What has always mystified me was that the 1971 set is chock-full of great action cards, yet the following year when Topps decided to run the “In-Action” sub-set we were left with some terrible photo choices.
Anyone know what was going on?
If you were to take some of the 1971 cards like Rudi, Thurman Munson, Lindy McDaniel, etc, you could have one kick-ass “In-Action” sub-set!
Anyway, as we all know Joe Rudi was on the cusp of a great run in Oakland, winning three consecutive World Championships between 1972 and 1974, getting named to three all-star teams, winning three Gold Gloves, and finishing second in Most Valuable Player voting twice, in 1972 and 1974.
As one of the early big name Free Agents, he moved on to the California Angels in 1977 where he’d spend four seasons before playing out his career with a year in Boston in 1981 and back to his original team, Oakland in his final year in 1982.
All told he’d hit .264 for his career, with 179 homers and 810 runs batted in over 1547 games.