Now batting, #33, pinch hitter, Bernardo Brito

    On September 15, 1992, after twelve seasons in the minors, Bernardo Brito finally made his first trip to the plate in a Major League game, as the Minnesota Twins attempted to eek out a win against a very solid A's team.  Pinch hitting for Greg Gagne in the 8th inning, Bernie strode to the plate there at Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, stared down A's starter Ron Darling, worked a 1-2 count, and struck out swinging.

   It ended up being a tight 2-1 victory for 1st place Oakland, against the 2nd place Twins, with Eckersley locking down the 9th.  

To quote the September 16, 1992, Oakland Tribune:

...Bernardo Brito, who spent 12 years in the minors, made his major-league debut for Minnesota with a pinch-hitting performance in the eights inning.  He whiffed on four pitches...

     Brito would see action in 8 games over the remainder of the season, going 2 for 14 in mostly a late-inning, pinch hitting role.

More Team Photos (with Bernie!)

     In a major score, a seller on eBay recently posted a ton of old team photos, and luckily for me, those included four previously unknown (to me) that included one Bernardo Brito!  The 1981 and 1983 photos are all folded three ways which leads me to believe they were mailed out on request, rather than handed out out at the ball park, the 1983 photo even having a Batavia business card attached.

     Bernie played the better part of four seasons in Batavia, New York, with the Trojans, who were the low A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians at the time. In this first picture, we have Bernie in his first professional season, standing on the left end of the back row.  Bernie didn't have a very structured introduction to baseball in the Dominican Republic, so 1981 would have been a major adjustment for him, speaking little to no English and really only knowing how to crush a baseball against teenage pitching.  That he is even in this photo at all is something of a surprise as he only played 12 games for Batavia in 1981.

     Despite his unimpressive initial showing, Bernardo returned to Batavia for the 1982 season, this time appearing in 41 of the team's 75 games that season.  He improved a bit, showed some of that pop he was signed for with four home runs, and actually stole a base, which is impressive as he only stole 24 in his entire minor league career.  Here, Bernie is in the third row, four down from the man in the suit.  I had to adjust the exposure on the scan as a black & white photo of all of those dark jerseys didn't make for a very good photo.  In any case, looks like Mr. Brito blinked at exactly the wrong time.

     1983 saw Bernardo Brito returning for his third season in Batavia.  This time around, he appeared in 60 games, and had improved enough that he was promoted to High A Waterloo for part of the season.  He didn't stick, though, his batting average dropping 40 points with the change of scenery and he was back in Batavia for the 1984 season.  Another case of the photographer apparently not using a fill light.  Had to adjust the levels again just to make out Bernardo's face.  This time he's on the back row, third from the right.

     The sellers that listed these apparently did not have a 1984 photo of either Waterloo or Batavia, but I did land this 1985 Waterloo Indians photo.  In 1984, Brito finally started to put the pieces together in his hitting game and finished with 19 home runs and a .300 batting average.  That was enough to earn him a promotion (again) to Waterloo for the '85 season.  This time around he did not disappoint and racked up  29 home runs, to lead the Midwest League.  Accordingly, Bernie would not spend another season in A ball and would be play the 1986 season with the Indians AA affiliate Waterbury Indians.

    After five years in A ball, Bernie finally made the jump to AA, in 1986, to play with the Waterbury Indians, and it took a bit of adjustment.  I've heard it said that the jump from A to AA is almost the same difference in level of competition as the jump from AA to the majors.  His average and power numbers dropped a bit, but not an alarming amount.  He would recover all of that when the team moved to Williamsport in 1987.

    Skipping ahead to 1987, Bernardo made what at first glance appears to be a lateral move, but in fact was just him repeating a grade.  After the 1986 season, Cleveland moved their AA Eastern League affiliate from Waterbury to re-establish baseball in Williamsport, Pennsylvania (which had been without baseball since the Williamsport Tomahawks closed up shop in 1976) with the creation of the Williamsport Bills.  Bernie put up another good year at AA, batting .277 and clobbering 24 home runs, tops in the Eastern League.  1987 would be the final year for Brito in the Indians organization as he would be released the following spring, to be signed as a free agent by the Twins the following week.

