Here was one FUN card to create: a 1970 "missing" card for John Sipin, a player I was fascinated with for a while as a kid.
Before I get into the details of why it was so fun for me, here's the card:
In 1969 Sipin was one of the original San Diego Padres, playing in his rookie season as their second baseman.
He got into 68 games that year, good enough for 241 plate
appearances which saw him hit .223 with 51 hits over 229 official
at-bats.
Among those hits were 12 doubles, two triples and two homers, with nine runs batted in and 22 runs scored.
Certainly enough playing time to warrant a card in the '70 set, no?!
Over the next two years Sipin toiled for the Padres Triple-A clubs
Salt Lake City and Hawaii, putting up very nice numbers like .300+
batting averages and 20 homers each year.
However it wasn't enough to crack the Majors, so he took his
talents over to Japan, where he'd end up bruising the ball over the next
nine years playing for Taiyo and the powerful Yomiuri clubs.
In his nine-years of Japanese pro-ball Sipin went on to slam 218 homers, drive in 625 runs and bat a cool .297.
Those 218 homers were hit in 3779 at-bats, which, in addition to
his 149 doubles and 15 triples adds up to a nice .518 slugging average.
Sipin became very popular over in Japan, and one of the best second basemen in Japan during the decade.
You should Wiki him to read up on some of the outrageous or funny stuff he was doing when he was playing out there.
Quite a character during his Japan days, and a fun quick read to
see how an American's professional baseball days out there panned out.
And as an added bonus, here are a couple of his Japanese baseball cards from the 1970's!
