Up for today on my imagined 1975 Cy Young sub-set is the 1971
season, and the two guys who took home the award: Vida Blue in the
American League and Fergie Jenkins in the National League.
Take a look at my design:
The Vida Blue card was already on the original M.V.P. card, since
he also took home that award as well as the Cy Young in his monster
season.
Back on December 24th
I focused on the pair of award winning hurlers when I profiled the 1972
"awards" sub-set, where I also redesigned the cards with images of the
actual players instead of the awards themselves.
So if you'll allow me some laziness here, I'll "copy and paste" what I wrote then for the two stars here:
"Vida Blue burst on to the Major League scene in 1971 with an
amazing 24-8 record along with a 1.87 earned run average and 301
strikeouts.
For that he took home both the M.V.P. And Cy Young awards at the ripe old age of 21.
On the National League side, Fergie Jenkins got his award after
finishing third the previous year (and would finish third the FOLLOWING
year).
To win the award he fashioned a 24-13 record with a 2.77 E.R.A.
along with 263 strikeouts. On top of that Jenkins was absolutely in
control on the mound, issuing only 37 walks in 325 innings of work!
Easily the most overlooked "big winner" among Hall of Fame pitchers
from the era, Jenkins would end up with 284 career wins to go along
with 3192 strikeouts and a 3.34 E.R.A.
He would also be the first pitcher to amass over 3000 strikeouts
while issuing under 1000 walks, finishing just under the wire with 997
career base on balls. He'd be joined later on by Greg Maddux, Pedro
Martinez and Curt Schilling."
Up next is the 1972 season, and with that it leaves us with only
four more cards to design and profile before we get to that last year,
1975, when the "M.V.P." sub-set was released in that awesome colorful
set.
The 1972 card will be fun, since I first have to design a "regular"
card for Steve Carlton as a Philadelphia Phillies player (I'm not using
the "traded" card from the '72 set), and I will also be using the
redesigned 1972 Gaylord Perry card I designed
not too long ago.
It'll make for an even MORE unique card "that never was".
Keep an eye out for it!
