Doug Drabek TTM Success

No TTM today, but I feel like doing a write up so here’s one from my blogging siesta...

Sent: 3/11/2019 | Received: 4/11/2020 | 397 days
3/3: 1987 Topps [Base], 1987 Topps Traded [Base], 1988 Topps Big [Base]
Address: Home (Magnolia, TX) from SportsCollectors.Net

At 397 days, this one’s up there among the longest returns I’ve had. Admittedly though, I haven’t been doing this for as long as others in the hobby.

Drabek’s best years were with the Pirates. He won the Cy Young Award and led the N.L. in wins for his 1990 season. He went 22-6 that year with a 2.76 ERA. He pitched six years in Pittsburgh and eclipsed 200 innings in all but one of them.

Drabek was drafted by the White Sox and traded to the Yankees as a minor leaguer. He played the 1985 season for my hometown Albany-Colonie Yankees. I didn’t see him pitch; I was two. He would debut with New York a year later.

Following the 1986 season he was traded to the Pirates. There were others involved but the principals were Drabek for Rick Rhoden. The Yankees felt they were a starting pitcher short of a playoff berth, and Rhoden was supposed to fill that role. The Yanks did not make the playoffs with him around, and Drabek went on to be a very good pitcher for the next eight years.

Drabek signed with the Houston Astros before the 1993 season, and earned his only All-Star nod in 1994. He’d wrap his career with ineffective years with the White Sox (1997) and Orioles (1998).