The next rookie
All-Star featured in my 1971 unreleased Topps Rookie All-Star set is
Detroit Tigers pitcher Les Cain, who had a very nice rookie year in
1970:
As I mentioned last week with the initial Larry Bowa card in this set, these were never made into
cards, but prototypes that were pasted onto poster board.
Well,
as is usually the case with this stuff, somehow one full set made it
out and began floating on the auction circuit some years ago, giving
many their first look at perhaps the rarest Topps odd-ball set.
Anyway,
I certainly do not fault Topps for picking the young lefty for their
rookie team, as Cain would post a 12-7 record in his first full season,
pitching to a 3.84 earned run average, with five complete games over his
29 starts, striking out 156 batters in 180.2 innings.Sadly, in his final season in the Big Leagues, 1972, Cain appeared in five games for the Tigers that season, going 0-3 with a
3.80 earned run average over 23.2 innings of work, all five of those
appearances starts.
The previous two seasons were good for Cain, as he posted records of 12-7 and 10-9 respectively, filling a spot as one of Detroit’s main starters.
However, in what turned out to be a landmark case against Major League baseball, after Cain developed arm trouble in that 1972 season at the age of only 24, he insisted that manager Billy Martin still made him pitch, resulting in career-ending arm troubles (sound familiar?), which led him to sue the organization.
In a stunning move, the Michigan Bureau of Workman’s Compensation ruled in favor of Cain and judged that the Detroit Tigers would have to pay Cain $111 a week for the rest of his life!
Incredible!
Cain is still alive, and I’m assuming still collecting his checks from the Tigers to this day, some 47 years later.
As for his Big League career, he finished with a record of 23-19 over 68 appearances, starting 64 of those games and pitching to a 3.98 ERA over 373 innings in parts of four seasons between 1968 and 1972.
The previous two seasons were good for Cain, as he posted records of 12-7 and 10-9 respectively, filling a spot as one of Detroit’s main starters.
However, in what turned out to be a landmark case against Major League baseball, after Cain developed arm trouble in that 1972 season at the age of only 24, he insisted that manager Billy Martin still made him pitch, resulting in career-ending arm troubles (sound familiar?), which led him to sue the organization.
In a stunning move, the Michigan Bureau of Workman’s Compensation ruled in favor of Cain and judged that the Detroit Tigers would have to pay Cain $111 a week for the rest of his life!
Incredible!
Cain is still alive, and I’m assuming still collecting his checks from the Tigers to this day, some 47 years later.
As for his Big League career, he finished with a record of 23-19 over 68 appearances, starting 64 of those games and pitching to a 3.98 ERA over 373 innings in parts of four seasons between 1968 and 1972.
