Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Rick Stelmaszek Saga:Part 16

About a year ago, thanks to Steve over at White Sox Cards, my old friend Rick Stelmaszek has a 1974 Topps Traded baseball card. Steve is a master at such creations. He has also helped me with a Mick Kelleher Cardinals card, a Ricky Seilheimer White Sox card and a couple Mike Squires cards. Steve is so dedicated that he sent me a corrected version after he realized he mistakenly listed Rick as a pitcher. Ironically, I didn't even catch the error!
The Chicago Cubs would be Stelmaszek's last major league team. After finishing the 1974 season with the Cubs, Stelmaszek spent all of 1975 with the Wichita Aeros (the AAA affiliate of the Cubs). In January of 1976, he was traded to the New York Yankees for Gerry Pirtle (who never pitched for the Cubs, was released two years later and pitched in 19 games for the 1978 Montreal Expos).
Stelmaszek played one season in Syracuse (the Yankees AAA affiliate) before heading back to the Texas Rangers organization for one season. Finally, he landed with the Wisconsin Rapids Twins (the A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins) as a player-manager.
However, Stelmaszek's career started in the Washington Senators' (now the Texas Rangers) organization. There is an Ebay auction ending in two days which features a very young Stelmaszek while with the Senators. The picture has to be about 40 years old. It's a great piece of baseball nostalgia.
Vintage Rick Stelmaszek photo as found on Ebay (#390211387607)

2 comments:

Steve Gierman said...

I love running across photos like that!

Johngy said...

Yeah and you found that old sticker card for me on EBay!