He was also concluding his lengthy playing career, one where he spent parts of seven seasons in the majors, six of those with the Orioles.In researching Rayford, I ended up in a similar position as I did with Dick Bosman. There was a lot available on both his playing and his coaching careers. So I've again decided to split up my research into a feature on his playing days and one on his coaching career.
Of course, to do this, my rule is I have to have a card from his playing days. His CMC card wasn't enough, he's listed on there as a coach.
I looked through my box of cards I've gotten in the last couple years, nothing. He's in the 1987 Topps set and I got a box of that from my wife two Christmases ago. But Rayford was not one of the cards in the box.
Then I remembered over the summer, when I interviewed Jim Pankovits. I was motivated to answer a burning question from Night Owl about the 1988 Topps Pankovits, but I had to have the card to show him. On short notice, I remembered I had the unopened set from when I was a kid.
Needless to say, I opened the set, tracked down the Pankovits and got Night Owl's question answered.
How this relates to Rayford is, he was also in the 1988 Topps set. I ran upstairs, pulled out the opened and unsorted set. Starting at one end, I quickly found Rayford's card.
So, with Rayford's playing days card in-hand, I'll cover his playing days tomorrow afternoon. His coaching days are scheduled for tonight.
By the way, my wife and I visited New Britain, Conn., in 2006 to see the AA Rock Cats play. Turns out, Rayford was coaching New Britain while we were there.
I had a similar revelation with CMC member John Russell, Russell was managing AAA Ottawa when we visited in 2007.
With Russell, I was able to go back to our pictures of the game and find him in a photo. With our New Britain trip, I took a bunch of photos, as well. I just checked for Rayford, but he wasn't in any of them.
By the way: Happy Thanksgiving.
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