1988 Best Orlando Twins #28 Bernardo Brito

    Following a 1987 design that resembled 1986 Donruss, Best Cards patterned the fronts of their 1988 team sets after the 1986 Topps set.  I think I actually like Best's approach a little better, though the "Orlando '88" is perhaps a bit reduntant, due to the inclusion of the team logo.  Best Cards' back designs didn't change much for the entire 1987-1990 length of their existence, and were always a bit spartan.

     After seven seasons in the Indians organization, 1988 found Bernardo Brito still murdering the ball, but also still stuck at the AA level.  In early March, the Cleveland Plain Dealer had a good feature on Brito that helped explain his seeming lack of progress.  Bernardo was from the hills of San Cristobal, not the bigger cities of Santo Domingo or San Pedro de Macoris, and didn't grow up in quite the same baseball saturated environment as most young Dominican prospects.

     "He's still got a long way to go," [Luis] Isaac said. "He never had any coaching when he was a kid.  He never heard of a cutoff man or a bunt play until he got here.  Usually it takes Latin players about three or four years longer to reach their maximum."

     Isaac was the scout who heard about Brito and drove into the mountains of the Dominican Republic to find and, ultimately, sign him.  The article goes on to say that Brito  would most likely only succeed as a designated hitter, but then explained how most such players were usually experienced veterans, and that it would be difficult for a rookie to break into the majors in the DH role.  To me that was, perhaps, a perfect description of Major League baseball's perpetual resistance to the entire concept of the DH.  Basically until Edgar Martinez came along, it was somehow foreign to just put a good hitter with limited fielding ability in the DH role and take full advantage of that.  Most designated hitters were either aging veterans who no longer had the mobility to play in the field, or utility-type guys who were perhaps too good to leave in the minors, but little more than average bats in the Majors.

    Despite the praise and high hopes by March 25th the Indians decided he was a no longer a prospect and released Bernardo Brito.  Five days later, Brito was signed by the Minnesota Twins and sent to Orlando, their AA affiliate in the Southern League.  By June 15th, Brito was leading the Southern League in home runs for the Twins with 15.  By July 5th, Brito had been named to the Southern League All-Star team and was leading the league with 19 HR and 57 RBI.  Not bad for a non-prospect!

1987 ProCards Williamsport Bills #1401 Bernardo Brito

  

    1987 arrived to find Bernardo Brito still in double-A ball, still in the Eastern League, but now in the uniform of the Williamsport Bills (the Indians having relocated their Eastern League affiliate from Waterbury during the offseason).  Brito's initial contract with the Indians had lapsed after the '86 season, but the March 1987 transaction sheets show the Indians signing him to a new one-year contract.  Given that this would be his seventh season in the organization, and he had shown a bit of pop, I suspect this was something of a "one last look" signing to see if Bernie would do something the Indians just couldn't live without.

Brito Completo! 1987 Cleveland Indians Photocard

   With this eBay win, I declare victory in my pursuit of the Complete Bernardo Brito Collection:

5 more boxes. I'm coming to get you Bernie...

This can't end well....

---

 Box 1 (8 total) Results

Regular sets

Set 1
163/165 (missing 66, 142)

Set 2
115/165

Set 3
8/165

Set 4
1/165

1 Jose Lima #143 wrong back error

Diamond Star sets

Set 1
35/165 (including a Tony Pena with a damaged Lime Rock stamp)

Set 2
1/165


NO BERNIE BRITO DIAMOND STAR!

---

Box 2 (9 total) Results

    Collation in this box seems a bit different.  In several packs, I've run across consecutively numbered cards next to each other.

Set 1
159/165 (missing 27, 51, 79, 109, 142, 161)

Set 2
108/165

Set 3
7/165

Set 4
2/165

2 Jose Lima #143 wrong back errors

Diamond Star sets

Set 1
34/165

1 Jose Lima #143 wrong back error

NO BERNIE BRITO DIAMOND STAR!

