TTM Stats
- Sent: 7/7/2021 | Received: 8/21/2021 | 44 Days
- ’99 Topps, ’02 Topps, ’06 Upper Deck, ’07 Upper Deck
- Address: PO Box (address from Sports Card Forum)
The Story of the Autograph
Scott Elarton is a right-handed starting pitcher in the major leagues. His career spanned 10 seasons from 1998 to 2008. During that time he played for the Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies, Cleveland Indians (twice) and Kansas City Royals.
Elarton was born and raised in Lamar, Colorado. He was drafted as a high schooler by the Astros in the first round of the 1994 MLB Draft with the 25th overall pick. After four seasons in the minors he made his major league debut on June 20, 1998. He mostly appeared as a reliever that first year, but made a couple of starts. He started in the bullpen in 1998 and then moved to the rotation.
He had the best season of his career for a pretty bad team. After shoulder surgery in 1999 he came back to a 72-win Astros team at a hitter friendly park and put up a 17-7 record with a 4.81 ERA in 30 starts. The following year he was traded for Pedro Astacio, back to his home state of Colorado to play for the Rockies. Another surgery on his shoulder would cause him to miss the entire 2002 season.
The Rockies released him in 2004 after a disappointing season and he signed a minor league deal with the Indians. He was back in the majors, but still didn’t have much success until he put his last winning record, and first since that 2000 season, with a 11-9 record and 4.61 ERA in 31 starts in 2005. He moved on to the Royals and then back to the Indians in 2008.
While he tried to make it with several teams after 2008 he could never crack into the majors again. He coached in the Pirates minor league system for a couple years and then worked in the Pirates front office.
The Score on Scott Elarton – 7.5
I think I will say that Scott’s signature almost feels “scratchy”. It has some action to it and I like his “E”. I feel like we don’t get to see a lot of cursive capital “Es” in signatures. I also like that this is a return that represents his whole career as every team he played for is on those cards. I think my favorite of the bunch is the Astros card.
Thanks Mr. Elarton! I’m giving this return a 7.5.
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Information gathered using Wikipedia and Baseball Reference.