My LaCocks are all in a row
January 17, 2024 (with a 2025 update!)
Pete LaCock played in the majors for nine seasons, first with the Chicago Cubs (which makes him one of the baseball droids I have written about previously) and ending up with the Kansas City Royals in 1980. In fact, his final major league action came in Game 2 of the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. His team lost that game and the Series itself, but so many players never get a chance to play in the World Series at all. Surely one nightmarish inning, during one single game, is better than nothing at all.
The card that I have of LaCock for the 1975 season shown above is dyed a bit differently, making the top part of the border appear pink, while the team name at the top is a lighter shade of blue. This card would have a very limited monetary value because it isn’t centered very well; there’s a lot more border on the right side of the card than there is on the left. Sometimes cards are cut off-center on the top or the bottom, too.
This completely arbitrary and random aspect of card collecting is part of the reason why I’ve never taken it too seriously. Cards with errors of one type or another are sometimes more valuable, but when the card-making process itself falls off, those cards end up being worth less. It makes no sense to me.
But the main thing to say about Pete Lacock is that he came up to bat nearly 2,000 times over the course of his big league career (and many times in the minors too, I would assume). That means that probably hundreds of ballpark announcers had the opportunity to say—with their voices amplified for an entire stadium full of witnesses to hear—the following words: “Hitting next, PETE LA COCK!”
My inner Beavis and Butthead takes over whenever I try to say those words out loud, and I expect that the professionals handled it better than I could. But the suggestive nature of the name is likely what caused his father to change his name from Ralph Pierre LaCock to Peter Marshall (yes, the host of The Hollywood Squares), and his aunt to change her name from Joan Letitia LaCock to Joanne Dru.
When the Chicago Cubs were in the National League playoffs in 2015, they played the New York Mets with the pennant and a trip to the World Series on the line. I was hoping that the Cubs could get by the Mets and play against the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. While I would have loved to see the #LaCockFight happen that year, sadly it was not meant to be.
On this, his 72nd birthday, I am proud to present my personal collection of Pete LaCocks for your viewing enjoyment.
Until tomorrow….
UPDATE: Bonus LaCock! While browsing at my card shop recently, I happened upon this 1981 version of a grinning LaCock, standing by a batting cage with a big grin tucked underneath his blonde porn stache.
Pete LaCock was granted free agency after the 1980 World Series, so a 1981 Topps card showing him with the Royals had no reason at all to exist. In fact, he was unable to catch on with any big league team for 1981, and he played for a single season in Japan before hanging up his cleats for good. And if announcing his name on a PA system was a challenge in America, I imagine it was extra challenging (and hilarious) in Japan. He made 344 plate appearances in Japan, and I’m sure that anyone who was in the ballpark for these announcements was amused and/or mystified by what they heard.
I’ve not been writing much about baseball lately, because current events have overwhelmed everything else in my purview. But opening day is off in the distance somewhere, so perhaps that can change. We’ll see.