Today we have another "missing" 1971 Baseball's Greatest Moments" card, this time a card celebrating underrated Tommy Davis and his two straight batting titles in the early 1960's while with the Los Angeles Dodgers:
Still
in his early 20's, the Brooklyn native reeled off two titles in 1962
and 1963 when he hit .346 and .326 respectively, giving him top-10 MVP
finishes each year.
The highlight of his career is easily his 1962 season when he won the first of
his two straight batting titles, hitting .346 with 230 hits, 27 homers,
153 RBIs and 120 runs scored.
Incredibly,
those numbers only got him a third place finish in the National league
MVP race at season's end, with teammate Maury Wills taking the award and
Willie Mays seemingly robbed with a second place finish.
By the time he finished up, he played in 1999 games, with a nice
.294 lifetime average, 2121 hits, 153 homers and 1052 runs batted in.
The advent of the Designated Hitter prolonged his career between
1973 and 1976, as the previous few years were sporadic efforts at best
with no less than five teams: the White Sox, Pilots, Astros, A's and
Cubs.
As a D.H. he found new life with the Baltimore Orioles as their main "man with the bat" between 1973 and 1975.
One last thought: interesting to remember that between 1949 and 1998,
Tommy Davis was the ONLY Major League player to reach 150+ runs batted
in for a season, when he did so in 1962, funny enough the ONLY time he
even topped 100 in his 18-year career.