Who is the man: Ron Brand was entering his final season in the major leagues after playing as a back up at several positions for the Expos in 1970.
Can ya dig it: I dig that "catcher-inf" position designation. That's not one you see a lot.
Right on: Brand is posing as a catcher but he actually played at shortstop for 10 more games than he did at catcher in 1970. And they were his first appearances at shortstop in his major league career, which was eight years old at the time.
You see this cat Brand is a bad mother: Ron Brand's 1969 Topps card is awesome.
Shut your mouth: Brand lashed out at both the players and owners during the baseball strike of 1981, saying that both were to blame and chastising the game for giving large salaries to players who didn't deserve them. Brand was the Expos' player representative in 1972 during the brief strike that season.
No one understands him but his woman: Brand has seven children. That's a lot of understanding.
(A word about the back): Well, if you haven't fallen asleep after reading the minutiae in the first part of the bio, you get to something interesting buried at the bottom. Glen Brand won gold in freestyle wrestling in 1948 and was such a big deal in Iowa that there is a Hall of Fame in the state called the "Glen Brand Wrestling Hall of Fame of Iowa".
Brand's "woman" is Candy, one of the King Cousins from the 1960's TV show "The King Family". (She's a cousin of Tina Cole from "My Three Sons".)
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Ron Brand was also the first Astro to get a hit in the Astrodome, 4-9-65 in an exhibition game against the Yankees. Mickey Mantle got the first hit (a single) but Ron Brand hit a triple for the Astros' first hit.
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How was he the player representative in 1972 if his last year was 1971?
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