Up on the blog today, we have a “not so missing” pre-rookie card for former pitcher Ed Whitson, who made his Major League debut in 1977 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, on his way to a productive 15-year Big League career:
Whitson appeared in five games for the Pirates as a 22-year-old in 1977
as a September call-up, going 1-0 with a 3.45 earned run average over
15.2 innings, starting two of those games.
He would go on to pitch for 15 years in the Majors, winning as many as
16 games in a season (1989) and playing for five teams: Pirates, San
Francisco Giants, Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees and San Diego
Padres.
In 1984 he helped the Padres reach the World Series by going 14-8 with a
nice 3.24 ERA over 31 starts, though sadly the team ran into the
juggernaut Detroit Tigers and losing in five games.
By the time he retired after the 1991 season, he finished with a record
of 126-123, with a 3.79 ERA over 452 games and 2240 innings pitched,
with 12 shutouts and eight saves.
