After
appearing in the 1973 Topps set with a very nice horizontal card,
former relief pitcher Don Stanhouse didn’t make the cut the following
year, so I went and created a “missing” card here:
Before helping the Baltimore Orioles reach the World Series in 1979 with
a very nice all-star season, Stanhouse played for the Texas Rangers and
Montreal Expos, bouncing between a starting and relief role.
In 1973 Stanhouse appeared in 21 games for the Rangers, posting a 1-7
record with a 4.76 earned run average and a single save over 70 innings
of work.
Over the next couple of seasons he wouldn’t see much action, until the
Expos made him a starter in 1976, a season that saw Stanhouse post a
career high 184 innings on the mound, going 9-12 with a 3.77 ERA in 34
games.
But it was his 1978 and 1979 seasons that got Stanhouse some attention when he posted sub-3.00 ERA’s and over 20 saves year.
Sadly for him after finding himself in Los Angeles in 1980 he never
found that groove again, suffering injuries and limiting him to only 38
more games in his career before retiring after the 1982 season back in
Baltimore.
Here’s
a 1978 “Turn Back the Clock” card for one of my all-time favorite
players: Stan Musial, and his 3000th hit, which he collected 20-years
before in 1958:
He would go on to collect another 630 more hits to become the leading
National League hit-maker before Hank Aaron would overtake him about 10 years later.
Throw in 725 doubles, 177 triples and 475 home runs and you have yourself one of THE best all-around hitters the game ever saw.
Three Most Valuable Player Awards, FOUR second-place finishes, including
three in a row between 1949-1951, and twenty consecutive all-star
appearances, Musial definitely is a member of that rarified stratosphere
of baseball royalty along with the likes of Ruth, Cobb, Mays and
Wagner, among others.
Quick: before Roger Clemens came along who had the most professional wins as a pitcher and NOT be in the Hall of Fame?
The answer would be this guy right here, 19th century pitcher Bobby Mathews:
Mathews finished a nice 15-year career spanning 1871 and 1887 with a 297
and 248 record, along with a 2.86 earned run average over 578
appearances and 4956 innings of work.
An oddity of his career is that of his 297 wins, he only collected 20 of
them between the ages of 25 and 29, with two missed years in between as
well.
So that means the guy collected 277 wins in only 11 seasons, his first of which was partial. Not bad!
I don’t know why he never got into the Hall since, based on his career,
he must have been the all-time wins leader at some point before Cy Young
came and blew everyone out of the water.
Guys like Keefe, Nichols and Galvin came after Mathews.
Go figure...
Here’s
another of those airbrush jobs that has some quirkiness not only in
execution, but of circumstance, the 1972 Lee May Topps card:
As we all know by now, May was traded to the Houston Astros as part of
the deal that brought Cincinnati what many consider the final piece to
the “Big Red Machine” dynasty of the mid-70’s, Joe Morgan.
Must have been rough for May, being that he was holding his own as a
player, was an all-star, but had to watch his former teammates go on to
glory while he would never taste the sweetness of a world championship.
I’ve always been irked by the fact that the Houston “H” logo on his cap
here was off center! His cap is going one way but the logo goes another.
It’s not the worst airbrush job, but why fall short on the EASY part, the location of the logo?
Anyway, another quirk is the fact that while Lee May’s base card in the
1972 has him with his new team, Morgans base card has him as an Astro
player as well.
Yes it all comes down to series-release dates, giving Topps the ability
to get May as an Astro, and even Morgan as a Reds player in their
“Traded” sub-set later on.
But it does make for an interesting little “aside” regarding this trade nevertheless...
Here’s
a “missing” 1975 Topps card for Angel “Remy” Hermoso, who played out a
brief 4-season Major League career with the Cleveland Indians in 1974:
Hermoso made a comeback of sorts in 1974, seeing big league action for
the first time since the 1970 season when he appeared in only four games
with the Montreal Expos.
For the ‘74 season he appeared in 48 games for the Tribe, hitting .221 with 27 hits over 122 at-bats while playing second base.
It would be the most action he saw in any of his seasons in the big leagues, and as stated earlier would be the capper as well.
For his career he ended up with a .211 average with 47 hits over 223 at-bats in 91 games between 1967 and 1974.
Keeping
on with my fantasy thread and Mickey Mantle, here’s a 1971 Topps card
for “The Mick”, just imagining if he played closer to the age of 40 than
he did:
Leaving us just short of a Mantle card appearing in the 1970’s, these
creations are just some fun I’m having with some players who left the
game on the “early” side (think Mantle or Koufax).
