Waiting for Boof

A few things about Boof Bonser.

First, are any of you folks familiar with the baseball writer Grant Brisbee? If you follow the San Francisco Giants, you most certainly are. Not only is he one of the main writers and podcasters on the team at The Athletic, he's been a constant (and exceptionally good) "beat writer" for the Giants for nearly twenty years now, at SB Nation and for a long time at the blog he founded, McCovey Chronicles. He's a self-deprecating dork with an unhealthy Giants obsession, which I appreciate, as a self-deprecating dork with an unhealthy Giants obsession.

Anyway, before McCovey Chronicles, he wrote a blog in the early bloggin' days called Waiting For Boof. It was so early that he actually had the URL "giantsblog.blogspot.com". How awesome is that? This blog was, of course, named after San Francisco Giants pitching prospect Boof Bonser. See, there were many, many lean years before the Giants starting growing amazing pitching arms on trees - the pre-Lincecum, pre-Cain, pre-Bumgarner years - in which we hadn't brought up a pitcher or any real position player of note through the farm system. I remember "Marvin Benard" was always trotted out as the one dude whom we successfully groomed to a starting position. He was the example that proved the rule: the Giants farm system was lousy.

So Waiting For Boof it was. Boof Bonser not only had an amazing name, he was the pitcher who was going to come up and win a Cy Young and lead us into the promised land. He was a top prospect with some great minor league stats. So here's the second thing about Boof. In November 2003, right after the Giants had been to the playoffs but were snuffed out by the eventual world champ Florida Marlins, he was traded to Minnesota in an infamous deal for catcher AJ Pierzynski. Oh no - it wasn't just Bonser - the Giants also gave up eventual superstar closer Joe Nathan, along with eventual starting pitcher/flamethrower Francisco Liriano. It's one of the Top 5 worst deals in Giants history, as Pierzynski was mostly terrible in his lone year with the Giants, and a bit of the proverbial "clubhouse cancer". Nathan and Liriano went on to fantastic and/or solid careers with Minnesota.

And Boof Bonser? Well, he did make the show. A couple of years - 2006 through 2008 - he ate up some solid innings for the Twins. He did not turn into Tim Lincecum, nor Matt Cain, nor Madison Bumgarner, but he did in fact have a major league career.

So I was on SportLots the other day, trying to buy some Topps 2002 Chrome cards for the Anaheim Angels - yes, I love that team and wrote about it here - and spotted a Boof Bonser prospect card for $0.18 in that series. I ordered it, and you see it above you. Now I'm going to collect Boof Bonser cards, because why not? I ordered several others from SportLots as well that just haven't arrived yet. He's one of those guys that triggers weird nostalgic pleasure centers in my brain - Tsuyoshi Shinjo is another - and who therefore are ripe targets for me to collect all of their cards, such as they are.

Who are those guys for you - the non-superstars whom you've decided you need to grab every card for?