Wednesday, January 3, 2024

REVISITING A BLOG POST FROM 2014: 1972 CY YOUNG AWARD SPECIAL OF 1975

On the blog today, I wanted to revisit a blog post from almost 10 years ago, part of that year's thread of imagining if Topps also did a Cy Young Award sub-set in their 1975 to accompany the wildly popular MVP set.
What made creating the 1972 award fun was that I had to also recreate cards for both the winners, being that they were shown with their previous teams due to late trades: Gaylord Perry and Steve Carlton:




Really fun "what if?" card to add to the WTHBALLS stable!
Here's the original write-up for that post that was on the blog June 20th of 2014:
"Today's post for my 1975 Cy Young sub-set thread is a fun one since both cards represented for the 1972 award winners have been redesigned.
I already redesigned the 1972 Topps Gaylord Perry card (the American League winner) earlier on the blog, but let me refresh your memory:

For the National League winner, Steve Carlton, I've also gone and redesigned his 1972 Topps card since his regular card in the set still had him as a St. Louis Cardinal.
And I wasn't going to use his "Traded Card" that came out as part of the late-series "traded" sub-set that year.
So before we look at my 1975 "Cy Young 1972 Winners" card, take a look at my redesigned Carlton card:

So with those two new cards designed, here's my 1972 card for the 1975 Cy Young sub-set that I thought would be nice to partner up with Topps' M.V.P. set of the same year:

Both Perry and Carlton were running on all cylinders in 1972, finally putting it all together and posting career years for their new teams.
Perry did everything the Indians were hoping for when they added him to their staff, posting a record of 24-16 (40 DECISIONS!) with a 1.92 earned run average and 234 strikeouts.
He also added 29 complete games, five of which were shutouts, over an incredible 342.2 innings of work.
For Carlton, he dominated, plain and simple, going 27-10 with a 1.97 E.R.A., as well as 310 strikeouts with 30 complete games and eight shutouts.
The man just took over that year on his way to his "Lefty" legend, and both men would find themselves in the Hall of Fame years later, as 3000+ strikeout guys, 300+ win guys, and 20+ year career guys.
Not too shabby…
Next up, 1973 and a return visit from New York Met fireballer Tom Seaver, along with the first appearance from a guy who'd end up a three time Cy Young winner, Jim Palmer.
Stay tuned…"