This fine artwork was completed in 2013. This artist should get out more.
To pass a week of time in the dullest and most hideous month of them all, we bring you Hideous Ballplayer Week, a time-honored tradition at Diamond Hoggers. We’ll bring to you your middling player who hung around long outliving his sill set, or something brutal that occurred on the baseball diamond. We’ll pass the time swapping stories of yesteryear, sitting around the fire talking about the players we’ve seen that made us want to gouge our eyes out with their mediocrity. Today, it’s Jeff Reboulet’s turn.
Why he’s here: Career .240 hitter whose unheralded career spanned 1018 games and 12 seasons. Sported a .649 career OPS, which is better than you would expect. Posted seasons of .190, .162, .222, and .208 batting averages. Never had more than 261 at-bats in a season, which came in his final season at age 39 with who else; the 2003 Pirates. A ho-hum 1 for 7 in the postseason (he would say “but that one hit was a home run). He’s got us there.
Notoriety: Was the guy you never really heard of on the Puckett/Knoblauch era Twins teams, but had a great mustache. Is now a financial advisor. Reboulet was probably definitely a guy who managed his ‘wealth’ carefully for good reason. If you want to lie and act like you have a few extra bucks in the bank, you can actually probably exchange e-mails with the real Jeff Reboulet. I don’t know which would be worse; lying about how much money you have or doing it in order to attract attention from Jeff Reboulet.
Career Year: One must spend some time to decipher the finest of Reboulet seasons. They really all run together. Flip a coin between 1995 in Minnesota or 2001 with the Dodgers. We’ll say ’95. This was the year that Reboulet-mania ran wild. The groupies were abundant. He was over the .300 mark as late as September 23rd that year, but then ended the year with a 1 for 11 slide. And when you’re only coming to the plate some 200-plus times in a year like an extended high school season, you better not pull too many 1 for 11′s.
Reboulet, unplugged (Baltimore Sun 1998):
“If I demanded a trade with just 40 at-bats, it would be nothing more than a note.”It was just one of many times in his career that Reboulet has laughed at himself and his role as a utility infielder.But once Reboulet steps on the field, all the jokes stop.”I told Syd Thrift [director of player development] last year, they ought to put a camera on Jeff every time he walks on the field and show it to all the minor-leaguers,”
Yeah – if you wanted all of your minor leaguers to hit like shit and be completely ordinary in every way imaginable – you should definitely show them some Jeff Reboulet highlight footage. In fact, just hold a week of camp in the spring, lock them in a room with the Reboulet tape and let them learn. This brilliant idea was given life by short-lived big league manager Ray Miller.
Also to correct the Baltimore Sun writer – who obviously did not watch much baseball – the jokes certainly did not stop when Reboulet stepped on the field.
Best Pitcher he Homered off of: Without a doubt, Randy Johnson in 1997. Also Trevor Hoffman and Goose Gossage. He also caught that inconsistent shithead Chuck Finley for one, and the only guy he homered multiple times off of was that poor enigma disguised as a pitcher, Ricky Bones. I think Ricky Bones just earned himself a future spot in this feature for this merit alone.
Avid Fan of ‘Fashion Police’:
This guy is.
Teammates of Note: Carlos Beltran, Cal Ripken, Paul Molitor, Aramis Ramirez, Terry Mulholland, Jason Bay, Roberto Alomar, Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield, Eric Karros, Lenny Webster, Gary Sheffield, Hideo Nomo.
Why: This is how our infamous Reboulet illustrator got his photo signed.
