Raiderjoe Box Brings Back Jackie Davidson Memories
Wednesday broke a several day string of empty mailboxes. Raiderjoe from New Jersey came through with a box of 400 Cubs.
His package had Cubs split from all sorts of decades with the earliest card a 1961 Topps Joe Schaffernoth. The 1961 season was Joe's last in the major leagues splitting time with the Cubs and Cleveland Indians. During his three-year career in MLB, Schaffernoth appeared in 74 games.
Another random Cub was Gonzalo Marquez from 1974 Topps. Marquez played the 1973 and 1974 seasons with the Cubs after winning a World Series with the Oakland Athletics in 1972. Marquez was killed by a drunk driver in 1984.
There were a few Pittsfield Cubs cards from 1988 scattered throughout the box. The first of two I noticed was shortstop Jim Bullinger. He was converted to a starting pitcher in the minor leagues, and made his MLB debut with the Cubs on May 27, 1992.
Bullinger's first at-bat was quite memorable. In his fourth big league appearance he saw the plate for the first time, and hit a home run on the first pitch he saw.
The other Pittsfield Cub was Jackie Davidson, still mired in the low minors in 1988 after he was the Cubs first round draft pick in 1983. Davidson only reached double-A in the Cubs organization by 1989, before taking a few years off.
He resumed his career in 1995 with the double-A Tulsa Drillers in the Texas Rangers organization.
That would be the closest Davidson would come with a big league call-up. Twelve years after being a first round draft pick, Jackie Davidson was scheduled to be the Texas Rangers opening day starter in 1995 as a replacement player. The baseball strike was settled, and Davidson never got his break.
At the age of 37, the pitcher attempted a comeback in the independent leagues with the Fort Worth Cats in 2001.
Eric Jokisch pitched in high school (Virginia-AC Central) in Illinois about an hour from where I lived. I never did see him play high school ball, but he had several appearances with the Chicago Cubs.
This next card was the holy grail for a few of my friends as youths. I remember an older kid that lived down the street had a nice collection that included this 1988 Score Update Mark Grace. One of my friends, Aaron, was a huge Grace fan and finally saved up enough money to buy this card for $24. As an 8-year old kid in 1990 that amount of money may as well had been a million dollars.
One Million Cubs Project Stats Wednesday's (2/13/2019) Cards: 400 Wednesday's (2/13/2019) Packages: 1 January's Cubs Count: 9,343 February's Cubs Count: 5,787 Total Trades/Donations: 49
Trade States of Origin: Arkansas California (4) Connecticut (4) Illinois (5) Indiana Maryland Massachusetts (2) Minnesota New Jersey (5) New York (5) North Carolina (2) Ohio (3) Pennsylvania (2) Tennessee (2) Texas (3) Washington (2) Wisconsin (6)