"The Mad Hungarian"…
What an awesome nickname for a about as symbolic a character of
1970's baseball as Al Hrabosky, and the next subject of my "Nicknames of
the '70's" series.
Take a look at my card design:
His antics were entertaining to say the least (though not to
opposing players), and I remember him towards the end of his career in
the early 1980's, along with guys like Brad Leslie, "Goose" Gossage, etc
that made the game a riot!
I used a 1976 template since his best year in the Majors was 1975,
leading the league in saves and winning percentage with 22 and .813
respectively.
That performance got him a third-place finish in Cy Young voting,
as well as a fifth place finish in Most Valuable Player voting.
Though he never quite found the success of that year again, he did
play another seven years in the Big Leagues, ending up with the Atlanta
Braves in 1982 before hanging them up.
He finished with a nice 64-35 career record, along with a 3.10
earned run average and 97 saves over 545 games, one of which was a start
way back when he came up with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1970.
