I Swear to God I Thought You Were Your Sister

Been there done that.

Good times though. Gooood times...

Anyways, while I was listening to the Mets game on the radio I started looking through the binder that holds all the cards that my Uncle gave me. The earliest being a '61 and the oldest being a bunch of '71s every time I look through them, I find a card of a player I never knew I had. This time was no different. In one of the first pages I found this...


1971 Topps Billy Conigliaro
Nothing overly exciting, but I like having cards of players that own little slices of history. The oddball stuff, ya know? As I'm reading the cards' back, I start thinking to myself "I could have sworn this guys name was Tony..." I didn't think too much further into it, until a couple page later, I found this...


1971 Topps Tony Conigliaro
OK, now Joe's confused. The fact that a baseball playing Tony Conigliaro does exist confirms my thought that this is the guy I was thinking of, but this other Conigliaro is on the Red Sox, which is the team that the original Conigliaro I was thinking of played on.

The back of Conigliaro #2's card mentioned "the beaning" that I was thinking of. So who's who and where the hell is the third Olson twin? I've been looking for years now and nothing...

Tony Conigliaro is (unfortunately) most famous for being hit in the face with a pitch. This was back in 1967, before batting helmets were required at the plate. The Dodgers had made batting helmets mandatory back in the '40s with the Pirates following suite in the '50s. However, it was not mandated by the league until 1971 that all teams and players must wear helmets at the dish (with a grandfather clause) which was due in large part to Tonys HBP.

He burst onto the scene with the Red Sox in '64 with 21 doubles, 24 Home Runs, 52 RBI and a .290 on route to a 2nd place finish in the ROY award. Next year saw even greater success with him becoming the youngest player to ever lead the league in home runs, with 32. In 1967, he made the All-Star team and then later in August, suffered the HBP which broke his cheekbone, separated his jaw and detached his retina among other injuries. Missing the entire '68 season he did return in '69 winning the Comeback Player of the Year Award, which of course I like, with his prototypical 21 doubles, 20 home runs and 82 RBI. In '71, Tony was traded to the Angles, (which is the team the Red Sox were playing against when he was hit) after a monster year in 1970 where he hit 36 home runs and drove in 116 RBI. After only 74 games with the Angels, it wouldn't be until 1975 that he Would have another plate appearance in the Majors. After only 21 games as (primarily) the Red Sox DH he was forced to retire due to his damaged eyesight.

Billy Conigliaro on the other hand, was Tonys brother and the two were teammates for 2 seasons with Boston. Providing some pop of his own, Billy had 40 career home runs in only 347 games. On July 4th, 1970 both brother hit home runs in the same game against the Indians. After the '71 season Billy was traded to the Brewers after being openly upset about the Red Sox trading Tony to the Angels after his brothers huge season the previous year. During the '72 season, Billy announced his retirement, but found his way back to baseball serving as a bench player for the Champion A's in 1973 in which he would play his last year.

So that's what I sorted out of the cluster fuck my mind created at 7pm this evening. Finally, we can go to bed.


*by "we" I mean the voices and I. Good night.
(...Joe)