Two Lefty, Future Hall of Famers Retire this Offseason

February 16, 2010 by site_admin

In January, Randy Johnson announced his retirement from baseball. Just a month later, fellow southpaw Tom Glavine also officially announced his retirement from the game. Both players are arguably among the ten best lefties of all time.

Johnson, who we all know as "The Big Unit", retired with nearly 5,000 career strikeouts. Though he bounced around a lot, he is most remembered for pitching for the Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks. Standing 6'10" with a scruffy appearance and big time fastball, Johnson was one of the most fearsome pitchers of all time. He is often remembered for throwing over the head of both John Kruk and Larry Walker in All Star games.Johnson was the World Series MVP in leading the Diamondbacks to the 2001 World Series Championship.

In contrast to Johnson's wild, furious style, Glavine had a calm demeanor on the mound. He relied on a mix of pitches and pinpoint control. Nevertheless, he did still compile over 2.500 career strikeouts. Glavine spent most of his career with the Atlanta Braves, but did spend a few years with their rival, the New York Mets. Like Johnson, Glavine won a World Series and was named MVP (in 1995 with the Braves).

Johnson had a rookie card in nearly every standard set in 1989 (Donruss, Fleer, Score, Topps, and Upper Deck). The Donruss, Score, and Topps rookies are all fairly low quality and only of interest to Randy Johnson fans. His Fleer card was a little better, but his Upper Deck rookie is definitely his signature rookie. Johnson's rookie cards will continue to grow in popularity as he is a 300 game winner a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame. If he could have stuck around to get 5,000 strikeouts, his cards would have seen even more of a bump (he ended up 125 K's short). Unfortunately, his rookie cards do not feature him as a member of the Seattle Mariners (where he first achieved fame) as he broke into the league with the Montreal Expos.

Though both players had rookie cards in bad collecting years, at least Johnson has that Upper Deck rookie to fall back on. Glavine was unfortunately a rookie in 1987, which meant that his rookie cards were issued in 1988, a truly awful year for card collecting. A Glavine rookie was included in all sets that year (Topps, Donruss, Fleer, and Score). Unfortunately, all sets were terrible looking and overproduced that year. The Fleer card would have to be named the best of the bunch as it is the only halfway decent looking rookie of the pitcher, but Glavine had no rookie issued that was really worthy of such a great player. Nevertheless, due to the fact that Glavine is also 300 game winner and future Hall of Famer, these cards will continue to find buyers for years to come.