Though Carlos May was done as a Major League baseball player by the
time the 1978 Topps cards came out, I wanted to design a card for him
in an Angels uniform.
His last "official" card shows him as a New York Yankee player in
the '77 set, whom he played for at the start of that season before being
purchased by California late in the year.
Take a look at my card design:
May only suited up for 11 games with California before taking his
talents to Japan between 1978 and 1981, performing admirably with a .309
average and 70 home runs with Nankai of the JPPL.
As a Major League player, while he wasn't as successful as his
brother Lee, Carlos did have some solid years for the Chicago White Sox
in the early 1970's, teaming up with guys like Bill Melton and Dick
Allen to give the South-Siders some "pop" in their
line-up.
While he drove in 96 runs for the White Sox in 1973, his best
season is arguably the year before, when he hit .308 with 12 homers, 68
runs batted in with 83 runs scored and 23 stolen bases over 148 games.
He spent parts of nine seasons with the White Sox before being traded to the Yanks in May of 1976.
I always remember the "Big League Brothers" sub-set in the 1977 Topps set, one of which was a card of Carlos and Lee.
I also remember the incredible story of how Carlos suffered what
could have been a career ending injury, blowing his thumb off in 1969
while in the Marine Reserves.
My cousin and I would try to see if we noticed the "missing thumb"
on his baseball cards, wondering how a guy could be a big league player
while missing that seemingly important digit.
Anyway, over his eleven games with California in 1977, May hit .333
with six hits in 18 at-bats, driving in a run along with five base on
balls.
He put in 10 years in the Majors, and left the game with a .274 lifetime average, 90 homers and 536 runs batted in.