Random Jay Monday: 92 Fleer Ultra Roberto Alomar

It's hard to imagine that Robbie played for 7 teams during his 17 year major league career, but look up his stats and you'll see that San Diego, Toronto, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York Mets, Arizona and the White Sox all had their turns with the Hall of Famer. 

There are two events that are burned in my memory when it comes to Robbie.  December 5, 1990, the day that the single most important trade made in Blue Jays history was completed, when Alomar was acquired with Joe Carter from the Padres.  You don't really see a 2 for 2 swap of big name players like that anymore.  (McGriff and Fernandez went to the west coast)

The other memory that still clouds my mind when it comes to Robbie was the spitting incident with umpire John Hirschbeck.  That incident is still the reason many believe that Alomar didn't get into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot (he missed by 8 votes). 

Even though he spent only 5 seasons in Toronto, Roberto became the first Jay to earn the distinction of having his number retired, ahead of such Blue Jay greats as Dave Stieb, George Bell and Tony Fernandez.

I guess when you have 5 seasons where you average .307, win 5 Gold Gloves, appear in 5 all star games, finish 6th in MVP voting three straight seasons, steal 206 bases, and win 2 World Series, I guess you're going to get pushed to the head of the class.

I can only hope that Alomar isn't the last Blue Jays player that I'll see inducted into the Hall of Fame in my lifetime.  The only other player currently in the game that has a shot in my opinion is Roy Halladay, but I fear that if he spends an extended period of time in Philadelphia, he'll be elected wearing the Phillies cap.

Only time will tell.

Thanks for reading, Robert