Rockies’ third baseman Charlie Hayes was a serviceable third baseman who averaged a new team every other year over 14 seasons. He wasn’t bad, as evidenced by multiple stints on the Phillies, Yankees, and Giants, but rather seen as a temporary placeholder for general managers unsure of what they wanted. It took a bit of faith to include him in the checklist of a set purporting to depict “baseball’s finest.” While Topps may have based the decision on the fact that he was in a Colorado Rockies uniform, the creator of the checklist was vindicated by an impressive .305 batting average and 25 home runs in 1993.
The Card
Given his career year with the Rockies in 1993 the ’93 refractor is Hayes’ defining card. While the card is a fitting one to cap off a Charlie Hayes collection, it is mostly sought after because it is considered one of the more difficult refractors to locate. PSA has graded 83 examples, one of the lowest totals of any card in the set. I added one to the collection at the beginning of the year, only to find what would become the 83rd graded example floating freely as a common at a card shop. The card returned from grading several months later with the same overall grade as the one I already had. I kept the original and found a fellow set collector in Georgia who gave the new one a good home.
Hayes Trivia:
- Hayes pitched in the 1977 Little League World Series
- His son, Ke’Bryan Hayes, is a popular Pittsburgh Pirates player
