MISSING IN ACTION-"IN ACTION" #15: 1972 STEVE CARLTON

Up next in my "MIA-MIA" thread is Steve Carlton, pictured here as a St. Louis Cardinal pitcher even though by the time this card would have come out he was pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies, on his way to a season for the ages.

But first, my card design:

His last season as a Cardinal was a good one in 1971, as he posted his first 20-win season, going 20-9 with a 3.56 earned run average, four shutouts and 172 strikeouts.

Traded for pitcher Rick Wise, Carlton would then go on to become superstar in Philadelphia, beginning with his very first season there.

In 1972 he was just legendary, posting a 27-10 record with a tiny 1.97 E.R.A., eight shutouts and 310 strikeouts in a whopping 346.1 innings of work!

This "Triple Crown" year was all produced for a last place team, and the guy almost won HALF the teams wins!

Just monster in every sense.

All he did the rest of the way was top 300 wins, 4000 strikeouts, 50 shutouts and 700 starts in his 24 year career!

The first guy to take home four Cy Young Awards, he led his league in wins four times, strikeouts five times, E.R.A. once and was named to ten all-star teams.

Needless to say, by the time he was eligible for the Hall of Fame, he was in on his first try, getting named to 436 of 456 ballots.

Sure we already had "Lefty" Grove, and "Lefty" Gomez, but Carlton was more than worthy of the same nickname for all of his accomplishments.

I'll be sure to create a "Nickname" card for him in the near future.

"CAREER CAPPER" # 15: 1974 FRANK HOWARD

Let's pay some respect to the "Capital Punisher", Frank Howard with a 1974 card capping off his awesome career.

Take a look at my design:

You can even consider this a "Missing in Action" card since Howard put in 85 games and 251 plate appearances in his final season before calling it a career.

At 6' 7" and 250+ pounds, the man was an absolute beast!

A Rookie of the Year with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1960, he had his best seasons as a member of the Washington Senators between 1965 and 1971, posting three consecutive years of 40+ homers, leading the league in 1968 and 1970 with 44 each time.

In between those two he slammed 48 homers, but fell one short of the league lead behind Harmon Killebrew's 49.

By the time "Hondo" retired he hit 382 lifetime home runs, with 1119 runs batted in, 864 runs scored, and 1774 hits in 16 seasons.

I'm definitely going to design a "nicknames of the 70's" card for him, especially since he had TWO cool ones (mentioned earlier).

MISSING IN ACTION- 1976 DICK SHARON: "1976 PROJECT"

Here's the next card in my "1976 Project" that I have been working on for one of this blogs readers.

It is a design for Dick Sharon of the San Diego Padres, take a look:

After appearing the previous two years in Topps sets as a Detroit Tiger, Sharon was left out of the 1976 set, even though he played in 91 games for the Padres, good for 191 plate appearances.

His numbers for the year: a .194 batting average, with 31 hits in 160 at-bats. 

Among his hits were seven doubles and four homers to go along with 14 runs scored and 20 runs batted in.

As it turned out it would be the final year of Sharon's brief three-year career, and he finished up with a lifetime .218 batting average with 13 homers and 102 hits over 242 games.

But his story doesn't end there!

I came across this article on Sharon as I was looking over his career for this post.

Seems he was one of those characters that graced the game in the 1970's, and the article is an entertaining read for those interested:

http://blog.detroitathletic.com/2014/02/26/outspoken-tigers-outfielder-dick-sharon-went-fly-chasing-fly-fishing/

He even commented on the article! (scroll down to the bottom of the article for his post).

You have to love a guy like this!

JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT- 1970'S BASEBALL TRIVIA PART #75

Thursday trivia time again, and today we'll look at players who collected Extra Base hits in bushels during the decade.

See how many you can get.

Answers posted tomorrow, as usual…

1. Who was the first player from the American league to lead the Majors in Extra Base hits in the 1970's, and what year?
2. Who was the only player with 90 or more EBH during the decade?
3. What was the lowest amount of EBH to lead a league during the 1970's?
4. Who was the only batting champ to lead the Major League in EBH during the decade?
5. Who was the only batter NOT to drive in 100+ runs during their EBH-leading season?

***SPOILER ALERT! ANSWERS BELOW: 

1. Reggie Jackson, A's in 1975 with 78.
2. Willie Stargell, Pirates. He had 90 on the nose in 1973.
3. Graig Nettles, Yankees. He led the A.L. with only 63 EBH in 1976.
4. Billy Williams, Cubs, who had 77 EBH in 1972.
5. Hal McRae, who drove in "only" 92 while leading the Majors with 86 EBH in 1977.   

