When you have a rookie card depicting three players, and you go on to
see that in the end they combined to sport a not-so-nifty 21-53 career record,
you tend to forgot about it and never look back.
However, today I'd like to examine an interesting card from the
1971 Topps set, #664 "Rookie Star Pitchers", which featured three future
prospects, all with the same last name: Reynolds: Archie, Bob and Ken.
All three aspiring pitchers just happened to be coming up at the
same time for three different Major League teams: the Angels, Expos and
Phillies respectively, but sadly, as I stated before, never really found
the success they were hoping for. But hey,
at least they are part of a strange little bit of baseball card
history: three players on the same card with the same surname. A little
out of the ordinary, don't you think?
You KNOW Topps had to be having a little fun with this card,
and in doing so gave the card-collecting world one of those little
"quirks" that make it all so entertaining.
Let's have a look at the players on the card…
First we have Archie Reynolds, shown with an airbrush job as a
member of the Angels. Previously a member of the Cubs, he appeared in
only 16 games for the North siders before being traded to California for
Juan Pizarro in June of 1970.
Sad to say things didn't get any better for him, as he proceeded to
so 0-3 over 15 games before being traded to the Brewers for Curt Motton
in 1972.
Overall he finished with a career of 36 game appearances, and an 0-8 record with a 5.73 E.R.A.
Secondly, we have Bon Reynolds, the most "successful" of the three
Reynolds players, who is shown as an Expo, who up until this card was
issued appeared in only one game in his Major League career, in 1969.
Funny enough, he never appeared in another game again as an Expo,
being traded to the Cardinals in June of 1971 for Mike Torrez. After
appearing in only 4 games for the Cardinals, he went on to the Milwaukee
Brewers where he played in only 3 more games
before the most succesful stage of his career, a 3+ year stint as a
member of the Orioles where he went 14-11 before closing out his career
with stops in Detroit and Cleveland for a career tally of 14-16 with a
3.15 E.R.A. over 140 games.
Last but not least, we have Ken, who is shown as a member of the
Phillies. While he posted a career E.R.A. of 4.46 over 103 total Major
League games, he ended up with a 7-29 record over the course of 6 years,
with stops in Philadelphia, Milwaukee, St.
Louis and San Diego.
1972 was a particularly rough year for him, as he posted more than
half his career losses with a 2-15 record for the Phillies to go along
with a not-so-bad E.R.A. Of 4.26 in 33 games, 23 of which were starts.
One last coincidence stemming from this card is that all three players appeared for the Brewers in consecutive years: Bob
appeared in a few games in 1971, Archie in 1972, and Ken
in 1973. What are the odds of that!?
You "gotta" love stuff like this!
 |
| Reynolds, Reynolds and Reynolds. |