Paul Dade
September 17, 2006
Someone has just called Paul Dade’s name. Let me offer an explanation for why the calling of his name seems to have produced this mixture in his expression of apprehension, anxiety, resentment, and perhaps a slight residue of muted curiosity. At the time of this picture, Paul Dade had shuttled back and forth between different major and minor league franchises 16 different times in 9 years. He’d been promoted, demoted, waived, claimed, released, signed, released again, and then, worst of all, had ended up on the Padres, oblivion’s vestibule. Paul, I’ve got some news. Paul, step into my office. Paul, we have to talk. This picture catches Paul Dade on the brink of a 1980 season in which he would bat .189 and make an error on roughly every 8th ball hit his way. There are no records for Paul Dade beyond that season. Whoever just called his name will eventually call yours and mine.
Cardboard Gods 
Josh, I realize this is one of the older posts, but I felt bad at the idea of Paul Dade seeing that an entry was written for him and then seeing that nobody had commented on it. Also, most things I’ve been involved with in my life I have lived day-to-day fully expecting the time someone calls me over and says, “son, we need to talk”.
Paul Dade was one of the first guys to really get a break in the early days of free agency. In 1977 while the Reggie Jacksons and Don Baylors and Wayne Garlands were freed to seek salary increases that more closely approximated their value on the open market, Paul Dade got the oppportunity to become a cardboard god. In the early years of free agency, there was some kind of loophole which allowed the Paul Dades who had been trapped in minor league organizations for a sufficient length of time to shop their services. (I guess this was a precursor to what is today called 6-year free agency). It got Paul out of the Angel organization where he was buried behind such stellar infield talent as Dave Chalk, Rudy Meoli, and an aging Winston Llenas. Shortly before training camps opened in 1977, Paul signed a contract to play with the Cleveland Indians, where improbably (OK, it was the Indians, so somewhat improbably) he became, for one season, a big league regular, getting into 134 games at five different positions. And in doing so, he hit a crisp .291 . Granted, he’d be hearing that voice calling his name a scant four years later, but at least he got to spend a good portion of those years enjoying big league stadiums, meal money, and the other perks, instead of riding the buses back and forth in the Pacific Coast League.
According to his Wikipedia page, in 2012 he said “What the world needs is a lot more love. Tender love. The kind of love that makes the world go round.”
Hard to argue with that one.