Digging Through My Baseball Card Box
Okay, so yesterday I was hunting for something in my garage, right? Just trying to find where I stashed my toolbox. Instead, I stumbled over this big plastic storage bin I hadn’t touched forever. Pulled off the lid, and boom – dust flew everywhere. Underneath some old board games? My entire childhood baseball card collection. All those binders and stacks of cards, mostly mid-90s stuff.
That got me thinking about one team: the legendary 1998 New York Yankees. Man, that squad was something else. 114 wins! Seemed almost unreal now. I tried rattling off the starting lineup in my head… Jeter at shortstop, Bernie Williams center field… but then I got stuck. Who was catching that year? Who were the key bench guys? Names like Strawberry popped up, but specifics were fuzzy. My own memory clearly wasn’t holding up.
The Search Begins (And Hits Some Snags)
Right then and there, sitting on the dusty garage floor, I decided I needed the full list. Pulled out my phone. Simple plan: just look up “1998 Yankees roster”. First website? Big list of stats and bios. Scrolled down… Derek Jeter, Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams… but it only listed like 15 guys. Felt way short. I knew teams carried 25. Where were the rest? Felt totally incomplete.
Tried another sports history site. Same thing! Highlighted the main stars and maybe the starting rotation, but completely glossed over the bullpen arms and bench players. Annoying! Like those guys didn’t even matter. I remembered Scott Brosius at third base, Chad Curtis doing things outfield… but the list just stopped short. Couldn’t believe how hard it was to find the complete picture.
Getting Serious & Landing Some Luck
Fine. Time to dig deeper. Forgot about quick searches and went straight for baseball-reference-dot-com (you know the one). Took a minute navigating the old-school layout. Found the team sections, picked “New York Yankees” from the drop-down, scrolled through the years… 1996, 1997, ah! 1998 Yankees. Clicked that.
Boom. There it finally was. A clean list of 25 names. Organized by position, like they’d line up in the dugout. It started to flood back:
- Catchers: Jorge Posada (of course!), Joe Girardi
- Infield: Tino Martinez, Chuck Knoblauch, Derek Jeter, Scott Brosius, guys like Luis Sojo backing them up
- Outfield: Bernie Williams, Paul O’Neill, Chad Curtis, Tim Raines, Ricky Ledee, Shane Spencer…
- Starters: David Cone, Andy Pettitte, David Wells, El Duque Orlando Hernandez, Hideki Irabu
- Bullpen: Mariano Rivera (the closer!), Ramiro Mendoza, Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton, Graeme Lloyd…
Even the names I’d totally forgotten surfaced: Homer Bush! He was there! Felt like finding old friends.
The Final Piece & Personal Memory
Saw Darryl Strawberry on there too, just like I vaguely recalled. Played mostly DH, had a solid year power-wise before… well, everything else later on. Funny how looking at the list brought back memories of specific games I watched, listening on the radio during summer breaks.
It hit me that every single one of those 25 players mattered, even the ones who barely played. Graeme Lloyd was basically a lefty specialist, facing like one batter an inning sometimes. But you need that! Mike Stanton chewing up key middle innings. Girardi mentoring young Posada. Without them filling roles? Who knows if they win 114 or that World Series.
Mission Accomplished (Maybe Too Thoroughly?)
So yeah, that dusty box of cards sent me down the rabbit hole. Started simple, got super annoyed when the surface-level searches failed me, finally found the proper deep-cut site, and bam – I got my definitive list of all 25 guys. Printed it out even. Kinda satisfying to see all the pieces laid out like that.
Now I’ve got this sheet sitting next to my computer. Honestly? It feels like I might end up just sticking it into one of those old card binders anyway. Come full circle. Done. I’m out.
