exactly produced the 1995 Braves… or the 2011 Rangers for that matter.

Ryan has let the pitchers PITCH and lo and behold the depth of their staff is one of their strengths. Win or not, the Red Sox should emulate them. Hope the Rangers win do the Sox will have to notice that Ryan has delivered much better results than copying Moneyball.

3. How often do you bump into a taunting Rangers fan?

If you are a Red Sox fan, no matter where you live, you will inevitably live or work near a Yankee fan who will give you crap about the great collapse.

Same with a Phillies fan or a Mets fan (although Met fans should keep their traps shut.) And maybe a Cardinal fan too.

When was the last time you uttered the phrase “I work with the most OBNOXIOUS Texas Rangers fan”? I am guessing never. That’s a good thing. You don’t want taunters to have the ammo of “And MY team won the World Series!”

4. Texas can become a free agent destination instead of the Yankees

Let’s face it, Sox fans. This is going to be a lousy off season with the change in management and all. I don’t know how many free agents are going to be running to Boston. And frankly the Red Sox have been spending too much on free agents recently. They need to develop their own players.

But we also don’t want to see the C. J. Wilsons et al sign with the Yankees, do we? Well as Cliff Lee showed us, players are allowed to turn down Yankee money. And maybe if the Rangers keep winning and show they have a stable organization, maybe people will be heading to Texas instead of the Yankees.

Besides, can’t you get a big huge mansion in Texas with low property taxes? DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS!!!

5. Hey! Adrian Beltre is a former Red Sox All Star!

Shouldn’t we be rooting for former Red Sox All Stars?

OK, so Beltre was only a Red Sox for one season and he wasn’t exactly beloved… but it would be easier rooting for him to win a ring with the Rangers than say Clemens or Boggs with the Yankees… or Eckersley and Hendu with the LaRussa A’s.

Go Adrian! Represent the 3rd place 2010 Boston Red Sox!

6. Come on… you can’t root for LaRussa or McGwire!

Isn’t there something you don’t like about Tony LaRussa? I could never figure out why I don’t like him. It has nothing to do with him being a lawyer or doing that Glenn Beck thing. There’s something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Seeing the Red Sox clobber the Cardinals in 2004 made it a little bit sweeter.

And McGwire, forget about it. Some steroid guys I have some sympathy for. This guy? He would have had Ron Kittle’s career if not for the juice.

And together they massacred the Red Sox in the 1988 and 1990 ALCS. Seriously, you want THEM to be happy?

7. We can’t have the Cardinals also winning 2 World Series in the last 10 years!

The last few months have been so brutal to us Sox fans that it feels like everything positive of the past 10 years is getting more and more blurry. There’s not a lot left for us to brag about.

Well since 2001, the Sox are the only team to win multiple World Series. That’s still cool… except the Cardinals will spoil the fun if they win this year to go along with their 2006 title.

We need the Rangers to win for our own pettiness.

8. For Rangers fans, this could be THEIR 2004!

Remember that wonderful feeling we all felt in 2004? That great sense of relief! We had gone our whole lives thinking “Man, I’m never going to see the Red Sox win the World Series.” Then suddenly they did. It made everything a little better.

Even seeing the Yankees win in 2009 and the Red Sox collapse in 2011 doesn’t hurt the way it used to.

Now imagine you are a lifelong Rangers fan. The franchise had NEVER won the World Series. Hell, until last year they had only won one playoff GAME! The idea of being a World Series champ seemed pretty far fetched. If they win, then the die hard Ranger fans… the one that loved Pete O’Brien, Dean Palmer and Rusty Greer… would have THEIR moment they had waited their whole lives for.

Someone else deserves that kind of happiness.

9. A Rangers World Championship would George W. Bush happy and occupied

I am not going to get political here. All I am going to say are two things that I don’t think anyone can deny.

1. George W. Bush would probably be happier if he were the Commissioner of Baseball rather than the former President of the United States.

2. He seems very happy being out of the political fray.

There might be pressure for him to be more vocal in the scrum that will be the 2012 election. For his sake and ours, I hope he is just going to sit back and savor another summer watching the Rangers defend their title.

10. SPIKE OWEN WOULD GET A WORLD SERIES RING

This is the BIGGEST reason for the Red Sox to root for the Rangers. He is the manager of the Texas Rangers AAA affiliate, the Round Rock Express. If the Rangers win, he would get a World Series ring as a member of the organization.

Spike was of course the starting shortstop of the 1986 Red Sox. He came along with Dave Henderson from Seattle in an August trade and greeting Hendu at home plate when he hit the go ahead homer in Game 6 of the World Series… the homer we all thought would clinch the World Series.

Owen was a typical Red Sox infielder from the Yawkey years. Not flashy, got his uniform dirty and whiter than the Bushwood Country Club directory.

Also Spike Owen’s real first name? Spike! It was his mother’s maiden name.

Every time a member of the 1986 Red Sox gets a ring, an angel gets their wings. I think that’s how it goes.

So there you go, Red Sox fans… it might not get you all gung ho like 2004 or 2007… but there’s reason to watch this World Series.

Say it with me! Let’s go Rangers!
(Just don’t yell that at a Bruins game.)
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