The Cardboard Insider: Acker v Hassey

I love the old backs of cards that have trivia questions on them.  Topps Archives and Heritage both have been doing a good job of staying true to the designs of yesteryear.  Sometimes I will research the names on the backs of cards that may not be household names and provide some quick inside information on the players referenced.  This segment is called The Cardboard Insider and was named by Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown.

Andrew McCutchen received a 1985 design in 2013 Archives.  You may recall I showed this card off when I did a showcase of all the cards made of Cutch from designs beginning with my birth year.

The card is numbered 101 which originally belonged to Jim Acker, pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays.  Acker would go on to have a ten year career with the Blue Jays, Braves, and Mariners.  He was on three American League East division winners while a member of the Blue Jays.

The back of Cutch's card also has a trivia question.

"Who is the only player to catch 2 perfect games"?

With less than 25 perfect games recorded in the history of the game, one would have to have caught for a long career.  If Ron Hassey was the first person that came to mind, congratulations your baseball trivia knowledge is MIND BLOWING!!!!

Ron Hassey who also had a card in the 1985 Topps set is the only catcher to have caught two perfect games.  The first was caught in 1981 for Len Barker's perfect game and the second was Dennis "El President" Martinez's perfect game in 1991.  Hassey was a member of the 1989 Oakland A's World Series Championship team.  He finished his 14 year career batting .266 and 71 HRs.

Now after researching the 1985's original card number (Jim Acker) and the card's trivia question answer (Ron Hassey), the next question is did these two Insiders ever battle on the baseball field.

After researching Baseball-Reference we learn that Hassey stepped to the plate 7 times versus Acker.  It yielded a .500/.429/1.000 slash line good for an OPS of 1.429!!!!!  Hassey had a HomeRun and sacrifice fly in those 7 plate appearances, amassing 5 RBIs in only 6 at bats (remember sac flies don't count as a AB).

Small sample size or not, Hassey owned Acker.

I hope you have enjoyed this edition of the Cardboard Insider where I take a random Andrew McCutchen card and research some of the names on the back.

The Acker and Hassey 1985 cards were taken from COMC images.  I do not own those cards, but was using the images for this Cardboard Insider segment.