1989. John Dopson was born in Baltimore, Maryland. A fun fact about his pitching career is that he is the last pitcher to balk 4 times in one game, a feat he achieved on June 13, 1989. A balk is the pitcher not coming to a complete stop on the mound before pitching. To be fair to John, baseball umpires had decided to crack down on that rule this year, unfortunately helping him get his name in the record books.

Cards like this were basically the first ones I ever collected as a kid. The summer of 1989, I was 9 years old. Crazy to think how long ago that was.

One of John’s personal highlights occurred during a game in Boston on Patriots’ Day when he was a member of the Red Sox (April 19, 1993). On that day he completed his first career shutout.

I didn’t know anything about Patriots’ Day, which apparently is because it’s only observed in a few states, Massachusetts being one of them. This is the day that the Boston Marathon is historically run on, the 3rd Monday in April. Also on this day, the Red Sox have been scheduled to play a home game at Fenway annually since 1959. The actual day itself commemorates the first battles of the American Revolutionary War. The American colonies won by the way.