EXPANDED LEAGUE LEADERS: 1978 A.L. STOLEN BASES

On the blog today, we reach the top three stolen base guys of the American League for 1977, celebrated on an “expanded” 1978 league-leader card:

 

We begin with the Kansas City Royals Freddie Patek, who paced the league with his 53 steals, the second straight year where he swiped over 50, and seventh season in a row with over 30.

Patek gave the Royals a solid run through the 70’s at shortstop, even making a few All-Star teams after coming over from the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1971.

In his first full season that year, he swiped 49 bases, hit .267 and scored 86 runs, finishing sixth in the MVP race by year’s end.

In second place with 42 steals, the runner-up to the A.L. Rookie of the Year Award for 1977, Mitchell Page, who had an excellent debut in the Majors.

That season saw him hit 21 home runs, with 85 runs scored and 75 runs batted in, while hitting a very nice .307 with 154 hits in 501 at-bats.

Sadly for him however, there was a first baseman by the name of Eddie Murray making HIS MLB debut that season, and he’d be the one to take home the Rookie honors.

For Page, he could never match those numbers again, having only two other full-time seasons over his eight-year career before retiring after the 1984 campaign, appearing in 16 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In third place with 41 steals, a tie between two teammates, the great Bobby Bonds and infielder Jerry Remy of the California Angels.

For Bonds, it was business as usual, as he was also second in the league with his 37 homers, while reaching the 30-30 club for a record fourth time in 1977, while also setting a career best with his 115 RBIs.

For his teammate, second baseman Jerry Remy, it was his third straight solid Big League season since making his debut in 1975, hitting .252 with those 41 steals, with 74 runs scored and 10 triples.

He’d find himself with the Boston Red Sox in 1978, where he’d play the final seven years of his career before becoming a much-loved announcer for the team for many years before succumbing to cancer in 2021, putting in a long baseball life either on the field or behind the mic, highly respected on both ends.

EXPANDED YEARLY LEADER CARDS: 1973 A.L. STOLEN BASES

Rolling along in my on-going "expanded league leaders" card series, we move on to the 1972 American League stolen base leaders:

 

We begging with the top base thief in the Junior Circuit, Oakland A's speedster Bert Campaneris, who led the league with his 52 stolen bases, the sixth and final time during his career he would take that crown.

"Campy" would end his 19-year Big League career with 649 steals, topping 50+ steals seven times, with a high of 62 in both 1968 and 1969.

Next up in the stolen base race, falling just one short of the lead is Dave Nelson of the Texas Rangers, whose 51 steals were easily his career-high.

Nelson played the first full season of his career in 1972, the first in Texas for the relocated Rangers (formerly Washington Senators), and though he'd hit only .226 he made it count, also walking 67 times.

He would steal 43 bases the following season while hitting a career-high .286, making his only All-Star team, but would be out of baseball by 1977 after to abbreviated seasons with the Kansas City Royals.

Speaking of the Royals, the third place finisher in stolen bases that year would be Freddie Patek, who swiped 33 bases after stealing 49 the year before.

Patek would eventually be a league-leader himself in 1977, stealing a career-best 53 to help Kansas City come in first in the West, while finishing up his career with 385 between 1968 and 1981.

There it is folks! The top three stolen base leaders in the American league during the 1972 season, shown in all their glory on an expanded 1973 league-leader card.

Hope you're enjoying this so far!

NICKNAMES OF THE 1970'S: FREDDIE PATEK "THE FLEA"

The next “Nickname of the 1970’s” we tackle is Freddie Patek, aka “The Flea” who anchored the shortstop position for the Kansas City Royals through the decade:

The three-time all-star was just coming off a stolen base title when this card would have come out, leading the American League with 53 steals in 1977, his second straight season topping 50-steals.
At only 5-foot 5-inches, the man certainly was diminutive in size, but he ended up putting in 14 solid years in the Major Leagues, even finishing 6th in MVP voting in 1971, his 1st season with the Royals after coming over from the Pittsburgh Pirates.
By the time he retired after the 1981 season, he finished with a .242 average with 385 stolen bases and 736 runs scored, even starting the 1978 All-Star Game though getting ripped off an all-star card in the 1979 set, oddly having the “All-Star” banner omitted from his card.
That was a mystery for us 10-year-olds for quite some time back then!

THE MISSING ALL-STAR CARD MYSTERY...

As I mentioned earlier, I was always a fan designating an All-Star on the player's regular issue card, which was in practice by Topps between 1975 and 1981.
For all except that last year (1981), Topps simply picked the starting nine for each league of the previous year's All-Star game. Yet for some reason, they inexplicably forgot to slap the "All-Star" on the following three cards, 1975 Reggie Jackson, 1978 Richie Zisk and 1979 Freddie Patek, and to this day I have no idea why.
If anyone has any idea why this was done please let me know. It would put to rest a mystery that has been bouncing around in my head ever since. As a matter of fact, I remember back when the 1979 set came out, it had what seemed to be my entire elementary school searching for that ever elusive American League All-Star card! Every boy in that school was on a mission for that card, not knowing that it never existed.
Since many of you out there enjoy the practice of designing or making up your own cards, I took the liberty of "fixing" these mistakes myself and present them here. The left side represents what was actually issued, while the right side shows "what should have been."
It's especially sad for Patek since this would have been the only All-Star card of his career. For Zisk, it would have marked a two-year run on All-Star cards since he was correctly designated as an All-Star the following year, which was his only A.S. card to this point.
For some of us this actually matters, as sad as it may seem. ;)