Saturday, December 28, 2013

HALL OF FAME LEADERS IX: 1974 HOME RUN LEADERS

Up next on my thread of 1970's leader cards featuring solely future Hall of Famers is card #202 from the 1974 set, Home Run Leaders featuring two of the decade's best: Reggie Jackson and Willie Stargell.
 
 
 
A nice card showing classic sluggers at the height of their careers, as Jackson lead the American League with 32 in 1973, on his way to his only Most Valuable Player award, while Stargell blasted a Major League high 44 homers, while finishing second in M.V.P. In the N.L.
Both players were well on their way to Hall of Fame selection, as Reggie was a major cog in the Oakland A's AND New York Yankees dynasties of the '70's, while Stargell was about to become "Pops" on the 1979 Pirates championship team, after already playing a huge part of the 1971 World Series winning squad.
Combined we're looking at 1038 lifetime home runs along with 3242 runs batted in and six home run titles over the course of 42 years of Major League ball, as well as five top-3 M.V.P. finishes with both of them winning the award once each (Reggie in 1973 and Stargell in 1979 as co-winner with Keith Hernandez).
They were also part of seven championships between them (Reggie with five and Stargell with 2).
After their superstar careers were all said and done, Stargell found himself elected to the Hall in 1988, with Reggie joining him in 1993.
Easy to see why this is a very cool "Hall of Fame" League Leader card from the 1970's of two of the game's top sluggers from that era.