#105 Kirk Gibson
And here we have the Kirk Gibson card where he looks like a stoner who’s just been asked “Quick Kirk, what color was Washington’s white horse?”
Yeah, marvel at his reaction for a moment.
Despite this being a ridiculous looking photo, he was a budding star coming off his breakout season where he batted .328/.369/.479, and seemed to have a ton of potential greatness in his future.
That greatness would have to wait though, ’cause about half way through ’82, his season ended with an early July injury.
Up to that point though, he was struggling a bit anyway. Maybe he was playing through an injury for a while… which wouldn’t be surprising, considering the attitude he had. He was hardcore player, playing baseball with a football mentality.
He flashed his potential before the injury killed his year. One example is May 14th against the Twins. That day he went 5-for-6, including a walk off 2-run homer!
As if that wasn’t enough, on July 1st he lined a walk off double against the Red Sox. He was 3-for-5 that day, driving in 3 of the Tigers 5 runs.
On April 19th, he slammed a 2-run shot off Dan Quisenberry in the bottom of the 8th, giving the Tigers a 3-2 lead that they didn’t relinquish. To be fair, ’82 was a tough year for Quiz, he only managed a mere 159 ERA+. Yeah, Quiz was that good, and Gibson still rawwked him.
June 2nd, Kirk smacked another 8th inning 2-run blast to put his team up by 1 run.
It was games like these, that helped build the suspense when the 9th inning of game 1 for the 1988 World Series rolled around. Kirk was an exciting, never-give-up kind of player from day 1, and that potential greatness eventually spilled out all over baseball history. It was just bound to.
So it’s quite fitting, that the back of this baseball card, notes his first career walk-off home run…. which, came against the team that lost to the Dodgers in the 1981 Series.
