Greetings everyone!
Up on the blog
today, we move along in my on-going “expanded league leaders” thread to
the top three American League home run hitters for 1976, proudly
displayed on a 1977 card:
This would have been an awesome card to have issued by Topps, as we’ll see later on.
But first, we begin
with the home run champ for the Junior Circuit in 1976, third baseman
Graig Nettles of the New York Yankees, who hit 32 homers for the
American League champs, a career-best for him at that
time.
Normally, 32 homers
would not lead your league, but the 1970’s was somewhat of a “dead-ball”
era for homers, with the low-to-mid 30’s being a great total for the
A.L. then.
Nettles also set
career-bests at that time with 88 runs scored and 93 runs batted in, all
numbers (including his home run total) he would top the very next
season with 99, 37 and 107 respectively.
Behind him with 27
homers in 1976, a tie between Sal Bando of the Oakland A’s and Reggie
Jackson of the Baltimore Orioles, who BOTH found themselves on new teams
for the 1977 season, while also airbrushed
into these new uni’s for their 1977 Topps card.
Now THAT is the
reason this expanded league-leader card would have been awesome to pull
from a pack back then, as we would have had Bando as an Oakland A’s
player while a Milwaukee Brewer on his base card,
but more importantly to us card nerds, PROOF that Reggie Jackson was an
Oriole for a year, with this card showing him in Baltimore garb.
Certainly a small twist on the 1977 Topps set if this card were included in that set!
Amazing to think
that Jackson led the American League in 1976 with a slugging percentage
of only .502! Talk about a sign-of-the-times!
Next, week? We move on to the 1976 RBI leaders for the National League!
See you then!