---

Box 3 (10 total) Results

Set 1
164/165 (missing 142)

Set 2
118/165

Set 3
5/165

2 Jose Lima #143 wrong back errors

Set 1
35/165 (including a Jose Cano with a damaged Lime Rock stamp)

Set 2
1/165

NO BERNIE BRITO DIAMOND STAR!

---

Box 4 (10 total) Results

      Eleven packs into box #4 (11 total) and we have Bernie!  To add insult to injury, not only did it take me some 4+ years, and 10 1/2 boxes, to find this card after I started searching for it, when I finally get one, not only is it off center, but after scanning and attempting to crop and straighten the image, I find that it's even slightly diamond cut!  Is that some sort of cruel irony?

     My more modern scanners just don't scan reflective surfaces well, so I had to go old school and do a bit of deep closet archaeology.  To capture the glory and the sheer, devastating awesomeness that is this card, I actually had to find all the cables, download antiquated drivers and software to hook up this museum display of equipment:

    That is a UMAX Vista S-12, complete with PCMCIA SCSI adapter, next to an IBM ThinkPad iSeries 1500, running Windows 98 (not even Second Edition, just plain old Win98).  The scanner is probably from 1997-98 and the laptop is from 1999 or so. 

---

    These cards fall one per pack.  There are 36 packs per box.  I had to go through 371 packs to find this card.  Holy crap!  Actually seeing the number is the slightest bit disturbing.  At 9 cards per pack, that's 3339 total 1993 Lime Rock Dominican Winter Baseball cards I've waded through and 371 Diamond Stars (potentially two complete sets, if not for duplicates).  I've only managed to sell 403 of these in the past 4 years, and trade a handful more.  Discarding the cards that were found damaged, that leaves me with some 2900 or so cards left, plus one unopened box (though the shrink wrap is gone and the Lime Rock seal is no longer intact) and 15 stray packs.

     Overall, pack collation was pretty good for this set.  I never got the same card twice in a pack.  I never got two identical packs.  Being fairly glossy cards, on both front and back, there is a tendency for cards to stick together.  A little flexing and crackling and they do come apart.  Rarely is there any paper loss due to the sticking.  Unfortunately, the cards were not very evenly cut, so there is a tendancy for bent corners on cards that, being stuck to the cards around them, might protrude a little beyond the end of the stack.  As the cards are black all the way to the edges, there is also a tendacy for a little white to show whenever there is a ding or the occasional peeled corner.  So if anyone was ever to grade any of these, there would be very little chance of ever getting a perfect PSA 10 or SCG 100.  The three most difficult cards in these boxes seem to be the corrected version of #142, the Raul Mondesi rookie prospect card, the Diamond Star version of #142 and the Diamond Star Bernie Brito.

    At least my search is over.  Never again will I be tempted to buy another box, open another pack.  I'm left with only one remaining card to complete the Bernardo Brito Baseball Card Experience...assuming that card even exists.  

---

     Each pack contains an offer card between the last card and the rest of the cards.  For some reason, despite these not being part of the set, Beckett list the offer card in their system.  These are the two offer cards, one for magazine subscriptions and one for a 1994 Raiderettes calendar and video:

Oh Bernie, Where Art Thou? (update)

My three new boxes of 1993 Lime Rock Winter Baseball arrived today, so I rushed home at lunch to rip into a box. Wouldn't you know it? I'm now 0 for 4 on picking up that Bernie Brito Diamond Star!

Interestingly, there are a couple of errors I've now seen repeated in the set. Of course, there's card #3 of Victor Silverio which is actually a photo of Miguel Batista, but there is also at least one consistent wrong-back error with Jose Lima on front and Raul Mondesi on the back. In this box, I actually got the Diamond Star version of that same misprint! I think there's at least one more wrong-back, which may also be Mondesi/Lima, but I'll have to double check. I also encountered one Diamond Star with what appears to be a sort of inverse version of the Lime Rock logo with the gold in the exact opposite of how it was normally applied to the card. I'll get a scan up later.


In any case, expect to see my stock of these cards replenished on Sportlots this evening.

---------UPDATE---------

Ok, make that 0 for 5! (but I picked up three more of those Lima/Mondesi errors and even another Diamond Star of the same error! AAARRRHHHHH!!)

********UPDATE - 2*********

The way these packs are collated, from the bottom, there is a base card, the offer card (there are offers for magazine subscriptions for Inside Sports, Card Collector's Price Guide, Sports Card Trader and Baseball Digest or the a 1994 Raiderettes calendar) and then the Diamond Star insert. Just to add insult to injury, every so often, that last card (the one I see first as I rip open the foil pack from the seam on the back) is a base card of Bernie Brito. Mocking me. Because you KNOW, if I get a base card of Brito, I won't be getting a Diamond Star of Brito in the same pack. These Lime Rock monsters were diabolical.

/////////UPDATE - 3\\\\\\\\\\

Found yet another misprint....a Diamond Star with no gold foil at all. The impression of the logo is clearly visible where it was stamped, there's just no foil over it. Halfway through box 6. Still no Golden Bernie.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ UPDATE 4 /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Well, as it turns out, there are two version of the box:

However, all the packs and cards are still the same.

But, as is my curse, box #7 refused to yield  the much sought after Bernie Brito Diamond Star. In the next week or so, if all goes well, I should have another 5 boxes arriving. The adventure continues!

Do not abandon home!  The Bernie Hunt continues in Part 3: I'm Coming to Get You Bernie

1986 ProCards Waterbury Indians Bernardo Brito

     Unfortunately for all of us Brito collectors (read: me) Bernie had no baseball cards in 1984 & 1985.  No team sets for Batavia or Waterloo those years.  But young Senor Brito was a busy man.  In 1984, he must have found his stroke as he went from a .228, 11 home run hitter in 95 games split between Batavia and Waterloo to a .300 hitter with 19 long balls in just 79 games with Batavia in 1984.  Then back to Waterloo again for 1985, where, while his average dipped back to .257 he went deep 29 times, earning a spot on Cleveland's 40-Man roster (though no actual playing time).
 
     By the end of 1985, Brito had spent five years in A ball.  That winter, he headed home to play his first official winter league season for the Licey Tigres.  A great season with Waterloo was followed by a great season with Licey, where Bernie, with 7 homers and 35 runs batten in, earned an All Star selection as well as Rookie of the Year honors and a spot on the Caribbean World Series roster of the Dominican League champs, Águilas Cibaeñas.

     In 1986, he'd long past earned his promotion to AA and a spot with the Waterbury Indians.  While his numbers were slightly down from the previous year, hitting only 18 home runs on the season against the tougher Eastern League pitching, he still managed to put on a show, such as his three dinger performance on July 22nd.  But in a glimpse of what might have been, from a story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 24 October 1986, he beat out the boss, Indians president Peter Bavasi with a fishing pole:

Bavasi attended the Indians' organizational meetings in Florida earlier this month and received a fishing lesson from Bernardo Brito, one of the Tribe's minor-league prospects on their Instructional League team.

"When they're finished playing the games, a lot of the players go fishing," said Bavasi, an avid fisherman. "I've got hundreds of dollars worth of equipment and poles, but Brito said all he needed was a line, a hook and a sinker."

Bavasi supplied Brito with those basic tools and the outfielder sat down at the end of a dock.

"Here I am with a back pack, poles, waders and everything else," Bavasi said.  "All Brito did was bait the hook with a piece of banana, throw the line in, and catch a red snapper.  I didn't catch anything."

     ProCards was making their debut in the minor league team set arena in 1986, as evidenced by the complete lack of information about the players on the backs of most of the cards that year.   While ProCards was just getting warmed up, 1986 would be the least season for affiliated minor league baseball in Waterbury, Connecticut.  Cleveland would move their AA affiliation to Williamsport, Pennsylvania for the 1987 season, and Waterbury wouldn't see another pro ball team until the independent Northeast League arrived in 1997 in the form of the Waterbury Spirit.  It would be short-lived as the Spirit would leave for Lynn, Massachusetts after the 2000 season.

Oh Bernie, Where Art Thou?