I think I’ll create a 1972 Mantle card as well, but pushing it to 1973 seems a bit much.
Hope you all enjoy these as much as I do, kind of leaps out at me after a
lifetime of established card-boundaries regarding certain players.
Now,
you THINK if Topps was going to have a “highlight” of the 1957 season
for their 1977 “Turn Back the Clock” sub-set, they’d at LEAST pick Lew
Burdette and his awesome performance in the World Series that year,
leading the Braves to a Championship over the New York Yankees.
Well, here’s one I created:
All Burdette did in the 1957 Fall Classic was go 3-0 over three starts,
with a sparkling 0.67 earned run average with two shutouts and THREE
complete games!
The man allowed only 21 hits over those 27 innings with only two runs
scored, both of them earned, and only four bases on balls against 13
strikeouts.
Easily one of the best pitching performances in World Series history!
No offense to Bob Keegan and his no-hitter that year, but Burdette’s
feat should have been front and center, which leaves me with a question:
was it more than just Topps “picking” a moment for the sub-set?
What I mean is, were there issues trying to get former players to agree to appear on a card? Or something like that?
Anyone know?
Here’s a “missing” 1978 card for former pitcher Maximino Leon of the Atlanta Braves:
Leon appeared in 31 games for Atlanta in 1977, posting a 4-4 record with a single save over 81.2 innings of work.
But he did also get used as a spot starter, with nine of his appearances as such.
Turns out after some sporadic work in 1978, amounting to just five
appearances and 5.2 innings, that would be the end of his Major League
career.
His numbers in the big leagues totaled a 14-18 record, with a 3.71
earned run average and 13 saves over 162 games and 310.1 innings
pitched.
Considering
he had his best season as a pro in 1971, here’s a “missing” In-Action
card for former pitcher Al Downing in the 1972 set:
Coming off of a season that saw him go 20-9 with a nice 2.68 earned run
average and a league-leading five shutouts over 37 appearances, all but
one of them starts, Downing had new life after three rough seasons since
leaving the Bronx.
Though he’d never reach those heights again, he would go on to put
together a nice 17-year career, retiring after the 1977 season after
seven seasons out in Los Angeles.
Except for the 1970 season which saw him split the year between the
Oakland A’s and Milwaukee Brewers, Downing spent the rest of his career
split between the Yankees and Dodgers, ending up with a 123-107 career
record, with a 3.22 ERA, 24 shutouts and 1639 strikeouts over 405 games,
317 of which were starts, between 1961 and 1977.
Alan Bannister’s actual rookie card would appear in the 1977 Topps set, as a member of the Chicago White Sox.
But I went and created a 1976 edition, with him as a member of the
Philadelphia Phillies, for whom he played during the 1975 campaign:
Bannister, who would go on to put in a solid 12-year pro career,
appeared in 24 games for the Phillies in ‘75, hitting a respectable .262
with 16 hits over 61 at-bats as a young 23-year old.
As you may remember, he would go and put in over four years with the
White Sox, followed by about the same with the Cleveland Indians before
spending the 1984 and 1985 seasons in the Lone Star State, playing with
both the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers, where he’d retire.
All told he ended up with a nice .270 career average, with 811 hits over
3007 at-bats. I never realized he ended up with that good an average
for his career.
Next up in my 1976 century celebration of the Major Leagues is former shortstop Davy Force:
Force first played in the National Association all four seasons between
1871-1875 before moving on to the newly formed Majors in 1876 with the
Philadelphia Athletics and New York Mutuals.
He’d end up playing through the 1886 season, putting together a nice
15-year career, though he only played in 1029 games over that time.
Nevertheless he’d bat .249 with 1059 hits in 4250 official at-bats, the
bulk of his Major League tenure playing for the Buffalo team between
1879 and 1885.
Here’s a “missing” 1975 card for former Angels pitcher Dave Sells:
Sells appeared in 20 games for the Halo’s during the 1974 season,
posting a 2-3 record with a 3.69 earned run average with a couple of
saves over 39 innings of work.
Turns out the 1975 season would be his last as a Major League hurler,
splitting time between California and the Los Angeles Dodgers, ending up
0-2 with a 6.46 ERA over nine appearances.
For his 4-year career he ended up with an 11-7 record, with a 3.90 ERA and 12 saves in 90 appearances and 138.1 innings pitched.
