Missing Topps Kevin Kennedy cards

 I shall not speak of the game last night other than to say Congrats, Night Owl, GCRL, etc. 

Yesterday I recieved an email from a reader kind of asking me how I made the cards and templates and saying that he used to work with Kevin Kennedy. I told him my process of doing things, and shared a story I had about Kevin, and that evolved into me trying to finish Kevin's career Topps run.

First, the story. Back when Kevin was broadcasting for the Rays, I had went to a Rays game and brought his 1993 Topps card along with me. I pulled the card out of a pack way back in 1993, and had sent it to Jim Riggleman, and Riggleman sent it back signed. I had hoped to get Kevin to sign it and get it finished. At this point in my life, I went to 3-4 Rays games a year, and the only time I had got any of their broadcasters who had baseball cards was during their fan fest in February. Missed out on Joe Magrane, Brian Anderson, Orestes Destrade, and others. After the game that I went to, I saw Kevin walking to his car, and was able to call him over, and he signed his card for me, no problem. It was nice to get the card completed, but even better to finally get a broadcaster to sign something after a game. 

Now, the cards. Kevin played minor league ball, and never got to the Majors, except for a call-up with the Orioles. He broke his foot, and was unable to play, so never made it in a game. He got his first Major League coaching/managing action in 1992 with the Expos as a bench coach, and was named manager of the Rangers for the 1993 season. He managed them in 1994 before getting the boot, and then was hired by the Red Sox to manage them in 1995. He led them to the playoffs in 1995, and spent his last season in the Majors in 1996 with them. 

The only Topps card Kevin recieved was the 1993 Topps card with Riggleman. 

That leaves a 1992 Topps Traded, 1993 Topps (Expos), 1994 Topps, 1995 Topps, 1995 Topps Traded (Red Sox), 1996 Topps, and 1997 Topps card to complete his career Topps run, and possibly a 1978 Topps Prospects card just for good measure picturing him as an Oriole.  Let's see what I came up with.

1978 Topps Rookie

1992 Topps Traded

1993 Topps

1994 Topps

1995 Topps

1995 Topps Traded

1996 Topps

1997 Topps

I believe the 1997 Topps card is one that one of the guys on the FB Custom Cards page, Richard, did for me, I just worked a little bit on the lettering. 

So there you have it, all of the Kevin Kennedy cards that Topps missed. 

Since Kevin's managing days, he does podcasts and videos on his website, and even manages OOTP baseball games (I haven't played in ages, need to start back up). He is also on Twitter. 

I'll be spending the next few days licking my wounds from the Game 6 loss, organizing my Rays binders, setting up billions of cookies at work for a sale, and probably try to mow the lawn tomorrow. If things go really well, maybe I'll get close to finishing the missing NL cards in my 1992 Topps Traded set by then. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy