This past week I got a return from Puerto Rico. I got 5 cards back from two-time A.L. MVP Juan Gonzalez.
In addition to the two MVP awards in 1996 and 1998, Gonzalez was a six-time Silver Slugger Award winner and led the A.L. in home runs in back to back seasons (1992 and 1993).
Despite his career .295 batting average and 434 home runs Juan only earned an All-Star nod three times over the course of his 16 seasons. This surprised me because Gonzalez was an absolute stud during the 1990's hitting monster home runs including five seasons with more than 40 homers.
Speaking of home runs; Gonzalez was named by Jose Canseco in his book Juiced as a teammate that Canseco claims to have injected with steroids and ended up in the Mitchell Report.
I got 4 cards back from former NFL Tight End, Chad Lewis. Lewis is an Eagle Scout who walked on at BYU after learning Madarin and serving a two year mission for his church in Taichung, Taiwan.
He went undrafted after college, but signed as a free agent with the Eagles in 1997 and played a couple seasons there before signing with the Rams in 1999 and was a part of their Super Bowl XXXIV championship team. He then went back to the Eagles for the next 6 seasons, three of which he earned Pro Bowl honors (2000, 2001, and 2002).
The NFL took advantage of Lewis knowing Mandarin and sent him to China during his career to promote the league.
Lewis signed a card for me and personalized a card for each of my three boys.
Ooh Juan Gonzalez
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