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Friday, October 5
 
Forever a footnote in baseball history

By Darren Rovell
ESPN.com

Jeff Schneider forever will have a place in Cal Ripken Jr. lore as one of two other players featured on Ripken's first rookie trading card in 1982.

Cal Ripken Jr.
Bobby Bonner and Jeff Schneider had undistinguished playing careers, but remain the answer to a trivia question: Who else is on Cal Ripken Jr.'s first rookie trading card.
"I'm kind of the answer to a neat trivia question," Schneider, a left-handed reliever with the Orioles in the early 1980s, said Thursday of the Topps' Baltimore Orioles Future Stars card. "Someone must have told them I was going to be good."

But Schneider shares more with Ripken than a photo on a piece of cardboard. As the modern-day "Iron Man" embarks on the 3,001st and final game of his career, Schneider vividly recalls when the two roomed together while playing on the 1980 champion Caguas team in Caribbean winter ball.

"He was this long, lean and lanky kid who would sit on his bed and look at car brochures," Schneider said of his earliest memories of Ripken. "One day he was looking at a Mercedes and said to me 'God, I'd love to get one of these some day.' And I said, 'You might have a fleet of them.'

"He told me, 'I know when I get one of these that I've done what I wanted to do,' " said Schneider, now a 49-year-old printing company manager from Geneseo, Ill. "And I laughed, thinking that this guy has no idea how good he is."

Even though Ripken was humble about his abilities back then, Schneider said he knew Ripken was special.

"When I first saw Cal play, I called my dad and said, 'Wait until you see this kid,' " Schneider said. "I think he hit 34 RBIs in his first 18 games in Puerto Rico. He just loved to talk about the game and he knew more about the game than anybody."

As the 20-year-old Ripken was on the rise, Schneider's dreams of stardom were slowly fading. Though he was selected to four all-star teams in seven minor-league seasons, Schneider never realized much Major League success. Drafted out of high school by the Texas Rangers and again following his sophomore season at Iowa State University by the Philadelphia Phillies, Schneider was 29 years old when he and Ripken first became teammates in 1980.

Looking back, Schneider said there were times when Ripken's streak of consecutive games played was in jeopardy before it ever began. During Christmas time, crime was at its height in Puerto Rico. It was so bad, Schneider said, that the players wouldn't pick up their paychecks alone and feared for their lives several times.

One time Ripken and Schneider were fulfilling a postgame ritual of buying beer and donuts when Ripken spotted three kids pointing guns at an older couple who were taking off their jewelry.

"Another time, we were sitting at a Burger King drive-thru and all of a sudden we hear boom, boom, boom, boom, boom," Schneider recalled, almost 21 years later. "Cal points out the front of the window and less than 30 yards away from us there's a guy whose head is hanging out of the van and it's gushing with blood. These guys had two hostages in this van."

Story behind the card
Although Schneider didn’t know how he got on the card, Topps does. Butch Jacobs, the director of photography who still works at Topps, included Schneider on a hunch, said Clay Luraschi, spokesman for the card company. Luraschi said Ripken was put in the middle of the card because he was the best of the three.

Schneider is the only one pictured without an Orioles hat because Schneider said he had no clue that a photographer would be taking his picture for the card.

"It was hours before the game and nobody was in the stadium," Schneider said. "So I go out there with a wad (of tobacco) and seeds in my mouth and flip my hat off, and as I get to the top step of the dugout, a photographer yells, 'Hey Schneider, can I get your picture?' So he takes it and I go out and run, (but) until I saw the card, I didn't know what it was for. So it's not because I was a rebel."

Schneider was paid $25 for the card and received 50 cards in the mail. After giving them out to family and friends, he said he bought more.

Schneider points out the card actually includes an error. Schneider's birthdate listed on the back makes him a year younger than he actually is.

-- Darren Rovell

Ironically, Bobby Bonner, the third player included on the card, was considered the Orioles' shortstop of the future. But like Schneider, Bonner had a short-lived major-league career. After playing parts of four seasons with the team, he became a Christian missionary and traveled to Africa, where he is believed to remain in Zambia today.

In 1981, Ripken and Schneider played together at Rochester, the Orioles' Triple-A affiliate, before both were called up after the 50-day players strike. Schneider finished the season with 17 strikeouts, including two against Reggie Jackson, while Ripken had five hits in 39 at-bats. In the offseason, Schneider was traded to the Angels with Doug DeCinces for Dan Ford, but he never made it back to the majors before retiring in 1983. In all, he saw just 24 innings of work in the majors.

Ripken, meanwhile, became a fixture in the Orioles lineup from 1982 through this season, when he has been mostly a part-time player. He wraps up his certain Hall of Fame career this weekend.

Thanks to a satellite dish, Schneider has kept track of Ripken's greatest milestones. On Saturday, Schneider will be sitting on his couch, just like he was for Ripken's 3,000th hit on April 15, 2000, his 400th home run on Sept. 2, 1999 and 2,131st consecutive game on Sept. 5, 1995. "I was sitting here with my family watching it, and it brought tears to my eyes,” Schneider said, recalling Ripken's post-game lap around Camden Yards. "I was silent and stunned. I was just taking it all in. Even the announcers stopped talking.

"I always get choked up when I think about it," he said as his voice crackled. "When the applause died down I got all these calls from buddies and friends saying, 'Did you see that?' "

Through the years, Ripken continues to treat Schneider as a teammate and a friend. Schneider said he tries to visit with Cal every couple years, but that has gotten tougher since Ripken began using aliases while staying in hotels away from the rest of the team.

"When I see him it's just like he was when we would go grill steaks and make baked beans and stare out at the ocean in Puerto Rico," Schneider said. "We only really spent a couple years together, but you get the feeling he would do anything in the world for me. ... I couldn't be happier for one individual, probably not even myself."

As for the card, Schneider's son Joel often would remind him, "If I wasn't on the card, it would be worth more."

He's right. The Bonner/Ripken/Schneider card books for $65. A subsequent Topps card, which came out later that season and features only Ripken, sells for $200.

Darren Rovell covers sports business for ESPN.com. He can be reached at darren.rovell@espn.com.






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