jim kaat is in my hall of famer collection

one of the criteria i had for my hall of famer collection was related to the 1978 topps set. if they are in the hall as a player, and were included in that set, then they automatically gain entry in to my hall of famer collection. so, let's welcome jim kaat to the collection, with this card as his entry:

that's a 2000 fleer greats of the game autograph. here's the back:

kaat was voted in on the golden age ballot earlier this month, but i've had this card for a few years now. i plucked it out of the "traveling box" that bad wax established - the box that went missing under what i considered to be suspicious circumstances. 

i've held on to this card for just this purpose, even though i didn't really expect kaat to be voted in - i was actually thinking that dick allen might be the only one elected, and he missed by one vote! to me, kaat was a longevity guy who was firmly established in the hall of very good. by his own admission, he was never the ace of a pitching staff, but was rather a solid 2 or 3 in the rotation. 

i do recall turning his 1978 topps card over as a new collector and seeing the very small font on the back thanks to his already extended career and thinking that he must be a pretty good pitcher. his 1983 topps card had even smaller font, and even though he fell short of the magic numbers - 300 wins and 3000 strikeouts - his career was still impressive to me.  kaat remained on my radar in the 1990's as an announcer, and he's been around the twins every now and again to call some games on their cable broadcasts. he was elected to the twins' hall of fame in 2001 (their second class), and it will be interesting to see if his number 36 gets retired now that he's in cooperstown.

i would expect that tommy john is very happy to see kaat elected as there are a lot of similarities between the two pitchers and their careers. i also wonder if the writers will give a boost to andy pettitte due to kaat's election.

anyway, congratulations to kitty kaat - i am glad he's on the right side of the grass to enjoy the call! i've updated my hall of famer collection on my want site - i decided not to show it in these posts anymore.