 

1993 Lime Rock Dominican Winter Baseball

In 1993, Lime Rock, a company known mostly for it's non-sports and cheerleader cards, issued this set of 165 cards featuring 20-something cards per team for the 1993-94 Dominican Winter League season. As with any set of the winter leagues, it was littered with local Dominican talent, up-and-coming minor leaguers as well as a smattering of major leaguers who either just couldn't sit still over the winter or needed to refine something in preparation for the upcoming season (does that ever actually work?). In any case, the set happened to contain cards of two players I collect, Hensley Meulens and Bernardo Brito (seen here with the Licey Tigres), so naturally, I had to go dig them up!

In addition to the regular set, inserted one per pack was one Diamond Star insert which was exactly the same as the base set cards, but with a gold foil "Lime Rock" logo stamped on the back. In my first box, I managed to pick up couple of Brito, a couple Meulens and a Diamond star insert of Meulens. That left me looking for the Brito Diamond Star. So I hunted around and picked up a second box. More Meulens, more Sosa and Polonias and all the Wilfredo Tejadas you could hope for, but no Brito Diamond Star.

So I did what any completely irrational player collector would do....I picked up a third box. One box later and STILL no Brito Diamond Star! In the meantime, I'd gotten in contact with minor league baseball card guru, Dave Weber, and learned that he dealt in the occasional oddball set, and just happened to have a stock of this set. But as it turns out, he had pretty much every single card EXCEPT the Brito Diamond Star! Flash forward 18 months later, and after making around $45 in Sportlots sales (which seemed to be mostly from selling Red Foleys, Panini stickers and random, no-name minor league singles....sorry Dave!) and one of the sellers I'd picked up two of my earlier boxes from has re-appeared on eBay with another 10 boxes! Keep in mind, I'm still only looking for a single insert card. 36 packs in a box, so 36 chances. I just dropped the PayPal for three more boxes. For one card. Of Bernardo Brito!

And what's really weird about this set is, though I'd seen him called Bernie in magazine and newspaper articles, this little oddball set targeted at the Latino market is the ONLY one where he is listed as Bernie Brito on card. Yet in the same set, they list Sammy Sosa as Samuel, and Sil Campusano as Silvestre and one of the Mota boys (it looks like Jose) as Manolo. Weird.

You can view most of the set over at The Trading Card Database. I'll probably be able to finish filling out the scans once my new boxes show up.

At the moment, the want list for my Bernardo Brito collection is comprised of exactly two cards:

1987 Team Issue Cleveland Indians b&w photo card (3-1/2"x5-1/2")
1993 Lime Rock Dominican Winter Baseball Diamond Star #79

Continue the adventure in Bernie Hunt Part 2: Oh Bernie, Where Art Thou?

The Brito of Waterloo

     Seen here in his third season in A-level ball, young Bernie still hadn't quite found his stroke. Waterloo would be a slight promotion for him, but barely keeping his nose above the Mendoza line, he ended up right back down in A- ball in Batavia the following season. Considering today's state of the farm system, one has to wonder if he'd still have a job if he'd only managed to hit .228 over his first three seasons, but I guess the Indians' management saw something in the 15 home runs scattered across 477 at bats.

     Since he sadly had no cards issued for 1984-85 (actually neither Batavia, nor Waterloo had sets issued either year), I'll go ahead and cover the gap. In 1984, Bernardo turned his fortunes around, perhaps finally getting some attention from the Batavia Trojans hitting coach, and hit at a .300 clip, and leading the New York-Penn League with 19 home runs and 171 total bases, and tied for the lead in doubles with 19. That wake-up call earned him a second shot at Waterloo in 1985, which he took by the throat and cranked out 29 home runs (leading the Midwest League) and drove in 78 in 135 games.

     For what it's worth, the Waterloo Indians (later the Diamonds) are history, closing up in 1994. Waterloo is now home of the Bucks of the Northwoods League, a collegiate summer league. Batavia is now home of the Muckdogs, the short season A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Bernardo Brito, minor league power house

     If there were such a thing recognized in the hobby as a "minor league rookie card", Bernardo Brito's would be in a 1981 TCMA card.  In a bizarre stroke of luck (for me, anyway), he had not one, but TWO 1981 TCMA cards, one with the Batavia Trojans, the short season A level affiliate of the Cleveland Indians, the other with the Waterloo Indians, the regular single A affiliate of Cleveland.  What's even more odd about that is while he did play with Batavia in 1981-1984, he didn't actually play a game with Waterloo until 1983!  So two years BEFORE he played with the team, he had a card with them.  I'll have to do some digging and see if anyone else had multiple TCMA cards in the same year with different teams.

