RIP Rick Krueger

I wanted to do a quick post on the passing of Rick Krueger, the former pitcher who was somewhat briefly a member of the Yomiuri Giants in 1979.  Krueger had signed with the Boston Red Sox in 1971 out of Michigan State University (I'm not entirely sure why he wasn't subject to the draft) and spent seven seasons (one of which he missed due to injury) in their organization, including 11 games in the majors between 1975 and 1977.  He was traded to Cleveland for Frank Duffy just before the 1978 season started and split that season between Triple-A Portland and the big league team.  

He joined the Giants in the spring of 1979 with the expectation that he'd be replacing Shigeru Kobayashi in the rotation - Kobayashi had just been dealt to the Tigers as part of the resolution of the "Egawa affair".  However, he made just one start before the team was concerned about his stamina and moved him to the bullpen.  He ultimately got into just 18 games, going 2-1 with an ERA of 4.66.  He was sent home by the team in mid-September and hung up his spikes after playing that winter in Puerto Rico (despite getting a spring training invite from Cleveland for 1980).  He would later coach at Cornerstone College and ran a baseball school.  He was 77 when he passed away on May 7th.

I wouldn't have thought that Krueger had many Japanese baseball cards but he had a couple more than I expected.  He didn't appear in any of Calbee's sets for 1979 but he did show up in that year's Takara Giants set.  He was also in a card set given away in Gekkan Giants magazine as uncut sheets of six cards.  The most common Japanese card of him, however, is from the 1979 TCMA set.  I have the TCMA and magazine cards:

1979-80 Gekkan Giants #19 

1979 TCMA #58

 I used his SABR biography as a source for this post.