So we hit blog post #800, and I thank you all yet again for following and reading my walks down memory lane.
Today I figured a good batch of cards to go over would be the last card in each set of the awesome-1970's.
So let's jump right in and take a look, shall we?
1970: Rick Reichardt
Here's a decent card of former 1964 "bonus baby" Reichardt of the Angels.
A nice clean card for a relatively boring set in my opinion.
Reichardt had a couple of decent years in the Majors but never
really lived up to the "hype" that led to Major league baseball
developing the Amateur Draft the following year in 1965.
1971: Dick Drago
Here's the very first "high number" card I ever got as a kid back
in the late-70's. Not that I really understood yet the appeal of such a
thing. I just remember picking up a bunch of 1971 cards at an antique
store in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, with the Drago
card being one of them.
Drago put in a nice 13-year career, with 1971 being his best,
posting a 17-11 record for the Royals to go along with a 2.98 ERA and
four shutouts.
1972: Ron Reed
Nice looking card of the former basketball playing 6'7" pitcher.
I love the 1972 set for it's color-schemes, and after the 1970 and
1971 sets with their limited color-palettes, the '72 is a very welcomed
change!
Reed spent 19-years in the Majors as both a starter and reliever,
and finished with a 146-140 record with a 3.46 ERA over 751 games, with
all but 236 out of the 'pen.
1973: Fred Scherman
Card #660 in the 1973 set is of another man out of the bullpen,
eight-year baseball veteran Fred Scherman, here of the Detroit Tigers.
Scherman's top year in the big leagues was 1971, when he posted an
11-6 record with a nice 2.71 ERA and 20 saves for Detroit over 69 games,
one of which was a start that he threw a complete game in.
He finished with a 33-26 record with 39 saves and a 3.66 ERA over 346 games, 11 of which were starts.
1974: Larry Dierker
The last card in the 1974 set was of former Astros ace pitcher and future Major League manager Larry Dierker.
Dierker had one heck of a season for Houston in 1969 when he went
20-13 with a sparkling 2.33 ERA and four shutouts with 232 strikeouts.
He'd post some other decent seasons throughout his 14-year career,
finishing with a 139-123 record with 25 shuouts and a 3.31 ERA before
moving on to the managing realm, leading the Houston Astros between 1997
and 2001.
He even won Manager of the Year in 1998 when he led the 'Stros to a
102-60 record (remember Randy Johnson down that amazing stretch?)
before losing in the first round of the playoffs.
1975: Hank Aaron
Easily the powerhouse of the cards profiled today, Aaron's
airbrushed card commemorating his reutn to Milwaukee leaves some to be
desired, but still a killer card of the legend.
I just wish Topps put the "All-Star" on THIS card, his regular card, instead of his "Record Breaker" card in the '75 set.
1976: Davey Lopes
The last card of the awesome 1976 set was of Los Angeles speedster
Davey Lopes, who was coming off a stolen base crown and on his way to
another.
An important cog in the Dodger teams of the late-70's/early-80's,
he'd team up with Bill Russell, Steve Garvey and Ron Cey to form a
long-standing nucleus that led to four National Pennants and a World
Championship in 1981.
1977: Willie Horton
What a bad-ass card of Tiger slugger Horton!
Funny, I never realized this was card #660 in the 1977 set until I started this post.
Horton was at the tail end of a very productive 18-year career which saw him slam 325 homers with just under 2000 hits.
He put in one last kick-ass season in 1979 at the age of 36 as a
full-time DH for the Seattle Mariners, which saw him hit 29 homers with
106 runs batted in before leaving the game after the following season.
1978: Wilbur Wood
Another former star towards the end of his career, the
knuckle-balling hurler was wrapping up a nice 17-year career with the
White Sox in 1978 after some seriously sick years on the mound.
A 20-game winner four years in a row between 1971 and 1974, he put in inning-counts that are still hard to believe!
But he also had a year for the ages as a reliever in 1968 when he
posted a 13-12 record with 16 saves and a 1.87 ERA over 159 innings of
work and 88 appearances, all but two in relief!
He went from leading the league in relief appearances in 1970 to
leading the league in starts just two years later with a staggering 49!
By the time he retired after the 1978 season he had a 164-156 record with 24 shutouts, 57 saves and a 3.24 ERA.
1979: San Francisco Giants Prospects
Ugh. Ugly, just ugly.
What a terrible way to end this post.
Ugly card, boring card, from a set I have always considered boring as well.
Three prospects that never really made their mark in MLB.
And can someone please explain to me why they all, especially Joe Strain, look like they're all wearing eye-liner!?
Well there you have it, all the "final cards" of every set during the decade.
The good, the bad, the ugly, and apparently the "glam" at the end…
Again, thank you all for following the blog, I really enjoy each
and every day of it, especially the dialogue that comes out of the
posts!