  

     In any case, Bernardo didn't do much to impress that first year in Batavia, giving almost no indication of what was to come (unless it was in batting practice), hitting an anemic .207 in just 12 games that year.  I'll have to dig further into those stats as according to TheBaseballCube, he was't even drafted.  I'll have to see how this bemused-looking 17 year old ended up in the New York-Penn League in 1981, straight out of Santo Domingo.

     I picked these cards up in a lot of nearly 1000 minor league cards I bought on eBay a couple of years ago.  Managed to snag the whole lot for under $30!  I'll probably never see that happen again.

Winnie, Tuffy & the Dann

     I didn't really think I had anything to bother posting in a blog until today.  Since I've basically been blogging via my player collection posts on The Bench & SportsCardForum anyway, I've decided it's time to make it more cohesive and drag it all into one place.  No guarantees on timeliness, but I'm planning to make one post for every single card in my player collections.  So over the next 50 years, you can read my rantings, ravings and 'rithmetics about Dave Winfield, Matt Williams, Hensley "Bam Bam" Meulens, Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes, Dave Henderson, Bernardo Brito, Roberto Kelly, Dann Howitt and Steve Howard.

     Winfield has been my favorite player since about 1986, when I started collecting baseball cards.

     Matt Williams impressed me a lot over the course of the 1989 season, so after sending a few cards to him with a letter, begging for autographs (I'll get to that in its own post) I started hoarding cards of him.

     In 1988, I'd started collecting Roberto Kelly & Jay Buhner, hoping they'd someday be huge stars for the Yankees.  Naturally the Yankees promptly unloaded Buhner for some third string pitchers.  Kelly at least went on to be an All Star, and one of the very few bright spots of the early 1989-1992 stretch for the team.  I collected Buhner for a couple more years, but he didn't amount to much by 1991 (hey, who knew?), so I pretty much gave up on him in any serious capacity.

     Hensley Meulens was my only attempt at prospect speculation.  Naturally, it was only because he was a Yankee, not that my 7th grade mind had ever picked up a copy of Baseball America or knew anything whatsoever about who was doing what in the minors (outside of Huntsville, anyway).  But he was a Yankee, and no one else seemed to even notice him in the set.  As a result, by the end of 1990, I had about 40 copies of his 1989 Donruss card (all the other collectors at school just gave them to me, not even bothing to trade).  For some reason, I kept up with him for the next few years until I exited high school and eventually stopped collecting around 1994-96.

     Dave Henderson I collect because he always looked like he was having so much fun out there.  As I post his cards here, just see how many teeth he always showed!

     Bernardo Brito was one of those sad anomalies of the minor leagues.  Stuck in the farm systems of teams who had no need for an extra power-hitting outfielder; first for Cleveland who had Joe Carter, Mell Hall & Brett Butler ahead of him, along with Andre Thornton at DH and then Minnesota where he wasn't going to crack the lineup already containing Dan Gladden, Tom Brunansky, Shane Mack and that Kirby guy.  One would think he would have made a better DH than Carmelo Castillo or Gene Larkin, but one isn't being paid to think.

     Dann Howitt & Steve Howard.  Well, I got to watch them play in
Huntsville (Howitt even hit a home run in either end of a double header I went to) and while both were highly touted at some point, neither measured up to their respective hype.

     And Tuffy.  While chasing down Japanese cards of Brito & Meulens, it was inevitable that I'd run into Tuffy.  The more I read about him, the more I looked at his stats, the more I read of his "legend" from one opening day, the more interested I became.  From being a sort of Kenny Lofton Light to a sort of Japanese Ryan Howard somewhere between 1990-2000.  Now he's a power hitting legend with one or two seasons left in the tank in Orix.