Let’s
give “Mr. Automatic” Leo Cardenas a “super veteran” card in the 1976,
capping off a nice 16-year career that saw him named to five all-star
teams between 1960 and 1975:
Cardenas came up with the Cincinnati Reds and put in some very nice
campaigns before doing the same in Minnesota between 1969 and 1971.
He finished his tenure in the Majors in California, Cleveland and Texas
before walking away with a .257 lifetime average, 1725 hits, 118 homers
and 662 runs scored with a Gold Glove thrown in over 1941 games.
About
as colossal a sledgehammer to the hearts of New York City baseball
fans, the decision of both the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to
leave NYC and head West STILL has old-timers grumbling, and is the next
card in my “Turn Back the Clock” series:
With baseball’s already rich history by 1957 fully entrenched in New
York and Brooklyn, the Major League’s found themselves without a
National league squad for the first time since...well...forever!
As a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970’s and hearing that there
used to be a team here, it just blew me away, especially when I learned
that it was the Dodgers.
First chance I had when I hit about 11 or 12 I remember making it a
weekend goal to jump on the subway with my Hagstrom map and go visit
BOTH the former site of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds.
I just couldn’t believe there were baseball fields where I was looking.
If you’re familiar with what is there now you know what I mean.
I certainly cannot fathom how it must have felt for fans of both teams
to suddenly see them the following year representing the West Coast, and
the Golden State of California.
Must have been BRUTAL!
Definitely one of the more important “happenings” in baseball during
1957 when voting came through to allow this momentous move...
Here’s
another fantasy 1970 card, this time of future Hall of Fame pitcher
Sandy Koufax, who had his career cut short because of injury:
“What if” the man was able to keep on pitching after the age of 30?
By 1970 he would have only been 34 during what would have been his 16th year pitching in the Majors.
Could he have kept up the astronomical pace he had going between 1962
and 1966? Could he have thrown MORE no-hitters? Could he have won more
than three Cy Young Awards?
I always wondered what HE would have accomplished during 1968, the “year of the pitcher”. Could have been ridiculous!
Sadly we all know how his career ended abruptly after another masterful
season in 1966, leaving us with all the “what if’s” we could come up
with for the next 50 years since his retirement.
Can you imagine if he was able to pitch until 36? We’d have Koufax cards up until 1972 or so.
Would have been awesome, so I think I’ll create them all. Keep an eye out over the next few months as I put them on my list...
Here’s a fantasy coach card of the “Say Hey Kid” Willie Mays just after he closed out his legendary Major League playing career:
After Mays hung up his God-like cleats in 1973, he stayed on with the
Mets as a hitting instructor for a few years until 1979, the very same
year he would be elected to the Hall of Fame among the other all-time
greats.
Would have been really cool to open Topps packs as a kid in the 1970’s,
finding cards of guys you always heard about but never got to see play
or on a card during their playing careers!
Lot’s of fun creating these, and look for a bunch more in the near future.
Perhaps
the most famous icons of the early days of baseball, today’s subject
for my “100th Anniversary” 1976 sub-set is Hall of Fame shortstop George
Wright, he of the famed 1869 Cincinnati team:
By the time the Major League was formed for the 1876 season, Wright was a
powerful baseball man along with his brother Harry in Boston,continuing
to be the game’s premeir shortstop as he approached the age of 30.
In the inaugural season Wright hit .299 with 72 runs scored over 70
games, and while his performance as a player was slowing down, his
importance to the game was still strong, eventually being acknowledged
with an induction into baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1939, one of the
earliest inductees along with the likes of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.
He finished his pro career with a .301 average, collecting 866 hits over 2873 at-bats, with 665 runs scored in only 591 games.
So much more to this historical figure and I suggest those who are not
familiar with him read up on his life as an early promoter of baseball,
cricket, tennis and hockey.
Here’s a “missing” 1975 card for former pitcher John Morlan:
Morlan appeared in 10 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1973, his rookie season.
He posted a 2-2 record with a 3.95 earned run average over 41 innings of work, with seven of the 10 appearances being starts.
The following season he would up those appearances to 39 games, but this
time all were out of the bullpen, and sadly for him, the final games of
his short two-year Major League career.
He’d pitch until 1977 in the Pirates minor league system, back to being a starter, but never make it back to the “big show”.
He’d finish with a 2-5 record, with a 4.16 ERA over 49 games and 106 innings.
