It's time for another installment ("aka filler post") of 6 Degrees Of Raffy,
where I connect a beloved card from my collection and connect the player
depicted on it to current Red Sox superstar Rafael Devers.
We start with a randomly generated card from my collection:
Who? I do not recall this guy at all. Turns out he was originally drafted by the Red Sox in 2009, toiled in the minors for 7 years before finally debuting for the Cardinals in 2016. He spent the next year with Arizona, finishing up his time in the Majors with 155 games played.
Duke was an All-Star for the Pirates in 2009. By the time he made his way to St. Louis, he was well into his career as a journeyman reliever, having played for 5 other teams in between.
Duke's last stop was in 2019 with Cincinati. The off-season free agent signing made it onto this Reds Topps Now set, but was released midway through the season, making this his only commercially available card with the team. Good enough to pair him their infielder Jose Peraza.
Peraza joined the Red Sox for the COVID-shortened 2020 season as one of the many hopeful 2nd base replacements for the injured Dustin Pedroia. he only appeared in 34 games for Boston, but that all that was needed for him to get a card in the same set as Raffy!
Having this card pop up will be interesting for two reasons. This is the first time since I've done these that I've randomly been given a card from the same time period that Rafael Devers played. I'm curious to see if this will make it easier or harder to make connections. Also, I don't exactly have a lot of options in the Topps Update set:
Only 9 players, and none of them exactly were household names. I knew Brandon Moss was a former Red Sox player, but that was back in 2007-08. I didn't want to go backwards that far just to get to the Red Sox. Besides, I at least try to make connections outside of the stalwarts like David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia. Fortunately, I found a nice chain to Raffy thanks to former All-Star Zach Duke.
| Teammates in the 2016 Topps Update set | |||||
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Duke was an All-Star for the Pirates in 2009. By the time he made his way to St. Louis, he was well into his career as a journeyman reliever, having played for 5 other teams in between.
| Teammates in the 2019 Topps Now Road to Opening Day Cincinnati Reds set | |||||
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Duke's last stop was in 2019 with Cincinati. The off-season free agent signing made it onto this Reds Topps Now set, but was released midway through the season, making this his only commercially available card with the team. Good enough to pair him their infielder Jose Peraza.
| Teammates in the 2021 Topps Heritage set | |||||
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Too easy!
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