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…"