I went to the Orioles-White Sox game Friday night in Baltimore, my first in-person MLB game since September of 2019. The Orioles scored first on a solo home run from Ramon Urias in the second but the White Sox tied it in the third, went ahead in the fifth and then completely buried the O's. The Sox scored four in the sixth, three in the seventh and three more in the ninth to make it a 12-1 drubbing of the Birds. The Orioles brought in second baseman Pat Valaika to get the last out in the ninth - he may have been their most effective pitcher that evening.
The starting DH for the White Sox that evening was Gavin Sheets. I didn't realize until they put something up on the scoreboard that he is the son of former Orioles player Larry Sheets. Larry played in parts of six seasons for the O's from 1984 to 1989. His best season was 1987 when he hit .316 with 31 home runs and 94 RBIs. He still lives in the Baltimore area - he runs a youth sports facility in Westminster and is head baseball coach at the Gilman School in Roland Park - and was at the game Friday to see his son hit a solo home run.
Larry Sheets spent 1992 in Japan playing for the Yokohama Taiyo Whales. He had a very good season, hitting .308 with 26 home runs and a Central League leading 100 RBIs. He made both the All Star team and the Best 9 team. He and the team could not come to an agreement for 1993 though and he return to the US to play a final season in the Milwaukee and Seattle organizations.
As far as I can tell, Sheets had five Japanese cards in 1992 - #278 in BBM's regular set, #A27 in their All Star set, #91 and #192 in Calbee's set and #26 in Takara's Whales set. He's never appeared in any OB sets after 1992. Despite leading the league in RBIs he does not appear in the "Leaders" subset in the 1993 BBM set - I need to a post on this sometime but it was kind of hit or miss about whether or not a player who was no longer in NPB would appear in BBM's "Leaders" subset. For example, Sheets' former teammate on the Orioles Jim Traber led the Pacific League in RBIs in 1991 but didn't return to the Kintetsu Buffaloes for the 1992 season. He appears in the "Leaders" subset of the 1992 BBM set though. However, Boomer Wells led the PL in RBIs in 1992 in his final year in Japan but does not appear in the 1993 "Leaders" subset.
Here are Sheets' BBM cards from 1992. The cards feature photos that look like they were taken around the same time:
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| 1992 BBM #278 |
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| 1992 BBM All Stars # A27 |
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