Here's the next card in the "1976 Project" you can consider either
"missing" or part of my "career capper" series: a card for Danny Cater,
aka "the other guy in the Sparky Lyle Trade".
Cater was wrapping up a decent 12-year career in 1975 with 22 games
for the St. Louis Cardinals, in which he batted .229 with eight hits in
35 at-bats.
Not really a ton of action there, but for this project I don't call the shots (right Jim?).
Cater's previous three years were spent with the Red Sox, which is where the "Sparky Lyle" joke above comes from.
Before the 1972 season the New York Yankees traded Cater, who
performed admirably for them for two years, to the Red Sox for pitcher
Sparky Lyle, who as we all know went on to have an exceptional Major
League career, including a Cy Young Award in 1977
as part of the World Champion "Bronx Zoo" team.
Cater, on the other hand, never played in more than 92 games in any season, nor batted any more than 343 times.
I'll always remember him as the guy who finished second in the
American League batting race in 1968, when Hall of Fame legend Carl
Yastrzemski took it home with a meager .301 average.
Cater, incredibly enough, hit .290 that year as a member of the Oakland A's, good for second! Amazing as it may seem.
In 1970 he had a solid year for the Yankees, as he hit .301 with 175 hits and 76 runs batted in. Not bad for that era actually.
But considering the pitching stud he was traded for, he's always
remembered for "that trade", and that second place finish in the batting
race (to us baseball-uber-nerds anyway!)
