Kevin Mitchell "All In"

Episode 17 is another edition of Past Prime Pastime, wherein
Matty and Past Prime baseball correspondent, Kevin Blake, try to
explain the unexplainable career of Giant (and Met and Mariner
and Padre and Red and Daiei Hawk) great, Kevin Mitchell. In 1989,
Mitchell was on pace to break Roger Maris' coveted single season
home run record. The man who was previously the twelfth best
player on the 1986 Mets and who was allegedly traded because he
freaked out Darryl and Doc (two men who were hard to freak out),
came out of nowhere to capture the imagination of baseball fans
everywhere. One of those fans was eleven year old Kevin Blake,
who traded in every piece of baseball memorabilia he owned, plus
every birthday card check and government bond, to corner the
market on Mitchell rookie cards. Suffice it to say, Mitchell did
not hit sixty two home runs and our co-host's card collection is
now functionally worthless. But we will always have 1989 -- the
year when Kevin Mitchell made "the catch" and won the NL MVP
award and when Kevin Blake was certain that he was living through
baseball history.


Join Matty and Kevin as they try to piece together what happened.
What was the deal with Kevin Mitchell and Will Clark? Did
Mitchell, as Doc Gooden once allege, really decapitate a cat? Was
Mitchell really an elite high school water polo player? And, most
importantly, just how bad was Kevin's investment in those
Mitchell rookie cards?


So, get out your Beckett baseball card guide. Start taking some
Creatine. And get ready to go "All In." To read more about Kevin
Mitchell, check out the full essay at Past Prime.