Every February, Americans run to our stores to raid the shelves of all the candy, greeting cards, flowers, and apologies for not measuring up that we can find.
Ah, yes … who doesn’t love Valentine’s Day?
And, as it so happens, February 14 is also about the same time that pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, marking the beginning of another Major League Baseball season. In the old days, it was also when new baseball cards made their way to most corners of the earth for the first time.
Yep, baseball and Valentine’s Day go together in a coincidental sort of way like school lunch and diarrhea. Or something.
To celebrate that pairing (baseball and Valentine’s Day, that is), I thought it would be fun to put together an All-Time All-Valentine’s Baseball Card Team. So I did.
All of the guys here have names that have something to do with our big sweetheart day, and they all have a baseball card or two to rub together.
And speaking of “together,” together these players form a complete lineup, and then some.
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Rick Sweet, C
Rick Sweet made a total of 272 appearances for the San Diego Padres, New York Mets, and Seattle Mariners scattered over three Big League seasons from 1978 through 1983. He hit just .234 with six homers and 57 RBI over 815 plate appearances, but he did manage to pick up a handful of baseball cards along the way. Chief among them was this, ahem, sweet 1983 Topps issue showing Sweet (the man) in the tools of ignorance — the mitt, at least — with the Mariners.
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Pete Rose, 1B
Right. Pete Rose had all sorts of troubles after he came back to the Cincinnati Reds in the 1980s and became their manager, then their Bettor-in-Chief. He’s terrible and awful and broke baseball’s cardinal rule. Fine. All true.
But he was also one of the great players of the 1960s and 1970s, and it’s impossible to leave him off this team. Though Rose played all over the diamond, we’ll slot him at first base because that’s where he played most and because that fits the rest of our lineup best. And the card?
Rose cards don’t get much better than his second-year issue, 1964 Topps, which also happens to be his first solo card.
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Bobby Rose, 2B
The California Angels drafted Bobby Rose out of San Dimas High School in the fifth round in 1985, and he made his Major League debut four years later. He was young at just 22 and touted in some circles as the Halos’ second baseman of the future, but Rose managed just 73 games over the course of the next four seasons. Still, he makes the cut at the keystone for our team, and he looks awfully good — in a Junk Wax sort of way — on his 1992 Topps card.
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Coco Laboy, 3B
OK, this one may be a stretch, but …
“Coco” is not far from “cocoa,” and you can’t have all those tasty Valentine chocolates without cocoa. Besides, Coco was the third baseman for the original rendition of the Montreal Expos, and he has some cool early 1970s baseball cards. It’s hard to argue against the 1971 and 1972 issues, but I’ll take 1970 for all the dugout-in-the-background-golden-Topps-All-Star-Rookie-red-white-and-blue-first-year-Expos-uniform goodness it imparts.
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Bobby Valentine, SS
Before Bobby Valentine was playing cards and dress-up between innings in the New York Mets dugout, he was forging a 10-year career as an actual Big League player. Like (Pete) Rose, Bobby V. played a lot of positions, though nowhere near as well as Pete did, at least if you consider the bat side of things. Among all those slots, Valentine spent the most time at shortstop, so he gets that hole for us, too.
Valentine had some solid 1970s cardboard, but we’re going with his 1972 Topps issue here because it’s so psychedelic and because Bobby looks like a shortstop in the shot.
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Ellis Valentine, RF
In ten Big League seasons with the Expos (6+), Mets (1+), Texas Rangers(1), and Angels(1), Ellis Valentine collected an All-Star appearance, some MVP votes, and a Gold Glove, along with 123 home runs and some other statistical goodies.
He also gave collectors a variety of baseball card looks, from scowls to smiles to poses to blank stares.
But if you know anything about baseball cards from the 1980s, you know the only choice for this list is his 1981 Topps issue. You know, the one where he has welded a dinosaur bone onto the front of his batting helmet to protect his grill? Yeah, that one.
That card, plus Valentine’s actual baseball skills, make him our right fielder.
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Fred Valentine, CF
According to Baseball Reference, Fred Valentine’s nickname is, “Squeaky.” I’ll leave it to you to find out why.
For us, Valentine’s nickname is “center fielder,” by virtue of appearing in that slot more than just about anyone else on this list, even though he spent more time in right field. Sometimes, you just have to take one for the team.
You might be interested to know that Valentine picked up some MVP votes with the 1966 Washington Senators, who were a pretty awful team under a just-warming-up Gil Hodges. That nugget is all the more relevant when you realize that his beautiful 1967 Topps card, celebrating that ’66 campaign, is our pasteboard of choice here.