It's been a little while since I posted an OPC/Topps Image Variation card duo, so today we take a look at former catcher Fred Kendall and his two cards from 1977:
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| OPC version |
 |
| Topps version |
The fine
folks at OPC scrambled to airbrush him into a Cleveland Indians cap,
while the people at Topps had no time before the presses started
rolling, so they went with a nice image of him still with the San Diego
Padres.
After playing the first eight years of his Big League
career with the Padres, Kendall was shipped to Cleveland along with two
other players for George Hendrick, in December of 1976.
He'd
appear in 103 games for the Tribe that year, hitting .249 over 346 plate
appearances before heading off to Boston for the 1978 season, where he
would only play in 20 games, hitting just below the "Mendoza Line" at
.195.
He'd find himself back in San Diego for what turned out
to be the last two years of his career in 1979 and 1980, playing in a
combined 65 games before retiring.
Overall, his final numbers
in the Majors were a .234 batting average, with 603 hits in 2576 at-bats
in 877 games, with 31 homers and 244 runs batted in over 12 seasons.
But
his biggest contribution to the game? He fathered a player I feel is a
border-line Hall of Fame catcher, Jason Kendall, who starred on the Big
League diamond between 1996 and 2010, hitting .288 with over 2000 hits
and almost 200 stolen bases.
Way to go Fred!
