Sunday, December 22, 2019

A LITTLE BIT OF A RE-DO FOR THE 1977 MIKE CALDWELL CARD

Time to go ahead and “fix” the 1977 Mike Caldwell card, which originally had him in an airbrushed St. Louis Cardinals uni, a team for whom he never ended up playing:

Corrected to show his team of 1976
As issued by Topps

Topps tried to do the right thing, getting Caldwell in the correct uniform since he was traded from the San Francisco Giants to the Cardinals in October of 1976.
Turns out he would only end up getting traded again, this time to the Cincinnati reds in March of 1977, nullifying the St. Louis paint job on his card, shown above.
To make matters even more interesting, Caldwell would end up on the move yet again in June when the Reds turned around and dealt him to the Milwaukee Brewers.
Four teams in eight months for the veteran pitcher.
I figured I’d go ahead and create a Giants 1977 card to reflect who he pitched with in 1976, granted to the tune of a 1-7 record along with a 4.86 earned run average over 50 appearances.
Once in Milwaukee he’d find his groove, pitching for them the rest of his career, a total of eight years, even finishing second to Ron Guidry in 1978 for the American league Cy Young Award when he went 22-9 with a 2.36 ERA with a league-leading 23 complete games over 34 starts and 37 appearances, with six shutouts and 293.1 innings pitched.
By the time he retired after the 1984 season at the age of 35, he finished with a record of 137-130, with a 3.81 ERA over 475 appearances, 308 of them starts, with 23 shutouts and 18 saves between 1971 and 1984.