APBA Blog reader William Owen writes:
“Love this blog Tom! As a lifelong APBA Baseball player (I’m 45), I already know the “monsters” and lets face it the “terribles” are just that, terrible. The “weird” cards are the best. Getting to see a new “weird” card reminds me of going through the Zackbook for the first time.”
I appreciate the feedback, William. I admit I was hesitant to start up the Weird Card Wednesday feature last year. To be honest though it’s gotten a lot of good response and I’m having fun doing it.
This week’s Weird Card actually comes from the Zack APBA Handbook itself. It’s 1988 Jose Oquendo who is known for playing at every position for the St Louis Cardinals that year. The year before, he played every position except catcher which prompted manager Whitey Herzog to nickname him “The Secret Weapon”.
As you can see, APBA had to get a little creative with the formatting of his APBA card. To fit it all on one line, there are no parentheses, no hyphens nor even spaces on his fielding position line below his name. They are just delineated by commas.
Though I feel obligated to post his offensive stats…
| Split | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 Totals | 148 | 518 | 451 | 36 | 125 | 10 | 1 | 7 | 46 | 4 | 6 | 52 | 40 | .277 | .350 | .350 |
…these stats are what set 1988 Oquendo apart from everybody else, right?
| Year | Tm | Pos | G | GS | CG | Inn | Ch | PO | A | E | DP | Fld% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | STL | 2B | 69 | 63 | 47 | 528.0 | 334 | 149 | 184 | 1 | 41 | .997 |
| 1988 | STL | 3B | 47 | 40 | 31 | 371.0 | 115 | 22 | 88 | 5 | 8 | .957 |
| 1988 | STL | SS | 17 | 10 | 10 | 101.2 | 63 | 23 | 37 | 3 | 8 | .952 |
| 1988 | STL | 1B | 16 | 2 | 1 | 49.0 | 59 | 51 | 6 | 2 | 4 | .966 |
| 1988 | STL | OF | 15 | 8 | 6 | 84.0 | 22 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| 1988 | STL | RF | 9 | 4 | 3 | 44.1 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| 1988 | STL | CF | 4 | 3 | 3 | 29.0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| 1988 | STL | LF | 2 | 1 | 0 | 10.2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| 1988 | STL | C | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| 1988 | STL | P | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Was Oquendo an effective pitcher? I’d say not. He allowed two hits and six walks in four innings in 1988. Over his “career” as a pitcher, that was inflated to nine walks and eight hits in six innings with a hefty ERA of 12.00.
To William and any other fans of the fantastic Zack APBA Handbook, here’s a reminder that you can see the book online now. You can download the book in pdf format at http://www.zackapbahandbook.org/.
I wondery why APBA simply did not go with a smaller font for the fielding line?
I would think that would have allowed for a slightly easier to read card for newer players.
.997 fielding % at 2B was pretty awesome and yeah when I saw the name of the player you were focusing on here I remember he was the light hitting, no strikeout guy. He is the kind of guy I sometimes use in sports sim games to PH for Rob Deer like guys if all I need is a SF.
Karim Garcia’s 2001 baseball card with Cleveland is a monster.