Appreciation: Pascual Perez

Lately I’ve been rethinking my whole card-collecting strategy I employed as a kid. I bought packs, built hand-collated sets, bought factory sets and bought older cards in lousy condition. All in all I put together a pretty decent collection. I still buy cards here and there, but I’m definitely not as serious as I used to be. I’m only realizing now what I missed all these years: I wasted a ton of money. Wait, I already knew that. What I mean is, I wasted a ton of money buying cards that were not of Pascual Perez. If only I had limited my card collection to cards of Pascual Perez (and maybe his brother Melido), then I would have the perfect collection.

Why do I like Perez so much? It isn’t for his various Patty & Selma haircuts over the years. It isn’t for his magnificently airbrushed Expos uniform on his 1988 Topps card. It isn’t for his 1-13 record on the 1985 Braves (although all these things help). No, Pascual Perez is the man because of his single, sometimes-gleaming-sometimes-dull gold tooth. At least I think it’s gold. Pascual is not a handsome man by any means, and you might even be able to call him ugly and get away with it, but that gold tooth elevates his common, everyday bad looks and gives it a certain wallflower-at-the-dance, punch-your-lights-out-in-a-fight-over-a-girl kind of charm.

(Speaking of, it they ever made a Broadway version of Back to the Future, I could totally see Pascual Perez in the Crispin Glover/George McFly role. Couldn’t you? Melido Perez would be Marty, Ken Kaiser could play Biff, Tony LaRussa would be Doc Brown and Lea Thompson could reprise as Lorraine (I bet she’s not doing anything). And then, when the show’s a monster hit, we could get Ramon and Pedro Martinez to do the roles of George and Marty in the touring company, with Lou Piniella as Doc. Man, I should be writing these down…)