Happy Birthday Tim Wallach: 3 Autographed Cards

Famous people born on September 14th include singer Amy Winehouse, rapper Nas, actors Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), Tyler Perry (Gone Girl), Melissa Leo (The Fighter), and Callum Keith Rennie (Californication), wrestler Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon, and comedian Mike Ward.

Also, myself, and former baseball star third baseman Tim Wallach. When I was a kid, most years, there was a Montréal Expos game at the Olympic Stadium on that day, and I'd go, and they'd say it was his birthday, and I felt special because it was mine too. There was even one year where my name appeared on the scoreboard, and I got to meet him and have him sign cards for me.

I'm not sure if any of these cards are from that day, because as is the case with my favourite player (Tim Raines), I have a ton of Wallach-signed stuff. He, Raines and Gary Carter are my Holy Trinity of baseball players, though I never got to meet Carter.

Wallach was usually among the league leaders in Game-Winning RBIs, and twice led for doubles, with 42 each time. The Expos were always a run-first team, putting emphasis on doubles and stolen bases (of which Raines was the champion) instead of raw power, and #29 also holds the team record for inside-the-park home runs, both in a single season and over a career. He did have some power to his game, however, surpassing the 20-homer mark five times (with a high of 28 in 1982).

He was also a three-time Gold Glove winner, in the Mike Schmidt, Terry Pendleton and Matt Williams era, no less.

Here are the three cards I chose to feature today, all of them signed in blue sharpie, starting with card #685 from Topps' 1986 Topps set:

He's shown from the side of the field near the bench, in his regular batting stance (upright), sporting the team's classic powder-blue (away) uniform, as is the case in the following card, from Fleer's 1990 Fleer set (card #364), except there he's shown mid-swing:

There's also this one where he's wearing the team's 1990s grey (away) uniform, watching a ball he hit go deep into center field:

It's card #570 from Topps' 1993 Topps collection, one of the last baseball sets I tried to complete.

Dennis Martinez Autographed Card

Dennis Martinez' nickname was 'El Presidente' for a while, until July 28th, 1991, when he pitched a perfect game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was a special game for many reasons: two days earlier, Mark Gardner was throwing a no-hitter until he surrendered one in the tenth inning, meaning the Montréal Expos could have been the first team to throw a no-hitter and a perfect game in the same series; also, 'El Perfecto' was the first non-American to register a perfect game, and his adversary, Mike Morgan, was also perfect through the first five innings, the longest the opponent of a perfect pitcher matched his counterpart; finally, it was the second time catcher Ron Hassey was on the receiving end of a perfect game, having previously been behind the plate for Len Barker's.

It was the 13th perfect game of all time, and the 11th of the modern era.

But Martinez was more than a one-trick pony: he finished in the top-5 in Cy Young voting twice, in the top-25 twice in MVP voting, and participated in 4 All-Star Games. He led his league in complete games twice (9 in 1991, and a whopping 18 in 1979 with the Baltimore Orioles); he finished his career with 30 shutouts, including a league-leading 5 in 1991, when he also led with a 2.39 ERA. He finished in the top-10 in wins 5 times.

Until a skinny kid with the same last name a few years later (Pedro Martinez), I had never seen that dominant a pitcher up-close (I'd seen Dennis Eckersley and Greg Maddux on TV, though) - and because I haven't watched a baseball game in over 15 years, I haven't seen as dominant a display as his perfect game, ever - and that includes all the Curt Schilling and Roger Clemens highlights.

So when he signed this card for me in 1993, you can bet I was the happiest kid in the Olympic Stadium:

It's from Topps' 1993 Topps set (card #610) and was signed in fading blue sharpie. It shows him in the Expos' grey (away) uniform they instilled in 1992 - he'd previously starred and been perfect in their powder-blue uniform.

Ken Hill Autographed Card

Ken Hill was a fairly good pitcher for half his career. He won 16 games three different times, going 16-9 in 1992 and 16-5 in 1994 for the Montréal Expos, and 16-10 in 1996 with the Texas Rangers.

1994 was arguably his best season, as he finished second in Cy Young voting, and 12th for the National League MVP title, with a two-inning All-Star Game appearance. He also played in the post-season twice, reaching the World Series in 1995 with the Cleveland Indians, and losing in the first round with the Rangers in '96.

His two stints with the St. Louis Cardinals didn't pan out (they happened before and after his run with the Expos), and neither did his time with the Anaheim Angels, Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Devil Rays to close out his career. Yet, despite bad seasons with 4 teams, he finished his career with a 117-109 record with a 409 ERA.

He signed this card for me in blue sharpie before a game in 1994:

It's from Topps' 1993 Topps set (card #495), and show him sporting the grey uniform with the blue (away) top - they also had an all-grey uniform in the 1990s that felt more ''classic''.

Back then, I'd purchase every Expos team set at the team's store in the Olympic Stadium; at first, they just made the Topps ones available, but over time they had every brand's. It was easier to get them signed that way, although because of financial reasons, half of the previous year's team (featured in the sets...) were usually gone by the time the new one was under way.