What’s the best thing about being the sole creative force behind whatever this project is? That’s easy: it’s the complete freedom that it affords me. When I have an idea, I get to run with it in any direction I want to. And today I’m basing everything around an earworm.
Most people know what an “earworm” is, even if they haven’t encountered the term before. It’s a song that so damn catchy—either with a chord progression or some lyrics—that it gets stuck inside your head. Maybe you whistle it while you think nobody’s around. Perhaps you sing a few bars of it when you’re in the shower. Or possibly you make like Al Bundy and spend time trying to figure out what in the hell it is in the first place.
My earworm today, for reasons I can’t fully explain, was Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” from the New Jersey album, which came out when I was in college, so many years ago. And when I turned on the radio in my car today, while running a short errand, what song came on but that one? One minute there’s a song from the late 1980s stuck in my head, and not a half an hour later there it is playing for all of Chicagoland to hear. As as weird as it was, I knew I had to find some way to work it in here, so I honed in on the lyric “If there’s something better, baby, well they haven’t found it yet.” So what did these three guys never find? Let’s, um, find out, shall we?
Joe Decker, who passed away at age 55 from injuries he received in a fall in his home back in 2003, wasn’t even named Joe or Joseph, but George Henry Decker. So, why is he named Joe? There’s some reason for it, or else the name wouldn’t appear on the card this way, but if he ever found the reason why, it hasn’t been preserved for posterity.
Nor does he seem to have found a cap for this 1973 Topps card. The Chicago Cubs had traded him away after the 1972 season, and in true Topps fashion, there should have been a Twins cap airbrushed onto his head. But maybe Topps didn’t want to muss up his hair and decided not to bother. There’s also no glove or uniform or any other details in the picture to suggest that he’s a major league player. If anything, the fence that faintly appears in the background suggests that he trains racehorses, instead. Joe Decker is a man in need of some markings as a ballplayer. But nobody’s found any for him, at least not on this card.
So what about Jim Nettles, shown above on a 1973 Topps card? What is he unable to find? Well for starters, I would say he’s shown in a hitter’s pose while standing outside of a batting cage, judging from the two players on the other side of the netting. But more importantly than the inside of a batting cage, Jim Nettles (who, in case the name seems familiar, is the younger brother of long-time major leaguer Graig Nettles) was unable to find his way back onto the Twins roster during the 1973 season.
In 1972, Nettles had played all three outfield positions for Minnesota, and even one game at first base, for good measure. But before the 1973 season he was sent down to the minors, and then traded to Detroit after the season was over. Although he continued to play professional baseball until the 1986 season, he played in only a smattering of big league games after this 1973 card appeared. March 2 is his 71st birthday, and hopefully it’s been a good one for him.
And what about Pete Broberg, who celebrates his 74th birthday on March 2? Well, for starters, Topps was unable to find a way to accurately reflect his playing status for the 1975 season. While I don’t generally post the back of these cards, Pete Broberg’s is too good to pass up. Here it is:
In the text section of the card, beneath his career major league statistics, is a sentence that reads “Traded to the Milwaukee Brewers 12/5/74.” So for the 1975 Topps set, they would have had to airbrush a Milwaukee cap and somehow give the illusion that Broberg was now a Brewer, or….pretend that he was still a member of the Rangers organization, instead. Kids in 1975 probably didn’t pay too much mind to the playing status of Pete Broberg, but for anyone who actually did notice these sorts of things, the 1975 Broberg card seems like a bold attempt by Topps to nullify a trade that had already been made.
Something else that Pete Broberg never found was a way into playing in the postseason. When he arrived in Chicago to pitch for the Cubs during the 1977 season, the team was in first place. By the end of the season, however, they were in 4th place in their division, finishing at exactly .500 for the season. He pitched one final season with the Oakland A’s in 1978 before leaving baseball at the age of 28.
That’s all for now. I need to go find myself some sleep. Until tomorrow…