MISSING IN ACTION- 1973 TOM HILGENDORF

Here’s a “missing” 1973 card for former Cleveland Indians pitcher Tom Hilgendorf, who put together a nice 1972 season for the Tribe yet didn’t get a slot in Topps’ set the following year:

For the ‘72 season Hilgendorf appeared in 19 games, five of which were starts, while posting a 3-1 record with a nice 2.68 earned run average over 47 innings pitched.
Those three wins would be the first of his career after starting off 0-4 while with ther St. Louis Cardinals in 1969/1970, and he would go on to collect 16 more wins before his brief career was up after the 1975 season with the Philadelphia Phillies.
All told Hilgendorf finished with a 19-14 record, with a 3.04 ERA and 173 strikeouts in 184 appearances and 313.2 innings, with 14 saves thrown in, very nice numbers for the short amount of time he had in the big leagues.