finally, the derek jeter and paul konerko final tribute post

as many of you know, one of my mini collections is 'final tribute' cards for players whom i consider to be significant for one reason or another.  these are cards issued in the year immediately after the player's retirement, and (more often than not) include the player's complete career stats on the back.

in 2015, there were two cards that i was anticipating for this collection - derek jeter

and paul konerko

i added both to my collection a while back.

i have to say that i prefer jeter's card, although konerko's features a pose worthy of a final tribute. i just think cropping the card to include the fans and their signs was unnecessary.

here are the full career stats for jeter

no doubt hall of fame worthy stuff there, even though he never won an mvp award during the regular season.

konerko's stats

are not as impressive as jeter's.  although he is 42nd all-time in home runs, konerko's jaws score has him down in the ryan klesko/tino martinez/lee may realm, so it is unlikely that the hall will be calling for the one time dodger.  still, i look at konerko's career and wonder what might have been had tommy lasorda not traded him to the reds for jeff shaw.  eric karros remained as the dodger first baseman through the 2002 season, but perhaps he would have been moved sooner had konerko been allowed to develop in la.  we would also have likely avoided the fred mcgriff and hee-seop choi experiments (much to jim tracy's delight, i would imagine), but we also might have missed the resurgence of nomar and the emergence of james loney.  i am reminded, however, that konerko has a world series ring while the dodger teams he left behind do not, so it's probably best not to play the 'what if' game.