It's time for another installment 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 All-Star and Gold Glover Ceddanne Rafaela!
I asked, and you voted! When the TCDB randomly selected a player that last played over 80 years ago (but the card was much more recent) I put it up to a vote as to which direction I should go: I could focus on completing the chain in as few steps as possible by using a player from the set Joe Cronin didn't play with, or I could take a longer route that would likely exceed 6 degrees and use the only other player in the 2015 Panini Diamond Kings set that Cronin played with, Ted Williams. You overwhelmingly voted for Williams - it's the journey not the destination, right? As for Williams the player vs. Williams the manager, the vote was evenly split. Turns out it would have taken the same amount of steps either way, so I went with Williams sans his managerial cards. I hope you all enjoy it!
We start with the randomly generated card from my collection:
Random TCDB Card:
2015 Panini Diamond Kings #71 Joe Cronin
Joe Cronin was a player/manager for the Red Sox and became the first former player to be named President of the American League. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1956.
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Teammates in the 2015 Panini Diamond Kings set |
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The only other Red Sox player in the 2015 Panini Diamond Kings set that played around the same time as Cronin was Ted Williams. In addition to being Ted's manager when he first started, Cronin was also his teammate from 1939-1942. (Williams would spend the next 3 years fighting in WWII, but when he came back Cronin was still there managing, which he did until 1947.)
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Teammates in the 1960 Jay Publishing Boston Red Sox Picture
Pack Set B set |
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Ted Williams played until 1960. What made the next link difficult was that Williams had signed an exclusive deal with Fleer towards the end of his career, which is why he has no Topps base cards from 1959-1961. Fleer didn't have contracts with other players, so all they could really do was produce a Ted Williams career set in 1959. I was able to find this 5x7 team set, which may be a bit of a cheat since they're not really cards per se, but if it's good enough to be listed on the TCDB, it's good enough for me.
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Geiger's Wikipedia page is pretty interesting. He got hurt a lot in his career, including a collapsed lung and a bleeding ulcer. He even apparently had false teeth. Still he played long enough to connect us to another Hall of Famer.
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Morgan spent 22 years in the Majors, last playing in 1984. he got this sunset card from Topps the following year. Fortunately for me, that final stint in Oakland allowed me to use another all-time great early in his career.
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Teammates in the 2003 Donruss Studio set |
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Rickey is great for playing 6 degrees with. He's had a 25-year career with 9 different teams. According to ESPN, he played with 671 other ball players. One of which was Manny Ramirez. (Aside: How did I not know about these fantastic 2003 Donruss Studio cards before researching this post? That Fenway backdrop is great!)
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Teammates in the 2011 Bowman set |
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Speaking of great cards, Manny got one last great card for someone who only played 5 games as a Ray. Why are you hiding Manny?
I should note that Manny's 2011 Topps card has him listed with the White Sox. Also in that group of White Sox was the rookie card of pitcher Chris Sale. If I had used that connection, I could have completed this in one fewer step, as Sale and Rafaela were teammates in 2023. Technically Sale and Manny were never teammates, so instead I used the Rays to connect to another member of the Red Sox highly regarded 2018 rotation.
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Teammates in the 2019 Topps set |
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What made that 2018 rotation so highly regarded? Just a World Series Championship! Price in particular was amazing that postseason, and arguably should have been the World Series MVP over Steve Pearce. Dever got a ring that year too!
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Teammates in the 2025 Bowman set |
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It seems fitting that I officially pass the torch from one Raffy to the other to finish up this chain.
Degrees of Raffy: 8
Even though I said I wasn't going to do every voting choice for this series, I did have to work out each one since I didn't know what the final vote would be. I'll still share the chains with you though.
If connecting with a modern player had won, this would have been the chain:
- Joe Cronin --> 2015 Panini Diamond Kings --> Dustin Pedroia
- Dustin Pedroia --> 2025 Donruss --> Marcelo Mayer
- Marcelo Mayer --> 2026 Topps Heritage --> Ceddanne Rafaela
If connecting with Ted Williams (managing cards allowed) had won, this would have been the chain:
- Joe Cronin --> 2015 Panini Diamond Kings --> Ted Williams
- Ted Williams --> 1972 Topps --> Jeff Burroughs
- Jeff Burroughs --> 1986 Topps --> Dennis Lamp
- Dennis Lamp --> 1992 Topps --> Ellis Burks
- Ellis Burks --> 2004 Topps Total --> Tim Wakefield
- Tim Wakefield --> 2011 Topps --> Dustin Pedroia
- Dustin Pedroia --> 2020 Topps --> Rafael Devers
- Rafael Devers --> 2024 Stadium Club --> Ceddanne Rafaela
