My First Cards

By 1982, the Minnesota Twins had to look to the future. The previous season was their worst since 1957, when they were the Washington Senators. If that wasn’t worrisome enough, they started ’82 going 15-52 (.224 Winning %). The franchise had been crumbling slowly since 1975, when stars Tony Oliva retired and Harmon Killebrew was released. The Twins tried to hang on, only to remain a mediocre team for the remainder of the 1970′s, trying to keep their head above water (also known as .500).

Behind the scenes, while they were trying to stave off losing seasons, they were busy selecting their future Championship team in the amateur drafts. In 1978 they selected both Lenny Faedo and homegrown Minnesotoan Kent Hrbek. The next year, they signed Randy Bush, Gary Gaetti, & Tim Laudner. In 1980, they’d select Jim Reed and Jim Eisenreich. 1981 saw the Twins grab Frank Viola & Steve Lombardozzi. In ’82, the Twinkies found Kirby Puckett.

Most of these draft picks played an important part in the Twins 1987 championship season. Even Jim Reed, who wasn’t a Twin for the ’87 season, was part of a trade for Jeff Reardon in February ’87.

But in 1982, the first season in the Metrodome, that championship season didn’t happen yet and nobody knew if it would ever happen. They had to look at their young future stars as their hope for the future, and their biggest hopes at the time were the three players on this card—Lenny Faedo, Kent Hrbek, and Tim Laudner. They’d all played a little before 1981 but it wasn’t until May 29, 1982 that they would all play together in the same major league game.

Shortstop Lenny Faedo turned out to be the least talented of the three. He only played ’til April 22, 1984 in Minnesota, before wandering 2 more years in the minors for 5 different organizations. 1982 was the only season he didn’t spend any time in the minor leagues. Defensively he was a -7.3 total fielding runs above average. I’m not too familiar with that stat, but that does not sound good at all. On September 19 in the Metrodome against the Royals, he had a fine 3 for 4 day, scoring a run in a Twins victory.

First Baseman Kent Hrbek is the star of this card. Not just because his last name starts off with the abbreviation for “home run” (HR), but because he was one of the best Twins ever to play the game. This card is actually known as his rookie card because of that. He had a career OPS+ of 128 over 14 seasons, playing a key role for 2 Championship teams, and produced a career batting line of .282/.367/.481/.848. He was a star from day one, being 2nd to Cal Ripken Jr in the 1982 Rookie of The Year voting but could’ve easily won it. Hrbek’s numbers were significantly better than Ripken’s in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, and BB’s. Cal held a slight edge in R’s (+8), HR’s (+5), and RBI’s (+1), while playing a full 20 games more for a team with a lot better offense around him. What was probably most important to Hrbek after all was said and done though, was that he helped his hometown team win championships.

As for Tim Laudner, he was one of the Twins main catchers for almost a decade. He played in all 7 games of the 1987 World Series and hit great off the Cardinals pitching. He smacked a HR, drove in 4 runs, and got on base at a .444 pace. The highlight of his 1982 season would probably be a trip to Boston just before the All-Star break. On July 10-11, he went 6 for 8 and scored 4 runs.

The back of the card isn’t all that interesting—