Fathers and Sons

 In 2000, Topps made a rather unique card:

Three prospects who all had fathers who were extremely productive.

Tim Raines has over 1,500 runs and 800 stolen bases and is eventually going to get the green light to Cooperstown.

Garry Maddox suffered from burns during the Vietnam war and has worn a beard til this day to hide the scars. He was a tremendous fielder, winning 8 Gold Gloves in a row. He was also a very solid hitter.

Gary Matthews, or Sarge, is known to me mostly as the back bone of the Cubs run in 1984 and overall clubhouse guy. A former Rookie of the Year and solid hitter and overall excellent OBP guy.

So did these young guns ever mount a charge to reach anywhere close to what their fathers did?

Let's see:

First the fathers' combined stats:

• Runs: 3431
• Hits: 6418
• Doubles: 1086
• Triples: 226
• HR's: 521
• RBI's: 1812
• SB's: 1239

Wow!

And the progenies of these three?

• Runs: 636
• Hits: 1090
• Doubles: 234
• Triples: 30
• HR's: 108
• RBI's: 491
• SB's: 105

Yuck.

All three are out of baseball now.

Junior Maddux never reached the majors and Junior Raines had cups of coffee over three years. But he was a base fiend throughout his minor league career.

Junior Matthews produced 95% of the numbers above but used steroids to produce most of them. At least the other two did it the right way. Or did they?

I'm sure their dads were and still are proud that their little guys followed them into pro ball.

It just goes to show you many things jump a generation, not just genes.