Collecting Cleveland Indians Topps team sets from 1952-present, as well as post-war minor and major league autographs.
Rocky Colavito. I love this autograph. What I don’t have shown is the note that I got from him explaining how I forgot a return stamp and that normally he would throw requests like that away. But I wrote a nice letter, so he was doing me a solid by adding a stamp. I was…so embarrassed.
Jeff Heath is one of the great underrated Cleveland Indians.
Joe Smith has had a fantastic career. But he is a career middle relief pitcher, so it’s easy to not notice.
Josh Naylor came over to Cleveland in the August 2020 Mike Clevinger trade. This trade might end up being up there with the 2002 Bartolo Colon trade as one of the better in the team’s history, with the team losing Clevinger and Greg Allen but adding Joey Cantillo, Gabriel Arias,[…]
Owen Miller has been one of a few nice surprises for the Guards this season. When Cleveland traded Mike Clevinger in 2020, Owen Miller was part of the package they got back–a package that also included Gabriel Arias, Austin Hedges, Josh Naylor and Cal Quantrill. It was not a bad[…]
Milan Tolentino was Cleveland’s 4th-round pick in 2020 out of Santa Margarita Catholic in California. He opened the season in the back-half of the Guardian’s Top 30 prospect list but has been on fire in 2022 at Low-A Lynchburg, hitting .333/.436/.428 with one home run. Tolentino is quickly becoming another[…]
After being drafted in the 39th round of the 2002 draft–a draft position not known to make many majors leaguers, he would go on to spend parts of three seasons in the majors–to include an All-Star selection. And there is no denying he was a masher in the minors, highlighted by his 2011 campaign with the Cubs AAA affiliate when he hit .331/.405/.664 with 38 HR and was selected the Pacific Coast League MVP.
Pitcher Carl Pavano was ranked one of the Top 10 prospects in baseball coming into the 1998 season. While he would never quite live up to that lofty billing, he did have some very nice seasons during his 14-year career.
Tony Horton made the majors in 1964 with the Boston Red Sox. While the Red Sox considered him a legit prospect, he struggled to find playing time behind another promising rookie, George Scott. So in June 1967 the Red Sox, in contention and in need of pitching, traded Horton and Don Demeter to Cleveland for Gary Bell.
Eddie Murray spent 21-seasons in the big leagues. Three of those seasons, in the twilight of his career, came with Cleveland. They were good too. In 1995, at the age of 39, he would hit .323/.375/.516 with 21 HR, good for a 129 OPS+.