#CardCorner: 1983 Topps César Gerónimo

They don’t make mustaches like this anymore.

Few players in today’s major league game wear mustaches at all, and if they do, they are often found in tandem with beards. The few players who do have mustaches generally prefer the thinner, more subtle kind.

The thin mustache was not the fashion choice of Cesar Geronimo. He preferred the old-school mustache – thick and bushy, to the point where it almost consumed his upper lip. The Geronimo mustache is fully evident in the small portrait shot contained on his 1983 Topps card. Even the larger photograph, an action shot taken from the side, shows off a large hint of the mustache.

Geronimo’s mustache is not the only intriguing feature to his 1983 card. The Topps photographer, perhaps shooting from the third base dugout, has captured Geronimo near the end of his swing, so that his bat is completely wrapped around his body, with the handle and the very end of the bat obscured from our viewed. We see very little of his face, but have a good view of his name, GERONIMO, which boldly marks the back of his jersey.

From this angle, we can also see part of the stands in the background, including the older man in the yellow shirt. This background is a source of confusion for me. The man appears to be an usher of some sort, but why is he standing next to what appears to be a Kansas City coach, who is outfitted in his full Royals uniform? I’m not sure why the Royals coach would be standing behind the fence, unless this is the extreme corner of the dugout. Whatever the case, this doesn’t look like Kauffman Stadium to me; I’m guessing that this shot was taken at the Royals’ Spring Training site in Fort Myers, Fla., at a ballpark called the Terry Park Ballfield.

Geronimo is seen wearing the home uniform of the Royals, which is not the team with which we normally associate him. Geronimo spent his prime years playing for the Cincinnati Reds, the team that acquired him from the Houston Astros in the blockbuster trade involving Joe Morgan. Geronimo’s time in Cincinnati coincided with the era of the “Big Red Machine,” a lineup that included Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez. Geronimo played a major role in two World Championships, as the Reds dominated the baseball world in 1975 and ’76.

Given his successful run with the Reds, it’s easy to forget that Geronimo ever played for the Royals; he did not join them until 1981. By then, he was no longer an everyday player, but an aging performer filling a backup role behind players like Willie Wilson, Amos Otis and Jerry Martin.

That Geronimo was still playing in the major leagues in 1983 was a tribute to his longevity – and also something of an unlikely development. As a teenager growing up in the Dominican Republic, Geronimo had attended seminary school with the expressed purpose of becoming a Catholic priest. He spent a total of four years at the seminary.

Only one obstacle remained in his pursuit of becoming a priest – and that was baseball. “I liked it [being] at seminary, but I really wanted to be a ballplayer,” Geronimo once told sportswriter Ritter Collett, “and I knew if I went on to become a priest that would never happen.”

In 1967, despite a lack of much on-field baseball experience, Geronimo attended tryouts with the both the New York Mets and Yankees. This was a rather remarkable occurrence, given that Geronimo’s high school in the Dominican did not have a baseball team. As an amateur, he had played soccer, basketball and slow-pitch softball. But he had one trait that played especially well on the baseball diamond: A phenomenal left arm, which so caught the eye of Yankees talent evaluators that they signed him to his first pro contract. Just like that, the plans of becoming a priest moved off to the side.

Geronimo had grown up as a fan of the Yankees, so the signing represented the best possible outcome. The Yankees assigned Geronimo to their affiliate in little Oneonta, N.Y., an outpost located not far from Cooperstown. Geronimo played only four games for Oneonta, where he batted .100, before being assigned to Johnson City, where his batting average fell to .071 in 19 games. Geronimo was completely overmatched by pitchers in Class A baseball, a development that was not surprising given his lack of experience.

In 1968, the Yankees moved Geronimo to the Florida State League. He hit a little better, but a .194 batting average over 109 games did not inspire much hope for future advancement. The Yankees began to contemplate the possibility of using Geronimo as a fulltime pitcher, where his throwing arm could best be utilized. The Yankees had used him as a pitcher for one minor league game in 1967, but with less than desirable results.

But the Yankees would never have the chance to convert Geronimo from the outfield to the pitcher’s mound. Although Geronimo had played only two seasons in the minor leagues, the rules of the day dictated that he was now eligible to be taken by another team in the Rule 5 draft. The Houston Astros, based on a report they heard from rival scout Howie Haak (working for the Pittsburgh Pirates), decided to take a chance on Geronimo, paying all of $8,000 for the right to draft him. The one caveat? The Astros would now have to keep Geronimo on their major league roster for all of 1969, or else offer him back to the Yankees for half of the Rule 5 price.

Although clearly not ready to hit at the major league level, Geronimo kept his place on the Astros’ roster the entire season. He came to bat only eight times, picking up two hits. In total, Geronimo appeared in 28 games, mostly as a defensive substitute. Blessed with a lanky build, Geronimo covered acres of ground with his long strides, giving him more range than any other outfielder on the Astros’ roster. Unlike the average center fielder, Geronimo possessed a powerhouse arm, too, which made him more than capable of playing right field.