no. 237 - cesar cedeno

Who is the man: Cesar Cedeno made his major league debut in June of 1970 and went on to hit .310 in 355 at-bats, finishing fourth in the NL Rookie of the Year voting (he received one vote).

Can ya dig it: Cedeno cards were always cool in the 1970s. Love the old Astros logo patch. That's how I remember the Astros logo.

Right on: Rookie card! He's no older than 19 in this photo.

You see this cat Cedeno is a bad mother: Anyone compared to Willie Mays early in their career is a bad mother. Thank you, Leo Durocher.

Shut your mouth: Durocher, expanding on his Cedeno-Mays comparison in a UPI article in 1973: "What I've said is there will never be a better player than Willie Mays. In my opinion anyway. At this stage of his career though, Cesar Cedeno is as good as Willie was when he was 22. He's a fantastic ballplayer. Positively fantastic. He could turn out to be as great as Willie. Like I say, though, I don't think there'll ever be a better ballplayer than Mays."

No one understands him but his woman: There are a lot of directions I could go here, as Cedeno had well-known, even tragic, experiences with women. But let's go with this Cedeno quote:

"I never get any endorsements or commercials. I've never understood why. I have an accent, but so does Ricardo Montalban."

(A word about the back): Just to give younger collectors an idea of the build-up for this guy, here are snippets from the first few Cedeno card backs:

1971: "Cesar has the potential to be a super-star."
1972: "Hailed as NL's next super-star ..."
1973: "One of the major league's most exciting players ..."
1975: "Perhaps baseball's next super-star ..."