Throwback Thursday; All Star Edition - the "Greatest Baseball Player Ever"

Since the All-Star Game was this past Tuesday, and since some of my Facebook, Twitter, and Blog Friends happen to partake in "Throwback Thursday" I figured it would be time to do the same. Today's throwback..."The Greatest Baseball Player, EVER!" - Reggie Sanders.

Oh yes, the greatest baseball player ever. Let me explain. The year was 2001, the horrible events of September 11th occurred but the country rallied around its sports teams, its leaders, its friendships in order to help ease the pain, to in a very minor way "move on". Well that was true, even in the city of St. Louis, with Jack Buck's moving speech; For America (9/11 Tribute Poem) - September 17th 2001, Cardinal fans forgot about their usual rivalries and were just exstatic that baseball was back and there was some normalcy returning to American life. However, once that era of good faith was over sports fans across the nation once again returned to stroke their own egos and root for their own teams. Fans didn't necessarily root against any particular team but they did still root for their own.

So now back to the story at hand, Reggie Sanders, the "Greatest Baseball Player Ever." By now many of you are thinking, Reggie Sanders is by no means the best ever, in any category. While that is not completely true; he was an All-Star in 1995, he is the only major league player to hit 20 or more homeruns in one season for 6 different teams and hit at least 10 in a season for every team he played for; 8 in all, but back to the story. It was the 2001 playoffs and being a baseball/Cardinal nut we (the college group of friends who could be jointly known as the "Caballeros" were having a watch party, grill out, hang out while watching the Diamondbacks play the Cards sure enough Reggie Sanders strolls to the plate in a pivotal game 5. While watching the game we recognized that Sanders wasn't having the best of series so I mused, oh man why is this guy still here; hasn't he retired yet? It was then the one of the games greatest superstitions was imparted to me don't ever comment that a player, who hasn't done well will continue to not do well, or you will be sadly mistaken. I was. Mr. Sanders, now the "greatest baseball player ever" decided to go 1-2 with 2 walks an RBI and a run accounting for the 2-1 victory to move the Diamondbacks onto the NLCS and eventually their World Series win against the Yankees.

After that year Reggie moved onto, the Giants and Pittsburg before heading over to the Show-Me-State and the St. Louis Cardinals for the 2004 and 2005 seasons. Reggie then solidified his place as the "Greatest Baseball Player Ever" which was called every time he stepped to the plate. The thought hoping to reverse the curse that had begun in 2001. It didn't work so well for while he was a Card he hit .2655 and 43 HR's, but we then lost the infamous series with the Red Sox (the one that ended the curse) and in 2005 lost the division series to the Astros.

In any case my wife and I were fortunate to meet the "Greatest Baseball Player Ever" on our anniversary weekend in 2004 and asked for a signature and for him to add "the Greatest Baseball Player Ever" on his photo, as you can see he was smarter than that but was kind enough to add a smiley face, for he was all smiles that day.