On the blog today, we take a closer look at the unreleased Bernie
Carbo 1971 Topps Rookie All-Star card, as part of my recent thread
looking at the super rare card set that Topps decided NOT to move
forward with, though they DID in fact create a paste-board set before
scrapping the project:
It was a fun design that
really fit more in-line with the 1972 set than the 1971 set, and I wish
Topps would have moved forward with it!
As for Carbo, the
young Cincinnati Reds outfielder made the squad after an excellent
rookie year in 1970, one that could have easily won him Rookie of the
Year to be honest.
Carbo hit .310 for the National League
champs, with 21 homers and 63 runs batted in over just 125 games, also
drawing 94 walks for an awesome .454 on-base-percentage.
Those are some impressive numbers for only 125 games!
Sadly
for him however, though he would go on to put in twelve years in the
Big Leagues, that season would the best of his career, never reaching
any of those numbers again before retiring after the 1980 season.
All
told, Carbo finished with a .264 batting average, with 96 homers and
358 RBIs over 1010 games, playing for six organizations, appearing in
two World Series, though on the losing side with the Reds in 1970 and
the Boston Red Sox in 1975, when he was one of the Boston hitting stars
against the "Big Red Machine", hitting .429 with two homers and four
RBIs in four games.
