I'm featuring 1988 Topps Cards featuring members of my beloved Blue Jays that are featured on this blog.
I once put Tony Fernandez at #4 on my favourite Blue Jays position players of all time list but he's #2 on my favourite Murray Eldon announcements list (to be read in your best Murray Eldon). Toooo-neeee Fer-NAN-deeeeezzzzzz.... I can hear it now. We need Murray Eldon now more than ever.
I could write pages and pages about the greatest Blue Jays shortstop in the history of the franchise. His 213 hits in 1986 is still the single season hits record for this team. He's fourth on the career stolen base list. He's the only player I know of to serve four different tours of duty with a Toronto based professional team. He enjoyed his first stint from 1983-1990, came back to help us win a World Series in 1993, played his third stint from 1998-1999 and made one last stop in Toronto in 2001 before retiring. He was welcomed back with open arms each and every time.
I could go on about how his injury in 1987 sparked our greatest collapse or how he was the answer I gave to Mike Wilner when I called his Cable 10 show "Let's Talk Sports", but I'm going to close with the enduring image of #1. I wrote all about that October 5, 1985 Saturday we clinched our first divisional pennant. George Bell made the catch, dropped to his knees and was met by Tony Fernandez, hand extended for a well deserved high five. Here's that picture as it appeared on the cover of the special Drive of '85 insert the Toronto Star printed the next day. It's hard to believe that was almost 23 years ago.
