Rolling right along in my on-going "expanded league leader" series, we move on to the national League's finest relievers of 1972, aka "Firemen", determined by simply adding a pitcher's wins and saves for a "point" total:
The leader in this department
for 1972 was Cincinnati Reds reliever Clay Carroll, who had an
impressive season with six wins and 37 saves, good for 43 points.
Carroll
finished fifth in the Cy Young race that year, finishing with a record
of 6-4 with an ERA of 2.25 for the National League champs, appearing in
65 games while making his second straight All-Star team.
Right
behind him with 35 points was New York Mets reliever Tug McGraw, who
posted a record of 8-6 while saving 27 games, pitching to a brilliant
1.70 ERA over 54 appearances.
He made his first All-Star team that year and it was also the second straight season with a 1.70 ERA.
So over 105 games between 1971 and 1972, the man was incredibly "light's out" with that miniscule ERA.
In
third place with 32 points, and giving us a small glimpse of what was
about to happen, is iron-man pitcher Mike Marshall, who posted a record
of 14-8 for the Montreal Expos with 18 saves.
Marshall was
just getting started as the premier reliever in the National League for
the next few seasons, the pinnacle of which was his 1974 Cy Young Award
winning campaign when he appeared in a STILL MLB record 106 games while
going 15-12 with 21 saves and a 2.42 ERA over 208.1 innings, ALL out of
the bullpen!
By the way, I'm sure you've already noticed that
as per the usual back then, I also recycled an airbrushed image of
Marshall since there really are none of him during that period, as he
avoided Topps photographers, leaving us with nothing to use on custom
cards all these years later.
Nevertheless, a fun card to add to the "collection"! Hope you enjoy it!
