Virtual Bike Tour of Baseball Sites - Taylor Texas

My long-time readers (defined here as anybody who was reading my blog last fall) may remember that I was trying to get back into shape after my cardiac catheterisation in September by riding my at-home stationary bike. I was charting my progress on a map starting at Minute Maid Stadium in Houston. I planned to virtually travel through cities, highlighting the baseball players born in each city on the blog, hopefully with baseball cards of the players. Unfortunately, I was having trouble with my knees and gave up near the end of October. In early March of this year I joined the brand new YMCA in my town and I've been working out there regularly. And I'm back on the bike! So let the trip resume. It was a pretty long haul from my last stop in Brenham Texas (the home of Astro's manager Cecil Cooper) to my next stop at Taylor Texas (78.9 miles). I'm up to about 8 miles on the bike now so progress will be better. Taylor is a small town of about 15,000 located 29 miles northeast of Austin TX. I've never actually be there. Nothing exciting to report about players from Taylor. According to baseball-reference.com there were only two major leaguers born there.

Jim Gideon was born in 1953 and was the Rangers #1 draft pick in 1975. He was 2-0 in the Rangers rookie club and the 4-5 in their AAA affiliate in Spokane. The Rangers brought him up to start on game in September 1975 where he got shelled, giving up 5 runs in 5.2 innings. He was in and out of the minors until 1982 but never pitched again in the majors. Here is his only major league card, 1977 Topps #478. I don't own it, I found the image on Beckett.com.
The other player was Pat McLaughlin, born in 1910. He had a long minor league career but only spent parts of 3 years in the majors (1937 with the Tigers, 1940 with the A's and 1945 back with the Tigers). No baseball cards for him according to Beckett.com.