I Would Like to Apologize to the Families of Conrad "Randy" Cardinal and Stu Tate

 

1963 Topps Rookie Stars #562: Randy Cardinal, Dave McNally, Don Rowe, Ken Rowe

It appears that when I made the gallery of cards in my post yesterday, I missed one card that should have been included.

Let me explain.

I use Baseball Almanac when listing the players who passed away during the course of the year. I find that it's more accurate than Baseball Reference when it comes to this kind of information (as of now, they haven't updated the profile pages of Todd Benzinger and Jerry Koosman). Among the names listed on the Almanac's "Players who Passed Away" page was Conrad Cardinal, a pitcher for the Houston Colt .45's, whose MLB career lasted one season in 1963, the teams' second year of existence (before becoming the Astros). Cardinal pitched in 6 games, started 1, and in 13.1 innings of work, he had a 0-1 record, a 6.08 ERA, a 1.650 WHIP, struck out 7 batters, walked 7 batters (so his SO/BB ratio is a solid 1.0)/ Not much to write home about, honestly, but he earned his callup to the majors after posting a 14-7 record with the Tigers' Jamestown (D-League) affiliate the year prior. 

He never played in the majors after that brief stint, finishing his minor league career in 1965 with the Durham Bulls, at the time the Astros' Carolina League affiliate.

But that's not the point.

I used the Card Cyber Museum to get images of the cards for the In Memoriam gallery. Of the 91 players on the list, I could only find images for 79 players. 

There should have been 80.

Using the list from the Almanac, there were no cards listed for Conrad Cardinal.

There weren't cards either for John Edelman, Tony Balsamo, Corky Withrow, Chuck Nieson, Jim Duckworth, Ossie Blanco, Herb Hutson, Mike Johnson, Rick Kreuger, Greg Thayer and Stu Tate (okay, Tate has one card also, and it's from Fleer-see below). 

But here's where it gets complicated. His full name is Conrad Randall Seth Cardinal. His nickname is "Randy." On Baseball Reference, he's referred to as Randy Cardinal.

And apparently, "Randy" has a Topps card.

That's right, Cardinal has one Topps card, a 1963 Topps Rookie Stars card, that is now at the top of this post. 

I do plan on updating the "In Memoriam" image to include it and will update the November 2 post at a later time. 

But for now, I would like to apologize to the Cardinal family for excluding his card in the gallery.

Now for Stu Tate.

He was a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, appearing in 2 games for the eventual NL Champions in 1989. A 0-0 record with 4 K's and 0 walks, an ERA of 3.38 in 2.2 innings of work. He earned his call-up after 6 long seasons in the minors, and after one last season in 1991 with the Giants' AAA team in Phoenix, called it a career.

Stu Tate has one MLB card, a 1990 Fleer Major League Prospects card shared with Cubs infielder Greg Smith. 

Now I can use the excuse that the 1989 Giants ruined my childhood (the Cubs won the NL East that year, and that was the team that got me hooked on baseball to stay) and thus I didn't include Tate in the gallery, even if he only played for 2 games. But the fact is...this is a Topps baseball card blog. I'm supposed to stay consistent with the content.

But because I forgot to include Cardinal's sole MLB card, it is only proper that I should include the card of Stu Tate as well, even if it's...cough cough...Fleer.

1990 Fleer Major League Prospects #643: Greg Smith, Stu Tate.

I would like to apologize to the Tate family for the exclusion of his card image as well.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama