AIRBRUSHING IN THE 1970's: 1977 GENE TENACE

Thought it'd be fun today to take a closer look at former All-Star Gene Tenace and the airbrushing done for his 1977 Topps card:

 

Tenace was coming off yet another solid year for the Oakland A's in 1976 before fleeing via this new-fangled "Free Agency, along with a slew of other teammates, and decided to sign with the San Diego Padres down the road a bit, as did A's teammate Rollie Fingers.

Topps definitely had their hands full with the former A's and their new teams, having to put the airbrushing tools through some extensive work to get them on the correct team for the 1977 set.

Tenace was as solid as they came for the juggernaut A's dynasty of the mid-70s, giving the team a versatile leader who was an on-base machine with some decent "pop" in his bat.

As a matter of fact in three different seasons Tenace collected more walks than hits in full seasons where he walked over 100 times.
Part of the first big wave of Free Agency, as stated earlier he’d move on to the San Diego Padres in 1977 where he’d play for four seasons before playing for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1981 & 1982, then one last season in the Big Leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983.
By the time he retired he ended up with a .241 career average, with 201 homers and 674 runs batted in, with 1060 hits and 984 walks over 1555 games and 4390 at-bats, with an All-Star start in 1975.

EXPANDED LEAGUE LEADERS- 1975 A.L. HOME RUNS

Good day everyone!

On the blog today, we come to the American League's top three home run hitters for the 1974 season in my ongoing "expanded league leaders" thread, proudly shown on a 1975 card:

 

Leading the way of course is Chicago White Sox slugger Dick Allen, who took home the home run crown for the second time in three seasons with his 32 taters.

Two years prior Allen led the league with 37 homers, along with his 113 RBI's, falling short of a Triple Crown with his .308 average to Rod Carew and his .318 clip.

Incredibly, though still only 32 years of age, it would be Allen's last All-Star season in the Majors, playing in only 119 games in 1975 for the Philadelphia Phillies, then 85 in 1976 and only 54 games in 1977 with the Oakland A's.

Right behind Allen with 29 homers is the 1973 Home Run champ, Reggie Jackson, who would also share a home run crown the following year in 1975 with his 36 "jacks".

For Reggie, he was in his prime and well on his way to topping 500 homers, winning four homer titles (oddly, sharing three of them with three different Brewer sluggers), before calling it a Hall of Fame career after the 1987 campaign.

His 1974 output of 29 homers, 93 RBIs and a nice .289 batting average would get Reggie a fourth place finish in the MVP race after taking home the award in 1973.

In third place with 26 homers in the American League in 1974, a teammate of Jackson, slugging catcher/first baseman Gene Tenace, who put in a solid year for the three-peat Oakland A's with 73 RBIs to go along with the aforementioned 26 homers, and a league-leading 110 base-on-balls helping set the tables for the other A's batters.

The following year Tenace would make his only All-Star team, enroute to hitting a career-best 29 homers while once again topping 100 walks, while driving in 87.

Not a bad set of A.L. sluggers right here!

Next week, we move on to the N.L. and their top-three RBI men. Stay tuned.

GIMMIE A DO-OVER: 1977 GENE TENACE

Time to go an add another re-done 1977 A's card to my ongoing thread, this time All-Star catcher/first baseman Gene Tenace, who left the Oakland A's for some Southern air, signing with the San Diego Padres in December of 1976:

Original card issued by Topps

 

Tenace was as solid as they came for the juggernaut A's dynasty of the mid-70s, giving the team a versatile leader who was an on-base machine with some decent "pop" in his bat.

As a matter of fact in three different seasons Tenace collected more walks than hits in full seasons where he walked over 100 times.
Part of the first big wave of Free Agency, as stated earlier he’d move on to the San Diego Padres in 1977 where he’d play for four seasons before playing for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1981 & 1982, then one last season in the Big Leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983.
By the time he retired he ended up with a .241 career average, with 201 homers and 674 runs batted in, with 1060 hits and 984 walks over 1555 games and 4390 at-bats, with an All-Star start in 1975.

DEDICATED ROOKIE- 1970 GENE TENACE

Time to go and add Oakland A’s All-Star Gene Tenace to my long-running “Dedicated Rookies” thread, giving him his own 1970 card:

Gotta love those classic A’s uniforms!
Tenace of course went on to become an important cog in the three-peat World Champion teams of 1972-1974, switching between catching duties and first base, consistently posting on-base-percentages hovering around .400 with the help of his ability to draw walks.
As a matter of fact in three different seasons Tenace collected more walks than hits in full seasons where he walked over 100 times.
Part of the first big wave of Free Agency, he’d move on to the San Diego Padres in 1977 where he’d play for four seasons before playing for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1981 & 1982, then one last season in the Big Leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983.
By the time he retired he ended up with a .241 career average, with 201 homers and 674 runs batted in, with 1060 hits and 984 walks over 1555 games and 4390 at-bats, with an All-Star start in 1975.

NICKNAMES OF THE 1970'S: "STEAMBOAT" GENE TENACE

Super fun card to create for the long running “nicknames” thread, a 1975 edition for Oakland A’s star Gene Tenace, aka “Steamboat”:

Tenace, an important cog in the three-peat champion A’s teams of the mid-decade, was having himself a wonderful run between 1973 and 1976.
Constantly hitting 20+ homers and drawing 100+ walks a year, his on-base-percentage was always hovering around the .400 mark.
After the 1976 season Tenace, along with many of his star teammates was shipped off by eccentric team owner Charlie Finley, and found himself as a member of the San Diego Padres, where he would play for the next four seasons before moving on to St. Louis for two years and lastly the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983, his last in the big leagues.
He would total 15-years in the Major Leagues, winning three championships, an all-star berth in 1975, and hitting 201 home runs while batting .241 along with a very nice .388 on-base-percentage because of his walk totals.
Oh yeah, and he had an awesome full name: Fiore Gino Tennaci!

1975 IN-ACTION: GENE TENACE

Found a great shot of former Oakland A’s All-Star Gene Tenace to use for the long-running 1975 “In-Action” series, so here goes:

Fiore Gino Tenace, aka Gene Tenace, was a cog in the Oakland A’s three-time World Champion teams of the mid-70’s, playing both catcher and first base and consistently drawing an on-base-percentage around .400 thanks in large part for his ability to draw walks.
Over the course of seven seasons between 1973 and 1979 he’d collect over 100 walks six times, but he would also hit over 20 homers five times as well, with a high of 29 in 1975.
By the time he retired after the 1982 season, he was a member of four champion teams (Oakland 1972-1975, St. Louis Cardinals 1982), and hit 201 home runs with 674 runs batted in and a very nice .388 career OBP, while also being named the 1972 World Series MVP for hitting four homers with nine RBIs with a .348 batting average.

MISSING IN ACTION: "IN ACTION"- GENE TENACE

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!
I wish you all a peaceful, relaxing day...
Here’s a “missing” 1972 “In-Action” card for a guy who was just starting a great run through the mid-70’s, all-star Oakland A’s catcher/first baseman Gene Tenace:

Though he didn’t put in a full season for the A’s in 1972, he was just beginning to become one of the key players in Oakland’s three-peat team that also included Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi and Sal Bando.
Putting in time behind the plate as well as at first base, Tenace went on to hit over 20 homers five times in his career along with six seasons of drawing 100+ walks.
After the 1976 season Tenace, along with many of his star teammates was shipped off by eccentric team owner Charlie Finley, and found himself as a member of the San Diego Padres, where he would play for the next four seasons before moving on to St. Louis for two years and lastly the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983, his last in the big leagues.
He would total 15-years in the Major Leagues, winning three championships, an all-star berth in 1975, and hitting 201 home runs while batting .241 along with a very nice .388 on-base-percentage because of his walk totals.
Oh yeah, and he had an awesome full name: Fiore Gino Tennaci!

AIRBRUSHING THE OAKLAND A'S AWAY IN 1977

The free-agent "boom", and the trades resulting from it, caused a ton of bad airbrushing in the '77 set league-wide. But I was drawn to an unusually large number of former teammates that were part of this group: former Oakland A's.
For any fans of the A's in the mid-70's, it must have been brutal watching the mass exodus of such an awesome three-peating dynasty pretty much all in one fell-swoop, either by trade or free-agency.
After Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson left before the 1975 and 1976 seasons respectively, the true dismantling occurred during the off-season between '76 and '77, when no less than SIX star players were wearing another teams uniform for opening day.
Because of the madness of all this player shuffling, Topps had their hands full with all of these former A's, having to airbrush their cards to stay up to date with the players new team depictions.
Of course, with an already shaky hand at the airbrushing game, the added rush of players to "fix" only added to the mess, and we were presented with some funny cards for the history books.
Check out some of the cards here:

The Rudi card was actually a great job of airbrushing. But just look at that Bando card! Hilarious. Looks like some bad decal of a cap was slapped on top of the original photo, and then colored in with crayon.
Even though he wasn't actually part of the dynasty A's teams, Don Baylor was on the team for the 1976 season, and his card is also a classic, with the Angels' logo not skewed correctly, giving us a twisted perspective only the Twilight Zone could have given us. Awesome!
Looking at all these guys, it truly drives home just how awesome those 1972-1974 A's teams were. Throw in Reggie and Catfish, and consider Vida Blue, Claudell Washington, Ken Holtzman, and even Blue Moon Odom, and you wonder what they could have done if they stayed together a bit longer.
Would have been great seeing this team grind it out against the "Big Red Machine" at THEIR peak just a couple years later in 1975-76.