Off-Topic Forum

Just wanted to highlight, sadly, a couple of baseball deaths of people who were not Hank Aaron and Bob Gibson, etc., like the slew of people we lost last year, but were both pretty big in the game. This week both Doug Jones and Bill Virdon passed away. Jones actually has more saves than Bruce Sutter and was a heckuva closer for a time. Virdon was a pretty good player with the Pirates (ROY) and then long-time manager who won almost 1000 games, most successfully with late 70s and early 80s Astros. 

I've gotten in this habit of checking the "In Memorium" page and then going through my collection gallery of the players whenever someone dies. Reminds of cool cards in my collection and is a bit of a tribute. The Virdon brought me to the team card in with the team posed in front of the Astrodome. Looked great. And I am reminded that I'm sad that managers rarely get cards or acknowledgement anymore. Really, just give them the insert on the team card. Or at least talk about them on the back....

Ok, I'm done now. 

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I remember both of those guys (only as a manager for Virdon) and they were both good at their jobs. RIP to Doug and Bill. I also miss the team photo cards with an inset of the manager and a team CL on the back. It is a shame that Topps ignores the managers these days. When I think of Manager cards (outside of MiLB cards), the most recent that come to mind are the 1994 Topps cards that had 2 managers from one division on each card. But the same thing has happened with coaches in other sports. I don't think they got cards after about '94 either.

Yeah. I think in 2019 Topps there were Manager Card inserts, but apart from that, the managers seem to be quite unappreciated in today's card market.