Here’s a “missing” 1971 card for former San Diego Padres 1st baseman Ramon Webster:
Webster appeared in 95 games for the Padres in their second season,
hitting .259 over 116 at-bats with 30 hits, 12 runs scored and 11 runs
batted in.
He would follow that up in 1971 by playing for no less than three Major
League clubs: the Padres, Oakland A’s and Chicago Cubs, hitting a
combined .250 over 26 games, thus closing the books on his five-year
career in the big leagues.
For that career he wound up with a .244 average with 190 hits in 778
at-bats with 76 runs, 98 RBI’s and 17 homers over 380 games.
Today
I want to celebrate the “Splendid Splinter” Ted Williams, and his
incredible .388 batting average at the age of 38 in 1957 to win the
fifth of his six career batting titles:
During the campaign Williams put in a “typical” on-for-him season when
he collected 163 hits over 420 at-bats, with 119 base-on-balls, along
with 38 home runs and 87 runs batted in and 96 runs scored.
He led the American league in batting, on-base with an incredible .526
mark and slugging with an equally impressive .731 mark, leading to his
fourth second-place finish in MVP voting, getting beat out by the New
York Yankees Mickey Mantle for the honor.
The man was truly a “hitting-machine”, perhaps the greatest pure hitter ever (or the Babe? Or Cobb? Musial?).
It’s funny that Topps went and created a 20th anniversary card in the
“Turn Back the Clock” sub-set in 1957 for Bob Keegan and his no-hitter
of all things, yet didn’t feel THIS accomplishment by one of the
all-time greats deserved one.
By the way, by today’s rules, Williams should have won SEVEN batting
titles, but in 1954 he lost out to the Cleveland Indians Bobby Avila,
who hit .341 with the THEN required official at-bats instead of 501
plate appearances.
Williams hit .345 with 526 plate appearances based on his 386 at-bats
and 136 walks, but under the rules of the day was denied that seventh
title.
Here’s
another of those dedicated cards produced for a player who appeared on a
1976 Topps multi-player rookie card: Hector Cruz of the St. Louis
Cardinals:
At the request of Reader Jim, I created this card to fill in the
Cardinal roster set, and using a nice photo of Cruz manning third base,
came up with a nice design that complements other St. Louis players from
the collection.
Cruz only appeared in 23 games during the 1975 season, hitting .146 with seven hits in 48 at-bats.
He would go on to play a full season in ‘76, appearing in 151 games and
hitting .228 with 120 hits over 526 at-bats with 13 homers and 71 runs
batted in.
He would go on to play nine-years in the Majors, ending up with the Chicago Cubs in 1982 before calling it a career.
All told he hit .225 with 361 hits over 1607 at-bats in 624 lifetime games, with 39 homers and 200 RBI’s on the nose.
That 1976 season would easily be his best as a pro, never playing a full season again during his time in the big leagues.
Here’s a “missing” 1973 card for former Twins pitcher Tom Norton:
Norton appeared in 21 games for Minnesota during the 1972 season, all of them out of the pen.
He pitched pretty well, posting a 2.78 earned run average which is not reflected in his 0-1 record.
However, though he had a solid showing, he never appeared in a Major
League game again, having those 1972 appearances be the only action he’d
see on a big league mound.
He would toil in the Minnesota and Chicago White Sox minor league systems through the 1976 season before hanging them up.
Here
was a fun card to create, a 1977 coach card for Hall of Fame all-time
great Yogi Berra, who sadly passed away not too long ago:
Berra came back to the Bronx to coach the Yankees from 1976 and 1983 before becoming the Yankee manager once again in 1984.
His on-again off-again marriage to the Yankee organization would span
seven decades! And his persona was and IS the stuff of legend.
Hall of Fame catcher, he of three Most Valuable Player Awards, 10 World
Championships as a player, the man occupies that highest of
stratospheres in baseball history, and rightly so.
No need to cover all of his player accomplishments here, as I have covered them earlier, but man will he be missed!
Both a “missing” card and “career capper”, here’s a 1978 Cookie Rojas creation to celebrate a nice 16-year career:
Rojas appeared in 64 games for the Western Division champ Royals in 1977, hitting an even .250 with 39 hits over 156 at-bats.
A five-time all-star, Rojas slapped his way through the Majors,
collecting 1660 lifetime hits over 1822 games, with only 333 of those
hits going for extra bases.
Of his 16 years in the Major Leagues, he played eight with the Royals
and seven with the Philadelphia Phillies, for whom he first made a name
for himself between 1963 and 1969.
