I'm always curious about former major leaguers that I'm unfamiliar with and even more so with former major leaguers who die seemingly before their time.
As it turns out, Mark suffered from a degenerative neurological disease and had been in declining health the past few years. But he and his wife raised 4 great kids--3 sons and a daughter--and it sounds as though he was supporting them every bit as much as they were supporting him as his health waned. The tale is well told in
this piece from Gwinnett sportswriter Will Hammock and I recommend it.
Mark was drafted twice by the Texas Rangers (when he was attending Chipola College, which was a Junior College noted for their athletic programs before adding Bachelors Degree programs in 2003) but chose to finish his college education at the University of New Orleans. In 1984, UNO became the first Louisiana school to reach the College World Series. For his part, Mark set the school's single season home run record. And the Indians chose him in the first round of the June (Secondary) draft of 1984. He hit well in the minors, but got just the one cup of coffee in 1989. He played just one more season after that, with the Brewers' Triple-A affiliate in Denver.
For the custom card, my (stupid) design once again required building up from the image posted by SPORTSMEM817 on the previous page. I'm including an intermediate image to demonstrate that building up certain things (such as a bat) is a one-small-clone-at-a-time process. And I'm also including the back of the card for a look-see, keeping in mind that reducing someone's life and career into a short baseball card paragraph is an impossible task. "Cartoons" are a complete pain in the butt--I think they take me longer than the rest of the process combined--but, imho, they totally make the card (so the effort is kinda worth it).
We'll start with the original image.