Today we take a look at the image variation between
the great Tony Perez's 1977 OPC and Topps cards after his shocking trade
to the Montreal Expos, the beginning of the end for the juggernaut
Cincinnati Reds "Big Red Machine" dynasty:
 |
| OPC edition |
 |
| Topps edition |
OPC
managed to get him out as a member of "their" Montreal Expos, something I
am sure the Canadian baseball world was excited about.
Perez was sent to Montreal along with pitcher Will McEnaney for two guys out of the bullpen: Woodie Fryman and Dale Murray.
Now, I don't really remember the reasoning for this trade (Tony! Help me out here!), but it seems ABSURD all these years later.
Nevertheless, the "Big Dog" kept on producing for the next four
years (three with the Expos and one with the Boston Red Sox in 1980)
before becoming a solid veteran bat off the bench between 1982 and 1986
with Boston, Philadelphia and back in Cincinnati
before retiring.
All told, he put together a magnificent 23 years career, collecting
over 2700 hits, 375 home runs, 1600 runs batted in, and a .279 lifetime
batting average.
He was also named to seven all-star teams and got Most Valuable Player attention in seven seasons.
It took a long while, but he was eventually elected into the Hall
of Fame in 2000, joining former teammates Joe Morgan, Sparky Anderson
and Johnny Bench, with Dave Concepcion and Pete Rose still out in the
cold.
As I've stated earlier on this blog, I was always fascinated that
former "Big Red Machine" skipper Anderson considered the Perez trade a
severe blow to the Reds' continued dominance of Major League ball after
1976.
Here's a team that pretty much had their entire squad intact, and
even picked up TOM SEAVER in June of 1977, but could never make it back
to the top of the baseball world.
A good idea of how important Perez was…