The reason it took so long for me to accomplish this was because I could never find an image of him in an Oakland uniform in color, so I resorted to some Photoshop work and came up with what you see here for the long time hurler.
I really don’t know why Pizarro was omitted from the 1970 set since he appeared in 57 games for both the Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians and A’s, good for 99.1 innings of work and a 4-5 record with seven saves.
He’d even go on to pitch for another five seasons before hanging up the spikes for good in 1974.
With a successful career as both a starter and a reliever, Pizarro was a two-time all-star who won as many as 19 games in a season (with the White Sox in 1964), and posted an ERA of 2.39 (in 1963), while appearing in 488 games in his 18-year career.
Just a nerd-bit here: Pizarro was the very first 1971 Topps card I ever got as an obsessed newbie collector by the late-70’s as a ten year old trying to get at least ONE card for every set going back in time.
Anyway, all told Pizarro fashioned a nice career that saw him go 131-105 with a nbice 3.43 earned run average and 17 shutouts, along with 28 saves between 1957 and 1974.
