Rondell White: Two Autographed Cards

Last week, my favourite baseball player of all time, Tim Raines, was in town to celebrate his Hall Of Fame induction and appear on local TV shows, notably Tout le Monde En Parle. Raines was one of the few former Montréal Expos who were as good elsewhere as they'd been in Montréal, winning two World Series titles with the New York Yankees; Gary Carter (New York Mets), Andre Dawson (Chicago Cubs), Pedro Martinez (Boston Red Sox) and Vladimir Guerrero (Anaheim Angels, Texas Rangers) also come to mind.

Few are hated by more than one fan base, though. Such is the case for Rondell White, who had a disappointing turn after signing a free agent contract with the Yankees and, after redeeming himself with the San Diego Padres by going to the 2003 All-Star Game, failed to deliver with the Minnesota Twins - some even ranking him among the worst players in the team's history.

In Montréal, White had a respectable 742-game career:

420 Runs Scored
808 Hits
165 Doubles
101 Home Runs
384 RBI
88 Stolen Bases
.293/.348/.480 Slash Line
19.2 bWAR

Had it not been for poor injury luck, he probably would have been an All-Star in the Canadian Sin City as well. He surpassed the 100-game mark only three times with the Expos, in 1995 (130), 1997 (151) and 1999 (138). That 1997 team was probably the best he'd played on, possibly a pitcher or two away from a playoff berth, what with White, Martinez, and Guerrero leading the way and David Segui (1B), Mike Lansing (2B), Mark Grudzielanek (SS), Henry Rodriguez (LF), and Darrin Fletcher (C) providing additional bats and Carlos Perez, Dustin Hermanson, Marc Valdes, Ugueth Urbina, and Anthony Telford helping out on the mound (apologies to a twilight-of-his-career Lee Smith).

White makes for the perfect addition as #22 in my Expos Numbers Project, with these two cards, first #50 from Pinnacle Brands' 1996 Score set, wearing the grey (away) 1990s uniform:

And here he is wearing the blue alternate/Spring training t-shirt, on card #240 from Upper Deck's 1999 Victory set:

He signed both in blue sharpie, probably in 2003.