NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1976 JERRY MOSES

Here’s a “career-capping” 1976 “not so missing” card for catcher Jerry (or was it Gerry?) Moses, who put together a nine-year Major League career:

Moses finished up his career as a back-up catcher in 1975, splitting the season between the San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox.
He originally came up for his first taste of the Big Leagues in 1965 as an 18-year-old, getting into four games before putting in more time in the Minors until 1968.
After three more years in Boston, even making the All-Star team in 1970, he’d end up moving from team to team between 1971 and 1975.
He’d would end up playing for six teams in five years between 1971 and 1975: Angels, Indians, Yankees, Tigers, Padres and White Sox, finishing up with those 15 games in his final season, batting .190 with four hits over 21 at-bats.
For his career he’d finish with a .251 batting average, with 269 hits over 1072 at-bats in 386 games, with 25 homers and 109 runs batted in along with 89 runs scored.

A GEM FROM THE 1973 SET: #431 GERRY MOSES

Here's a great card from that wacky 1973 Topps set, #431 Gerry Moses.

Take a look:

Now, is it "Jerry", or "Gerry"?

I have no idea, but I can tell you that I'm leaning towards "Jerry" since I have a 1972 Cleveland Indians team signed baseball, and it clearly says "Jerry".

Which brings me to my next point about the card: the photo is obviously not one of him in a Yankee uniform since he didn't play for them yet when this card was produced.

Yet it's not a photo of him from the year before, since as I mentioned above he was with the Indians, and their caps were red from what I know.

So it seems Topps went a bit further back, but Not EVEN from the year before (1971), since Moses was with the California Angels that year, and if you look behind him in the shot, that's an Angel sliding across the plate there.

So it seems that Topps went with a photo of Moses from his Boston Red Sox days, which were between 1965 and 1970.

Whew! Such complications for a light-hitting, much traveled catcher!

I like the look on Moses' face, almost like, "Oh well, the guy scored, what can you do?"

Now, I'm totally guessing here, but I think the Angels player sliding home is Ken McMullen, who sported #7 on his uni. But again, wild guess here.

I'm just a sucker for a nice photo of a catcher in action a'la 1976 Johnny Bench or 1978 Jim Sundberg, as profiled earlier.

Moses would only suit up for the Yanks in 1973 before moving on to Detroit in 1974, then the Chicago White Sox and San Diego Padres in 1975 before retiring.

Never a starter, he ended his nine-year career with 386 games played, 25 homers and a .251 batting average over 1072 at-bats.

But he does leave us with a nice game-action card to appreciate all these years later!