THEN AND NOW #23: DICK SCHOFIELD 1971

Today's "Super Veteran" is a guy I always knew of, but never realized just how long a career he actually had: Dick Schofield Sr.

But before I get into the man himself, check out my 1971-style "Then and Now" card:

I was fully aware of Schofield because of his son, Dick Jr., who played in the '80's and 90's. 

Actually, the Schofield's were one of the subjects of the Topps 1985 "Father/Son" sub-set.

What I never realized is that the senior Schofield played for 19 years in the Major Leagues, between 1953 and 1971, for a handful of teams in both leagues.

By the time he retired after the 1971 season, Schofield had played in 1321 games for seven different franchises: Cardinals, Pirates, Giants, Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox and Brewers.

A light hitting infielder, he was a member of the World Champion 1960 Pirates, as well as the 1968 Cardinals, who lost to the Detroit Tigers  in the World Series.

Of his 19 years in the big leagues, he appeared in over 100 games in only three seasons, 1963-1965.

Nevertheless, he was a solid fielder who was an asset off the bench, even leading the league in fielding in 1965 with a .981 percentage among N.L. Shortstops.

One last tidbit: not only is he the father of a future big leaguer, but he's also current big league player Jayson Werth's grandfather. Not a bad bloodline going on here…

TRADED: 1977 OSCAR GAMBLE

Let's whip up a 1977 card for Oscar Gamble as a Chicago White Sox player for my newest entry in my "traded" thread:

Topps had him (understandably so) as a New York Yankees player, since he wasn't traded to the White Sox until April of '77.

As it turned out, 1977 would be the best year of Gamble's solid 17-year career, mainly as a power-bat off the bench.

In only 408 at-bats that season, Gamble powered 31 homers to go with 83 runs batted in with a nice .297 batting average in his only season in the South Side.

As a matter of fact, I never realized that during his entire career, Gamble only had ONE season where he topped 500 plate appearances, and that was in 1974 while playing for the Indians (he had 508).

In 4502 career at-bats, Gamble hit 200 homers. Not bad when you think about it!

After his lone season in Chicago, Gamble would take his bat to San Diego, where he'd play for the Padres for a year, then on to Texas for part of the 1979 season before he made it back to the Bronx.

Once back he'd play for the Yanks until 1984, before playing out his career with the White Sox in 1985.

I'll always remember Gamble as a Yankee at the tail-end of his career. He always seemed to hit a homer when he came up, and was always a fun guy to watch play. A true character.

Always aware of his numbers, he'd frequently talk about his "home run ratio", and years later Jim Kaat, while broadcasting games on the YES channel, would always bring that up when some current player was hitting home runs at nice pace.

MISSING IN ACTION-"IN ACTION" #14: 1972 BILL FREEHAN

This is cool.

My last "MIA-MIA" 1972 card was of future Hall of Fame member Frank Robinson.

And today I want to present to you all my newest addition to the thread, Bill Freehan, with a great in-game action shot of him blocking the plate against who else, Frank Robinson.

Take a look:

Great action shot!

1972 marked a "changing of the guard" in a sense when it came to American League catchers.

Up until then, Freehan was considered by many to be the best A.L. Backstop, manning the plate in Detroit for about 10 years and being named to eight-straight All-Star games at the time.

Also the winner of five Gold Gloves, Freehan was pretty much the top of the heap when it came to catchers in the Junior Circuit.

Then in 1970 you had Thurman Munson come along, win the Rookie of the Year Award, and then was followed by the Boston red Sox young stud Carlton Fisk, who'd take home the same award two years later.

Coupled with Johnny Bench and Ted Simmons in the National League, and you can see how the landscape was changing for Major League catching.

Nevertheless, Freehan was a stalwart behind the plate for the Tigers.

Three times he'd finish in the top-10 for Most Valuable Player (1964, 1967 & 1968), and he'd play his entire 15-year career in Motown.

A solid player through and through, he'd retire after the 1976 season with a .262 lifetime average, 200 homers and 758 runs batted in over 1774 games and 6073 at-bats.

He was named to eleven all-star games, and finished with a .993 fielding percentage while donning the "tools of ignorance".

I can't tell who the Baltimore player is who is watching the play unfold in front of him.

Any ideas?