#443 Mark Wagner
The 1982 Rangers have a lot of names I recognize, but Mark Wagner isn’t one of them. Still, I love this card anyway. He looks so deep in thought, perhaps thinking about how he’s going to hit this pitcher or how he’s going to make up for a misplayed ball when he was playing short. He looks like he’s talking to himself in his head. It’s another one of those classic baseball player moments. A quiet moment in the head of a man in the middle of a not so quiet place and time.
Mark was the regular shortstop through the first game of a doubleheader on July 9, 1982, although he shared some time in April and May with Mario Mendoza. A few others were used at the position during July and early August, when the Rangers acquired Bucky Dent from the Yankees for Lee Mazilli, and Dent took over the regular duties.
The highlight of Mark’s season was probably April 12, when he went 2 for 4, scoring 2 runs and driving in another 2. He was responsible for 4 of his team’s 7 runs. Usually that kind of offense will win you a game, but that day the Yankees hitters were hot and the Rangers pitchers were not.
That spring, May 30 – June 21, 1982, he had his last stretch of good hitting in his major league career, posting up a hitting line of .359/.388/.359. Less than a month later, he lost the starting SS job and would only play 2 big league games between July 9, 1982 and May 4, 1984. Not sure if that was due to injury or just lack of consistency in the lineup. in ’84, he had a 3 game hitting streak and after that season he never played in the majors again.
He spent most of ’83 and ’85 as a bench player in AAA, before reappearing on the baseball map in 1997 at the age of 43, finishing his professional career going 1 for 4 for the Chattanooga Lookouts in AA.
