Bert was kind of my introduction to an arcane world, one of prospects who hadn’t made mainstream baseball card sets, and yet were well-known to certain circles of fans. I’ve mentioned the prospecting magazines I used to read in the late 80s and 90s; as I recall, the first one I picked up reviewed every team – it was where I learned of players like Jeff Bagwell for the first time, but I also learned of some Brewers prospects that I had never even heard of before. Darryl Hamilton I was familiar with (the guy in the magazine was tabbing him as a future superstar – just a little off), but he was also talking of some catcher in A ball named Bert Heffernan. I had never heard of him, but I was instantly intrigued. Was this Milwaukee’s catcher of the future, flying just under the radar?
Well, history shows that no, of course, he wasn’t, and as far as I know, he never even had a major card issue. I had completely forgotten about him until I bought a cheap box of Star a few years back and came across this card. Once I saw him, though, all those memories came flooding back, and I decided to check up on his stats to see if he’d been overblown.
I was surprised to see he had made the majors, if only for a cup of coffee. I was less surprised to see that he had pretty much never been a legit prospect – just one conjured up this sportswriter. In 1989, the year I think the guy was writing for, he did hit .296, but had a paltry .376 slugging percentage.
The moral of the story? Don’t trust sportswriters for prospect picks.
