Monday, September 28, 2009

#60 - Luis Aparicio ("Infield"?)

Back in 1967, as my brother and I were busting open packs of cards, anytime we found a player designated as "INFIELD" (or worse yet, "INF-OF"), we immediately sized him up as a stiff. There appears to be one exception:



Here, Topps' use of "INFIELD" doesn’t make any sense, since Aparicio was a perennial all-star shortstop with the Orioles (and White Sox). To add to the confusion, the back of his card stated his position as ‘Shortstop’. (The same situation occurs on Ron Hansen’s card, but he wasn’t at the same level as Aparicio.)

I wonder if Luis' teammates ribbed him for being a "utility infielder"?

2 comments:

Matt Runyon said...

Interesting how Topps did that "infield" thing on Aparicio's card. He never played any other position besides shortstop. He played 2539 games at shortstop in his career.

GTT said...

That is pretty odd.