The
next star of 1970’s baseball to get the 1975 “In-Action” treatment is
none other than Tony Perez, “Big Red Machine” cog and RBI-machine, who
was on his way to a sixth 100+-RBI season by season’s end:
Perez truly was an overlooked star on a team that would also have guys
like Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan, just to name a few, and
it’s just plain criminal considering he logged 10 seasons in a row over
90+ runs batted in, with six of them over 100 as stated earlier.
With a batting average hovering around .280, he was a solid and steady
force at the plate and out in the field for a team that would become
legendary, on their way to two straight championships in 1975 and 1976.
He would play for 23 seasons in the Major Leagues, and end up with 379
homers, 1652 RBI’s, 2732 hits and a very nice .279 average before he
left the game at the age of 44.
The “Big Dog”, Sparky Anderson always stated that what killed the “Big
Red Machine” from dominating longer was trading away their slugging
first baseman in December of 1976 to the Montreal Expos for Woodie
Fryman and Dale Murray, a trade that still baffles me.
Nevertheless, after nine tries, he finally made it into the Hall of Fame
in 2000, and rightly so. Hopefully Pete Rose can also join his former
teammates someday as well.