Back in 1994, baseball went on strike, and I was 11 years old and just starting to become a huge baseball fan. I was old enough to know that there was no baseball that fall, but didn't really know why it was happening and all of the details. In 1995, the players were still on strike, and in March, replacement players were signed with the idea of having them play the 1995 season if the strike didn't end. The Chicago White Sox recruited Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd to pitch for them that spring. I remember my friend Donald telling me that Chicago signed Boyd, and I believe I knew about him, but probably didn't have any of his cards at that point. I really wished I would've saved more things from 1994-1995. It has been a horrible chore trying to find out just the names of replacement players, let alone getting any pictures to make cards with. There are a few pages that list a name or two, but nothing too big. Box scores in newspapers have been surprisingly hard to find, and even with the 2 or 3 that I've found, they are pretty useless since they don't list first names.
Boyd came to the Majors in 1982 with the Red Sox. He pitched for them through 1989, then played for the Expos in 1990. His final year in the Majors was 1991 where he pitched for both the Expos and Rangers. He pitched in the replacement Spring Training in 1994 for the White Sox, and that was the extent of his time in the Majors. Surprisingly, even his
wikipedia page doesn't note his time as a replacement player, although a
list of 1995 replacement players on wikipedia has him listed with them, as well as
this article and a few others.
Dennis got his first Topps card in the 1985 Topps set, and appeared in every set from 1985-1992. He also got into the 1990 Topps Traded set. He is missing 1983 and 1984 Topps cards to complete his career Topps run.
Thanks for checking out my latest card.
-Jeremy
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