Today’s
blog post has a 1977 “Not really missing” card for former pitcher Frank
Riccelli, who appeared in the first four games of his brief three-year
MLB career in 1976:
Riccelli posted a record of 1-1 for the San Francisco Giants in his
debut, pitching 16 innings and giving up 10 earned runs, good for an ERA
of 5.63.
He’d spend all of 1977 in the Minor Leagues, before coming back to the
Big Leagues in 1978 for two years as a member of the Houston Astros,
where he’d go 2-2 generally out of the bullpen, even getting a Topps
card in the 1980 set, though it turned out his MLB playing days were
behind him.
After two seasons in the Minor Leagues playing for the Pittsburgh and
Toronto organizations in 1981 and 1982, he retired for good.
For his Big League career, he finished with a record of 3-3, with an ERA
of 4.39 over 17 appearances and 41 innings of work, with five of those
appearances being starts.