The Long and Varied Baseball Card History of Hall of Fame Executive John Schuerholz

(This is part of a series of posts about the 2017 Hall of Fame inductions. Read them all here.)

When it comes to glamorous baseball cards, baseball executives usually don’t move the needle.

After all, would you rather have a rookie card of a potential 500-home-run slugger or a suit-and-tie shot of some Ivy League whippersnapper who wants to become the next Theo Epstein or Jed Hoyer?

But if there is one modern diamond chief who can buck that trend, it’s John Schuerholz, who will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July or 2017.

Consider his record:

Began baseball career in 1967 as an administrative assistant to minor league clubs in the Baltimore Orioles‘ organization
Became Kansas City Royals farm director in 1976
Served as Royals’ scouting director from 1977-80
Promoted to assistant general manager in KC in 1981
Installed as GM of the Royals in 1982, a post he held until 1990
Led Atlanta Braves as GM from 1990 to 2007

In case you didn’t notice, the years Schuerholz spent as farm and scouting director for the Royals were the same years during which KC was building the team that would compete through the mid-1980s.

You can chalk up their 1985 World Series title, in large part, to the work Schuerholz did in constructing the club.

And then, of course, he was at the helm when the Braves returned to the World Series year after year in the 90s, including a win in the 1995 Fall Classic (over the Cleveland Indians).

Lucky for us, the baseball card gods saw fit to fill our coffers with a wide variety of Schuerholz pasteboards.

First came the team-issued 1982 Kansas City Royals Photocards “rookie card”: