Thursday, April 27, 2017

"WHAT IF?"- 1969 REGGIE JACKSON ROOKIE, BUT AS A NEW YORK MET!

I tweeted a few days ago about a “fantasy” card (if there ever was one) I created regarding the 1969 Reggie Jackson rookie, but in this scenario he is pictured as a New York Met! It created for “Fastball John” and a book review he wrote for the Casey Stengel biography, “Baseball’s Greatest Character". Take a look:

The idea behind this is of course the (in)famous 1966 amateur draft, where Reggie went #2 overall, picked by the Kansas City Athletics after the Mets chose high school catcher Steve Chilcott, who never ended up playing a game in the Major Leagues.
There are many theories as to why Reggie wasn’t chosen #1 overall, too many to get into here (some unsavory), but nevertheless considering the impact he made at Arizona State University during his collegiate career, Reggie really should have been picked 1st. That would have given the university two straight overall picks after Rick Monday was taken 1st by the Athletics the previous year, in the very 1st amateur draft in MLB history.
Of course, it would have been interesting to see how the personality of Reggie would have played out had he immediately been in NYC, though as a part of a team that was at the precipice of success with a youth-core of Seaver, Koosman, et al and a championship looming in 1969.
Who knows? But it sure is fun imagining!
Anyway, for the card, I had to combine a nice photo or Reggie around 1969 with a perfect shot of former Mets favorite Tommie Agee. Just so happened I found two identical poses, though Reggie’s was flipped.
Through the magic of Photoshop, voila! We Have the young Reggie Jackson shown as a New York Met!
I may have to try my hand at a few other “what if’s” down the line! Keep an eye out to see who…

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER...

@wthballs
Everything baseball: cards, events, history and more.