Bill Virdon Autographed Card

Bill Virdon was an excellent defensive center fielder who was also decent at the plate, with a career batting average of .267, mostly with the Pittsburgh Pirates (1956-1965, and three plate appearances in 1968), but also with the St. Louis Cardinals (1955, 1956), with whom he was named the NL Rookie Of The Year.

Officially, he could still play in the late 1960s but retired because he wanted to become a manager, which he started doing in the minors before graduating to the majors with the Pirates in 1972, finishing first in the NL East. After finishing third the following season, he had a year-and-a-half stint with the New York Yankees, finishing the 1975 season with the Houston Astros, where he remained until 1982, with first-place finishes in 1980 and 1981, but finishing fifth in 1982, leading to his departure and subsequent hiring by the Montréal Expos for two seasons.

He then moved back to Missouri with his wife, at times joining the Pirates for special occasions, including stints as guest first-base coach during Spring Training. The team had him and Bill Mazeroski appear in the dugout in 2012, but that didn't go over well with the powers that be over at MLB and the experiment was terminated after just a single game.

I don't recall the number he wore when he managed the Expos, so I can't add him to my Expos Numbers Project just yet - and, for the record, I do find it odd and borderline ridiculous that managers have uniform numbers in baseball when they aren't player-managers like Pete Rose was - but I do have a signed card of his that reflects his time in La Belle Province:

It's #516 from Topps' 1983 Topps set, which he signed in blue sharpie during the Expos' final season.

Two Steve Rogers Autographed Cards

Of course, I wasn't just going to tease an Expos Numbers Project and let it remain idle; no, as the first post-announcement post, I decided to feature one of the three greatest Montréal Expos pitchers of all time, Steve Rogers.

Sure, Dennis Martinez had a perfect game, and Pedro Martinez won a Cy Young, but they were just as good in at least one other MLB city, whereas Rogers only played in Montréal, and merely had a contending team in front of him in 1981 and 1982, which coincided with some of his best years, though the five-time All-Star (1974, 1978, 1979, 1982 and 1983) was by far one of the few bright spots of those 70s teams.

Statistically, he may have deserved the Cy Young in 1982 when he went 19-8 with a league-leading 2.40 ERA and 4 shutouts. He led the National League with 5 shutouts in both 1979 and 1983, and in complete games with 14 in 1980.

In 393 career starts, he has completed an astounding 129, 37 of them shutouts.

Former manager Dick Williams wasn't too fond of Rogers, often falsely claiming he couldn't handle the pressure of big games, but his playoff statistics speak otherwise, with a 3-1 record overall, but mostly 2 decisive wins over the Philadelphia Phillies and their ace Steve Carlton in 1981, a one-run win and a 3-0 shutout to lead the Expos to the League Championship, in which his 4-1 win as a starter was another proof of his undeniable mastery of the mound; his lone loss, handing out a home run in relief on just two days' rest, remains a heartbreaker in the city's annals as one of the worst coaching decisions of all time, regardless of the sport.

And although I already have Michael Barrett penciled in for #45 of my Expos Numbers Project, Rogers will also take his rightful place in it with these two cards, the first of which, from Topps' 1983 Topps set (#320 in the collection), shows him in the team's red Spring Training garbs:

The second one shows him in the team's classic blue (away) uniform, from Donruss' 1985 Donruss set (with card #219):

Both cards were signed in person in blue sharpie, the Topps one in a charity event in 2013 (''Pitch And Catch Rally''), while the second was at Felipe Alou's induction in the Canadian Baseball Hall Of Fame last month.

When he became eligible for the Hall Of Fame in 1991, he didn't garner a single vote - not one! - and his candidacy was therefore revoked for subsequent years. That's despite a better career ERA than Nolan Ryan, and pitching more innings per season than Sandy Koufax. And completing roughly a third of his games.

I think he'd be in were it not for injuries; two to five extra years, even average ones, would have gotten him in on his fifth or sixth try.