Time
to go and create a “traded” card for “Boomer” George Scott, the player
the Red Sox got in return for Cecil Cooper on December 6th, 1976, who I
covered a while back:
Already an all-star for the Red Sox between 1966 and 1971 before heading
to Milwaukee, Scott came back and continued his bashing ways in 1977,
hitting 33 homers with 95 runs batted in and 103 runs scored, getting
him his third and final all-star nod.
Sadly for the Red Sox, Scott’s production would drop-off, to the point
he found himself in Kansas City in 1979, whereas Cecil Cooper went on to
a borderline Hall of Fame career with the Brewers through the 1980’s.
Nevertheless, Scott put together an excellent 14-year career that saw
him collect just under 2000 hits, 271 home runs and 1051 RBI’s along
with eight Gold Gloves for his fielding at first base.
Not bad at all...
Let’s cap off former MVP Ken Boyer’s career with a 1970 card after wrapping up a very nice 15-year career:
Boyer played out his Major League playing days with 25 games for Los Angeles, hitting .206 while playing first base.
That would mark the end of a career that saw him top a .300 batting
average five times, drive in 100 or more runs twice and score 100+ three
times while collecting over 2000 hits, slam 282 homers and drive in
over 1100 runs.
He also would cop the 1964 National League Most Valuable Player Award
after leading the team to a World Series win over the New York Yankees.
He was also named to seven all-star teams while taking home five Gold Gloves for his fielding at third base.
After
completing what was to be a Hall of Fame career as a player, Nellie Fox
put in some time as a coach for both the Houston Astros and Washington
Senators/Texas Rangers.
So I decided to whip up a 1971 “Fantasy Coach” card for him:
After coaching in Houston between 1965 and 1967 he moved on to
Washington where he seemed to be in line to take over managerial duties
after Jim Lemon stepped down. But after the great Ted Williams was hired
to take over at the helm, Fox stayed on and moved with the organization
to Texas when they became the Rangers.
Sadly, Fox was diagnosed with skin cancer in 1973, and after a two year
battle he passed away in December of 1975 at the very young age of 47.
Though he just missed being elected to the Hall by the BBWA in 1985,
garnering 74.7% of the vote, he was finally (and justly) elected by the
Veteran’s committee in 1997, capping off a tremendous career that saw
him collect over 2600 hits, score over 1200 runs and take home an MVP
Award in 1959 while sparking the “Go-Go” White Sox to an American League
pennant.
Next
up in my “Turn Back the Clock” thread is former Brooklyn Dodgers
pitcher Carl Erskine, who pitched his second career no-hitter in 1956
against the New York Giants on May 12th:
After tossing his first gem back in 1952 against the Chicago Cubs,
Erskine came back to do the same against a powerful Giants team led by
Willie Mays, joining the likes of Virgil Trucks and Allie Reynolds to
pitch more than one no-hitter in the decade.
He put together a very nice 12-year career, all with the Dodgers
organization between 1948 and 1959, posting a 122-78 record, good for a
.610 winning percentage while being a part of five World Series,
collecting a 2-2 record with two championships in 1955 and 1959.
Here’s another great in-action card from the 1971 Topps set, Lee May:
Nothing fancy. Just a nice in game shot of the big man at first base holding a man close to the bag.
It’s a wonder why Topps screwed up their “In-Action” sub-set the
following year when they had so many good action cards in the 1971 set
(Munson, McDaniel, etc).
Nevertheless, a classic shot on a classic set right here.
Sadly for May, he was about to find himself in Houston as part of the
trade that brought Cincinnati their final piece of the “Big Red Machine”
puzzle, Joe Morgan.
While the Reds would go on to arguably be the team of the decade with
Morgan as their spark plug, May would play for the Astros and then the
Orioles, missing out on all that Reds glory.
I
think blog reader Joe mentioned that I should create a “missing” 1972
“in-action” card for former all-star catcher Ray Fosse, so here goes:
Fosse was coming off of two straight all-star campaigns in 1970 and 1971 with the Cleveland Indians.
Of course we’ll always remember his meeting at the plate with a
steamrolling Pete Rose, resulting in an injured shoulder for Fosse that
some say curtailed his promise the rest of his career.
Nevertheless, Fosse put together a very nice 12-year career that
included two Gold Gloves to go with the all-star nods, as well as two
championships while with the Oakland A’s in 1973 and 1974.
