Article: Where Have You Gone Billy Jo Robidoux?

[Sean Franken]

It’s a question that the universe has pondered, but this piece isn’t about Billy Jo Robidoux per se. Instead, it involves reminiscing about a simpler time. Once again, let’s take a spin in the DeLorean.

 

It’s the mid-eighties in Any Town USA. A young Brewer fan heads to the local drug store. He makes sure he has enough money from lawn mowing and his paper route, the paper route where he has to get up way too early on a Sunday morning and haul heavy ad-filled papers around the neighborhood in a wagon. The young lad picks up the latest copy of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, a pack of Sweet Tarts, a box of Nerds, and what he truly came there for, some packs of baseball cards. 

The anticipation builds as he heads home, He can’t wait to open the packs to see what cards he will get. Will he get his favorites, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, or Teddy Higuera? He opens the packs, shoves the gum in his mouth, and sees a Brewer. It’s Billy Jo Robidoux. The boy doesn’t know much about Robidoux, other than the fact his name is kind of funny. He studies the stats on the back of the card. He sees a very good minor-league career and thinks maybe, just maybe, this guy could be the next Robin Yount.

Back then a young boy with no cable TV was exposed to baseball by listening to Bob Uecker on the radio, watching the NBC Saturday game of the week, and reading stats in the Sunday paper, the same Sunday paper he whined about delivering. There was no internet, no up-to-the-second analysis, and no regional sports networks.

Another major exposure was through collecting baseball cards. The legendary players of the time were mythical because they weren’t on TV all the time. That’s how a young boy became enamored with Rickey Henderson, through packs of Fleer, Topps, and Donruss. He studied the stats and developed his favorite players. He saw a Donruss “Rated Rookie” and assumed every one of them would be a star (Most weren’t). He thought Billy Jo Robidoux might be the next big thing.

The young boy is now an adult. He got back into collecting cards over the last couple of years, the same cards he collected as a kid, 1980s Topps, Fleer & Donruss. It’s a nice little piece of nostalgia. Now if he gets a Billy Jo Robidoux, he smiles, not because the card is worth anything. It’s not. He smiles because it brings him back to a simpler time. 

(For those of you getting back into collecting, I’d encourage you to subscribe to The Wax Pack Dad on YouTube. He’s a buddy of mine and each week he rips open a pack of cards from the 80s and gives them away to his subscribers. It’s pretty cool. Check it out.)

 

 

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[Joseph Zarr]

I resonate with this quite a bit. I still have my full 1989 Upper Deck set in its cardboard box with the un-opened Upper-Numbers set. This was the set that led me down the baseball card show circuit collecting near every Ken Griffey Jr. card I could find. What a time. 

[Joseph Zarr]

I resonate with this quite a bit. I still have my full 1989 Upper Deck set in its cardboard box with the un-opened Upper-Numbers set. This was the set that led me down the baseball card show circuit collecting near every Ken Griffey Jr. card I could find. What a time. 

[Joseph Zarr]

I resonate with this quite a bit. I still have my full 1989 Upper Deck set in its cardboard box with the un-opened Upper-Numbers set. This was the set that led me down the baseball card show circuit collecting near every Ken Griffey Jr. card I could find. What a time. 

[Joseph Zarr]

I resonate with this quite a bit. I still have my full 1989 Upper Deck set in its cardboard box with the un-opened Upper-Numbers set. This was the set that led me down the baseball card show circuit collecting near every Ken Griffey Jr. card I could find. What a time. 

[DuWayne Steurer]

When I was a kid, I had a fairly strong belief that "prospects" like Billy Jo had statistics in AA and AAA that would translate rather simply to major league success.  That being said, I had no idea that "park factor" was a thing, and that certain leagues in the minors were more hitter friendly or anything like that.  I saw Billy Jo's stats for El Paso, and was CONVINCED he was going to be the next Don Mattingly, at the *very least*.  

Needless to say, I, like all Brewers fans, ended up with nothing but disappointment, but that never stopped me from using Billy Jo's mug for my avatar at the old site for like 5-6 years.  

[DuWayne Steurer]

When I was a kid, I had a fairly strong belief that "prospects" like Billy Jo had statistics in AA and AAA that would translate rather simply to major league success.  That being said, I had no idea that "park factor" was a thing, and that certain leagues in the minors were more hitter friendly or anything like that.  I saw Billy Jo's stats for El Paso, and was CONVINCED he was going to be the next Don Mattingly, at the *very least*.  

Needless to say, I, like all Brewers fans, ended up with nothing but disappointment, but that never stopped me from using Billy Jo's mug for my avatar at the old site for like 5-6 years.  

[DuWayne Steurer]

When I was a kid, I had a fairly strong belief that "prospects" like Billy Jo had statistics in AA and AAA that would translate rather simply to major league success.  That being said, I had no idea that "park factor" was a thing, and that certain leagues in the minors were more hitter friendly or anything like that.  I saw Billy Jo's stats for El Paso, and was CONVINCED he was going to be the next Don Mattingly, at the *very least*.  

Needless to say, I, like all Brewers fans, ended up with nothing but disappointment, but that never stopped me from using Billy Jo's mug for my avatar at the old site for like 5-6 years.  

[DuWayne Steurer]

When I was a kid, I had a fairly strong belief that "prospects" like Billy Jo had statistics in AA and AAA that would translate rather simply to major league success.  That being said, I had no idea that "park factor" was a thing, and that certain leagues in the minors were more hitter friendly or anything like that.  I saw Billy Jo's stats for El Paso, and was CONVINCED he was going to be the next Don Mattingly, at the *very least*.  

Needless to say, I, like all Brewers fans, ended up with nothing but disappointment, but that never stopped me from using Billy Jo's mug for my avatar at the old site for like 5-6 years.  

[kalle8]

In italy we don't have cards. We have the "figurine", they are stickers you stick onto an "album", who contains all of the Serie A soccer players.

It happens the sticker (figurina) I needed to complete my 84/85 Calciatori album lives near me, in Genova.

Enrico Nicolini is my Billy Jo Robidoux, I meet him in the street and ten years old me shows up every time.

[kalle8]

In italy we don't have cards. We have the "figurine", they are stickers you stick onto an "album", who contains all of the Serie A soccer players.

It happens the sticker (figurina) I needed to complete my 84/85 Calciatori album lives near me, in Genova.

Enrico Nicolini is my Billy Jo Robidoux, I meet him in the street and ten years old me shows up every time.

[kalle8]

In italy we don't have cards. We have the "figurine", they are stickers you stick onto an "album", who contains all of the Serie A soccer players.

It happens the sticker (figurina) I needed to complete my 84/85 Calciatori album lives near me, in Genova.

Enrico Nicolini is my Billy Jo Robidoux, I meet him in the street and ten years old me shows up every time.

[kalle8]

In italy we don't have cards. We have the "figurine", they are stickers you stick onto an "album", who contains all of the Serie A soccer players.

It happens the sticker (figurina) I needed to complete my 84/85 Calciatori album lives near me, in Genova.

Enrico Nicolini is my Billy Jo Robidoux, I meet him in the street and ten years old me shows up every time.