Today I wanted to create a 1978"traded" card for Hall of Fame
reliever/starter Dennis Eckersley, since he was shown on the Cleveland
Indians instead of the Boston Red Sox after his March trade.
Check it out:
In March of '78 Eckersley was traded to Boston along with Fred Kendall for Ted Cox, Bo Diaz, Mike Paxton and Rick Wise.
While he was already putting together a nice career as a starter,
even having in his only 20-win season in '78 as a member of the Sox, it
was his conversion to the relief role in 1987 with the Oakland A's that
led him to the Hall of Fame.
When you look at his career, it was evenly split between the
starting (12 years) AND relieving (12 years) role, and by the time he
retired after the 1998 season, he managed to post a 20-win season, a
200-strikeout season, a couple of sub-3.00 E.R.A. years,
four 40-save seasons (one of them a 51 save year), and three sub-2.00
E.R.A. seasons (with one of them a sub-1.00 E.R.A. season!).
Pretty amazing stuff.
All told "Eck" would finish with 197 wins, a 3.50 earned run
average, 390 saves, 2401 strikeouts and 20 shutouts over 1071
appearances, 361 of which were starts.
Come 2004, Eckersley was inducted into the Hall of Fame, named to 421 of 506 ballots.
