TTM Stats
- Sent: 5/14/2021 | Received: 6/1/2021 | 17 Days
- ’83 Donruss, ’83 Topps, ’86 Donruss, ’86 Fleer, ’86 Topps
- Address: Home (address from Sports Card Forum)
The Story of the Autograph
Dave Van Gorder is a former backup catcher in the major leagues. He played in five seasons between 1982 and 1987, mainly with the Cincinnati Reds, but closed out his major league career with the Baltimore Orioles.
Van Gorder was born in Los Angeles, California and went to high school in Arizona. He was first drafted out of high school by the Phillies in the ninth round of the 1975 MLB Draft but didn’t sign. He instead went on to attend the University of Southern California. In 1978 the Cincinnati Reds drafted him from there in the second round of the 1978 MLB Draft.
Of course a catcher in the Reds organization was going to have to be behind Johnny Bench during most of those years. He spent several years in the minors before the Reds gave him his major league debut on June 15, 1982. He would get in 51 games that season but only hit .182. His 1983 season was spent completely in the minors.
He was back with the Reds in 1984 and spent some more significant time in the majors in 1985 when he got into 73 games and his a career high .238 with two home runs and 24 RBI. But he would only play in nine games the following season before being released in November of 1986. He moved on to Baltimore as a free agent and played his final 12 major league games with them, the last of them on July 11, 1987.
The Score on Dave Van Gorder – 7.0
While you can tell pretty well that this is Dave’s signature, it has a sort of messy style. But there aren’t many players with a “Van” in there name out there. I love the way the “V” just sort of pops in there. It almost looks like it’s a boxing matchup… like “Dave v. Gorder”.
Thanks Mr. Van Gorder! I’m giving this return a 7.
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Information gathered using Wikipedia and Baseball Reference.