How much money do you think Ron Gant made in his career? Decent-hitting OF, made it to a World Series or two, must have made a few bucks, right? Well, according to Baseball Reference, Mr. Gant made almost 45 million for his career. I don't think I need to be convinced any further about how amazingly other-worldly athletes salaries have gotten.

Anyhoo, this is an interesting card. I had no idea whatsoever that he'd ever played second base. The B-R page linked above says he also played a little third from '87 to '90. Then of course in '91 they signed Terry Pendleton, who played 3B, beat Bonds for an MVP award, and shifted Gant to the OF for good. Yes, I did watch a fair amount of baseball that year.

Kind of an unremarkable card, otherwise. I think they must have just switched from the old baby blue unis that year or the year before. Meh.

Apparently Fleer was the first baseball card for sabermetricians. Anyone know if Bill James started out writing for baseball cards or not? Interesting that they've chosen to list OBP and Slugging %. Not very good numbers for Mr. Gant in '89 in either stat, though. Good thing he was playing second base. I'm not entirely sure what the heck that 'strikeout ratio' means, though, nor the reason for describing the stats as being 'based on plate appearances per SO'. . . although I suppose that means he struck out every 4.5 times he came to the plate, which would be At-Bats + Walks + Sacrifices. I'm sure that's more information than I really needed to even think about. Geeks are fun.

And hey, listed at 6', 170. Nice. I'm not sure if I suddenly dropped 28 pounds if I'd look that skinny and healthy, or if I'd just look emaciated. Ha. Again, it's more proof that sports weren't quite as big and intense fifteen years ago.

There's also a nice questionable stat on the back of this card. It's the one that reads: Led NL second basemen with 23 errors in 1988. Was the card writer a Pirates fan? Did he merely think Hey, it says "led the league", let's put that on the card!? Is it really that hard to be a baseball card writer? I get the sense that this will be a recurring theme for the project.