Here's a fun one to profile on my "Highlights From the 1970's"
thread: Detroit Tigers shortstop Cesar Gutierrez and his OUT OF NOWHERE 7
for 7 game against the Cleveland Indians on June 21st, 1970.
Take a look at my card design:
Gutierrez was a lighter-than-light hitting midfielder who did the
remarkable that day in June, becoming the first player in Major League
history to gather seven hits in a game without making an out since
Wilbert Robinson collected seven hits in a game
back on June 10th of 1892!
To put it in perspective, Gutierrez was such a light hitter, that even AFTER his seven hit game, Gutierrez was hitting .249!
Six of his seven hits were singles, with a double thrown in, and
for the season he ended up hitting .243, which was just above his
lifetime batting average of .235.
To add insult to injury, Gutierrez even lost his job to another
light-hitting infielder, Ed Brinkman, the following season and was
eventually out of baseball by the time the 1972 season was ready to open
up.
(On a side note: Gutierrez does show up in the 1972 set as a member
of the Montreal Expos, even though he never played a game for them.)
But on that June day in 1970, Gutierrez was the star of Major
League baseball, soon to be joined (and never since) by Pittsburgh
Pirate Rennie Stennett in 1976, who also went 7 for 7 on September 16th.
