NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1979 GARY SUTHERLAND

Today’s blog post has a career-capping “not so missing” 1979 card for infielder Gary Sutherland, who finished off a 14-year career in 1978 with 10 games as a St. Louis Cardinal:

Sutherland, who originally came up to the Big Leagues in 1966 as a 21-year-old with the Philadelphia Phillies, generally played second base over his career, but was used all over the infield and even some outfield.
In that last season of 1978 he played in 10 games, batting .167 with a single hit over six at-bats, scoring a run, and would finish his career with a batting average at .243 with 754 hits over 3104 at-bats, hitting 24 homers and driving in 239 runs in 1031 games.
His finest season would have to be 1974 when, as a Detroit Tiger, he hit .254 with 157 hits and 60 runs scored, along with 20 doubles and 49 runs batted in during one of the few seasons he played a full year, in this case 149 games and 652 plate appearances.

MISSING IN ACTION- 1978 GARY SUTHERLAND

Today we go and give 13-year Major League veteran Gary Sutherland a "missing" 1978 Topps card:

Sutherland appeared in just about half of the Padres' games in 1977, playing second, third and first base while collecting 25 hits in 103 at-bats, good for a .243 batting average.

By the time the 1978 season opened he was a St. Louis Cardinal, and only appeared in 10 games, all at second base, which would actually be the last ten games of his career.

But as I mentioned earlier, he did put together an admirable 13-year career, playing with the Phillies, Expos, Astros, Tigers, Brewers, Padres and Cardinals.

He finished with a career .243 average with 24 homers and 239 runs batted in, with 754 hits over 3104 at-bats.

One last bit regarding Sutherland: he scored the very first run in Montreal Expos history, on April 8th, 1969.

Nifty….