Click to enlarge.

It might come as a surprise to learn that the present author is the sort of person who has persuaded a real human woman to enter with him into matrimony of any sort, be it holy or otherwise. It’s an improbable thing, I admit, but as the character Psmith from certain of Wodehouse’s novels advises, one ought never to confuse the improbable with the impossible.

The aforementioned wife is relevant to this brief post insofar as, on a day trip yesterday to Manchester, New Hampshire — a city famous largely for its contributions to child labor (facilitating more of it, that is) — on a day trip to that city, she visited a place called Collectors Heaven and purchased there a pack of ProCards-brand Triple-A baseball cards from 1989.

The image above features all 10 cards from that pack arranged in something vaguely approximating alphabetical order and including, in red font, the career WAR figures of each player. N/A denotes those players who made zero major-league appearances. An asterisk (*) denotes Rich Morales, who wasn’t actually a player at the time, but rather the manager of Seattle Triple-A affiliate Calgary.

A brief examination of cards here reveals that:

• Seven of the nine Triple-A players featured here recorded at least one major-league appearance; and
• The most successful of the players here was Darryl Hamilton, who produced nearly 15 wins over 13 seasons; and
• Vancouver shortstop Carlos Martinez has glimpsed into the future and isn’t satisfied by what it holds for him.