..........did Kirk shoot up? you decide...One sunny day at Wilson Park (located in Torrance, Ca.), the Dodgers were kind enough to send some of their rookies to talk to eager kids at the park. Once I found out the names of who was attending (Pedro Martinez, Eric Karros, Tom Candiotti....wasn't Candiotti's rookie year so he must have drew the short straw) I grabbed all of their cards out of my collection and eagerly went to get their autograph.
One gem that came out of that is an autographed rookie card by potential HOFer Pedro Martinez. What was more important to me at the time was the rookie of the year autograph from Eric Karros!
I was thrilled to have it and I remember asking the owner at a card store how much he thought the card would be worth. He offered me 35 dollars. Whoa, I could almost get a new video game with that money! I turned him down as I anticipated it being worth way more and went ahead and spent 20 dollars to buy a Darryl Strawberry rookie card (a no-brainer).
As history would have it, both investments turned out to be a flop. Although Karros gave me some hope when he got dramatically better in 1995, Strawberry never panned out (to say the least).
In 1994, the baseball player union went on strike. During this season, Eric Karros was on pace to hit 19 HR's. The following season, Eric Karros (now a solid 15-20 lbs heavier) hit 32 HR's and drove in 105 runs.
The extra weight that Karros added certainly helped him quite a bit, and started to make me feel like my decision to turn down the 35$ for his autographed rookie card was a good idea. He then hit 34 HR's, 31 HR's, 23 (injury shortened season, was on pace for 28) then hit 34 in 1999 (his all around best season) and then another 31 in 2000. Karros had started to look like he was a guaranteed 30 HR 100 rbi guy, and a serious threat at 400 career homeruns if he could keep the pace up for another 5 or so years.
Unfortunately, Karros started getting the injury bug. That injury bug sure happened to a lot of performance enhancer users. He finished his career hitting 15, 13, 12 and 2 homeruns in his last 4 seasons.
So the autograph card isn't worth much anymore, but the nostalgia is still a great memory. I used to get so fired up when Eric Karros and Mike Piazza would come to the plate. One look at Piazza's rookie card and you know he is an obvious user, so I won't waste my time doing an entry on him.
My official prognosis on Karros is that he used a pro-hormone like andro. Most likely he started once the players went on strike. He came back built like a horse, and really was fun to watch the following 5-6 years as a result.
Of course, andro wasn't illegal during that time but lets not forget that those substances would result in a 50 game ban today. Which brings me to the main point in my who would you start...Babe Ruth or Jack Cust? I'd go with Jack post. You can't compare players from different era's to eachother and base a Hall of Fame selection on that. Babe Ruth would be terrible if he played today. At 6'2'' 215 lbs., he would have almost been small, and his goofy swing that worked against slow pitching would simply not work. Eric Karros was not one of the greatest to play the game in his (steroid)era so he should not be a Hall of Famer. At 6'4'' 225 lbs., the legends would have been rediculous if he played during Babe's era. If we went on actual skill, Karros was better than the Babe. But when you look at them through the context of their era.... Babe Ruth was a no-brainer hall of famer and Karros a no-brainer non-HOFer....
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