Dark was coming off of two straight first-place finishes when this card would have seen the light of day in 1976, with the A’s winning 90 and 98 games respectively in 1974 and 1975.
In 1974 he led them to what was their third straight World Series championship when they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, securing them as one of the great baseball dynasties.
Funny enough, after that 1975 season that had them win 98 games, Dark was let go as manager after the team was beaten in the A.L. Championship series by the Boston Red Sox, and with Free Agency looming, the Oakland A’s would see themselves go from elite team to cellar-dwellers overnight.
As a player, Dark cannot be overlooked, as he was a versatile player who played almost every position throughout his 14-year Big League career, winning the 1948 Rookie of the Year Award while finishing third in MVP voting.
He’d end up collecting over 2000 hits, hitting .289 and scoring 1064 runs, all while entering the league at the age of 26 (after 15 games in 1946) because of World War II. If not for the war he had a decent shot at 3000 hits, among other milestones like 1500 runs and 500 doubles.
