Browsing through my 1987 set, I ran across Buddy Biancalana. He was in the Houston Astros envelope but as it turns out, he split the season with the Kansas City Royals in his last year in the majors.
Now Buddy went 1 for 2 in his first year in the bigs in 1982. In the five seasons that followed, he hit over .200 only once. The 1987 season was definitely the death knell for his career. In his combined season, he batted .155 (11 for 71) though he did hit one homerun and one double.
Houston saw the need to let him go though. For the Astros, he went 1 for 24 with no rbis but with 12 strikeouts.
| Split | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 Totals | 55 | 74 | 71 | 5 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 22 | .155 | .178 | .211 |
Long story short, if you’re playing Biancalana’s card with Houston, he should feel very lucky.
Buddy has hit numbers 5-7-8-8-8-9-9. The way I figure it, with his one 14, he should around .171. That’s good for his whole season let alone for his 1 for 24 Astro performance.
Ugly numbers: 25-39, 31-13, 51-13
Buddy Biancalana was actually a first round draft pick in 1978. He was chosen #25 overall by the Royals in the same round as Kirk Gibson, Tom Brunansky, Mike Morgan, Rex Hudler, Nick Esasky, Hubie Brooks, Bob Horner (the #1 pick), and Lloyd Moseby.
if you go to YouTube and enter buddy biancalana on David letterman you’ll see a great video.
Mel m.
Wow, I know as a major leaguer he accomplished far more than I ever will in baseball, but he is one player I went out of my way to never play when I had his card.