These Mommas Must Be Proud

I hated middle school.  They were the worst years of my life.  I was dealing with puberty and transitioning from childhood into adolescence.  The problem was I was a late bloomer.  I've mentioned it in prior posts... that by the time I reached the eighth grade, most of my friends were into girls, while I was into everything... except girls.

And to make matters worse... I was a total butthead to my parents.  We didn't agree on anything and now that I've grown up... I realized it was 100% my fault.

Thankfully... I spent a lot of my afternoons that year playing baseball and my mom was always there to support me.  When I was younger she would play catch with me in the front yard.  A few years later, she volunteered to be the Team Mom.  And even when I reached middle school and I'd tell her she didn't need to go to my games... she still did.  So... I guess baseball was the one common bond between us during that rough patch.

One of my proudest sports accomplishments was making the thirteen year old all-stars that year.  Seven years of hard work... finally paid off and I remember wearing my special hat with pride for weeks around the house... and of course school.

I can only imagine what it felt like to be Josh Donaldson after he set the single season MLB All-Star Game voting record earlier in this week.  Talk about making your mother proud.  Even though he's no longer swinging the bat for the Athletics, I'm really happy for him and I'll definitely be cheering for him, Sonny Gray, and Stephen Vogt next Tuesday.

Both of these guys are making their first MLB All-Star Game appearances this year... and this got me thinking.  Who's represented the Oakland Athletics in the Midsummer Classic the most, since they left Kansas City back in 1967?  The answer:  Mark McGwire.  He played in nine all-star games for the A's.

Second most?  It's a tie between two hall of famers:  Reggie Jackson and Rickey Henderson.  Each of them played in six all-star games for Oakland.

Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, and Jose Canseco each played in five all-star games during their tenure with the Athletics, while Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, and Catfish Hunter each played in four.

There are three Athletics who went to three all-star games for the A's:  Terry Steinbach, Barry Zito, and Joe Rudi.  And there are nine different guys who were picked to represent Oakland two times.

Tim Hudson is one of those guys... along with a few other familiar names:

What about guys like Gray and Vogt, who have appeared only once?  There are thirty-nine players on that list.  One of those guys was a player I heavily collected in the late 90's... and a guy I thought was going to be a super star:

Yeah.  That didn't work out so well for me and my wallet.  But that's okay... at least he wasn't Joe Charboneau.

Here are a bunch of the Oakland Athletics Midseason Classic one-timers:

A huge thank you goes out to John over at Johnny's Trading Spot for boosting my Oakland Athletics collection with these huge stacks of cards:

All of the Oakland A's cards featured in this post are from him.  He also threw in some TCMA Japanese baseball cards that I'll show off in a future post... and some SI for Kids trading cards too.

I apologize for the delay John... but the end of the school year was pretty crazy and I've been backed up with blogger packages.  You're definitely at the top of my list for return packages.  I'll email you as soon as I ship it out.

Happy Friday and sayonara!