Here
was a fun card to create, a 1977 “Nickname” card for former
middle-reliever Dick Tidrow, aka “Dirt”, who carved out a very nice
13-year career for himself in the Major Leagues:
Tidrow originally came up as a starter with the Cleveland Indians,
having two solid years in 1972 and 1973 before getting traded over to
the New York Yankees, where he would become an important, while
overlooked piece in the Bronx bullpen over the next 5+ seasons.
While it’s easy to see how he could be overlooked when you have
teammates like Sparky Lyle, Ron Guidry and Rich Gossage, if you take a
look at Tidrow’s contributions to the Yankee dynasty of 1976-1978 you
can see how he really had quite the impact, both as a reliever and a
spot starter.
After his Yankee days, in which he picked up two World Championships and
three American League Pennants, he moved on to the Chicago Cubs, where
he’d lend his arm over the next four years before a season with the
cross-town White Sox and finally, the New York Mets in 1984.
All told, “Dirt” played 13 years, compiled a record of 100-94, with an
ERA of 3.68, 55 saves, five shutouts and 620 appearances between 1972
and 1984.
Not a bad baseball resume to say the least.
Today
we have a “Not So Missing” 1975 card for former first baseman Jack
Pierce of the Atlanta Braves, who just played in his second season of
Major League ball in 1974:
Pierce appeared in only six games for Atlanta, batting .111 with a hit over nine official at-bats, with a run scored thrown in.
This was after his MLB debut a season before when he appeared in 11
games, coming up to bat 20 times while collecting yet another lone
knock.
In 1975 he’d find himself as a member of the Detroit Tigers, and get
some decent playing time, appearing in 53 games while batting .235 with
40 hits in 170 at-bats, scoring 19 runs and driving in 22.
Sadly for him, that would be the last Big League action he’d see, as he
would go on to play another 12 years of pro ball, but all split between
the Minors, Japan and finally Mexico, where he played eight seasons
before retiring as a player after the 1987 season.
Next
up on the “Missing Rookie Cup” line is a fix for the 1974 Steve Rogers
card, when Topps decided to do-away with the cool rookie trophy:
Rogers, who would go on to play all 13 years of his career with the
Montreal Expos, had himself a wonderful rookie campaign in 1973,
finishing second in the league’s rookie of the year voting with a 10-5
record along with a microscopic 1.54 earned run average with three
shutouts over 17 starts and 134 innings pitched.
I always felt he should have won the award over Garry Mathews actually,
completing seven of his starts and giving up only 23 earned runs while
striking out 64.
Of course Rogers would go on to become an all-star pitcher, having five
such nods over his career, while finishing second in the Cy Young vote
in 1982, then coming in fourth the following season.
Arm trouble cut his career somewhat short at the age of 35 in 1985, as
he retired with a record of 158-152, pitching on some tough losing teams
early in his MLB tenure.
Nevertheless, the man put in some stellar performances on a Big League
mound, leading the league in shutouts twice, ERA in 1982, and ending up
with 37 shutouts over 399 appearances.
The
next no-hitter on my new thread showcasing the gems through custom
cards is the second no-no thrown by former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jim
Maloney, who also threw a 10-inning no-hitter before losing it in the
11th:
Maloney’s second “official” no-hitter came on April 30th, 1969 when he
kept the Houston Astros line-up that included Joe Morgan and Jim Wynn
without a knock, while striking out 13 batters on his way to a 10-0 win.
Funny enough, the very next day, Don Wilson returned the favor and threw
a no-hitter of his own against the Reds on behalf of the Astros.
Needless to say, expect THAT no-hitter to be profiled next on the blog!
For Maloney, he’d go on to post a record of 12-5 with an ERA of 2.77 in
1969, which would tunr out to be that last productive season of his
12-year career.
He would play 1970 and 1971 but be limited to only 20 games combined,
finally retiring for good after 13 games with the California Angels in
1971 when he went 0-3 with a 5.04 ERA.
He twice won 20+ games, with a high of 23 in 1965 when he posted a
record of 23-7 with a 2.77 ERA and 265 strikeouts over 33 starts and
250.1 innings pitched.
Two seasons later, when he pitched one “official” and one “unofficial”
no-hitter, he went 20-9 with an ERA of 2.54 (his career best), with 244
strikeouts over 33 appearances and 255.1 innings of work.
Definitely one of the forgotten power-arms of the decade with four straight 200+ seasons between 1963 and 1966.
Been
meaning to re-do this card for a long while, my 1975 “Career-Capper”
for Hall of Fame slugger Orlando Cepeda, who finished up his stellar
career with the Kansas City Royals in 1974:
 |
| Re-done/ 2018 |
For those who never knew, my original mock up of the card was actually a
Photoshop job way back when with a KC cap worked onto Cepeda’s image.
Not the worst job in the world, but it did always irk me that I released that version years ago on the blog.
I did finally find an excellent image of Cepeda during his days in KC, so here we go with the much better version you see above.
Here’s the original “write-up” I had posted with the first version back in October, 2013:
“Today I want to cap off the career of Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda, the "Baby Bull".
His last "official" card has him in a Boston Red Sox uniform in the 1974
set (#83). However by the time the season opened up Cepeda was released
and didn't sign with another team until August, when he hooked up with
Kansas City.
 |
| Original from 2013 |
He only appeared in 33 games for the Royals, hitting .215 with a homer
and 18 runs batted in before finally retiring for good. So I went and
designed a "final" card for him in a Royals uniform, "photoshopped" from
a shot of him in '73 with Boston.
Would have been nice to have a card for Cepeda in that awesome 1975 set (I'm a sucker for the 1975 & 76 sets)!
Anyway, hope you enjoy it.
While Cepeda's career was productive enough to get into Cooperstown,
it's well known that if not for his bad knees, his final statistics
could have been mind blowing.
Nevertheless, by the time he retired, he posted final numbers of: 379
homers, 1365 runs batted in, 2351 hits and a .297 average, with a Rookie
of the Year (1958) and M.V.P. award (1967) thrown in.
It took a little while, but he was finally inducted into the Hall of
Fame in 1999 after being selected by the Veteran's Committee.
What a power trio San Francisco had in Cepeda, Willie Mays and Willie McCovey! Power to the ultimate degree!”
Today
we have a “not so missing” 1972 card for former catcher Frank
Fernandez, who had himself a whirlwind 1971 season playing for three
teams, including the Oakland A’s two DIFFERENT times:
Fernandez began the year with Oakland after coming over to them from the
Yankees in the Al Downing-Danny Cater deal a year earlier, before being
dealt to the Washington Senators after only two games out West.
Turns out Oakland would come along and purchase his contract about a
month and a half later, but again, he’d only play two games for them
before getting traded to the Cubs for Adrian Garrett two months later.
All told, Fernandez played in 39 games that year, batting a cool .138 with 11 hits over 80 at-bats in those four stints.
He’d only go on to appear in three games for the Cubs in 1972 before
retiring for good as an active player after the 1973 season, toiling in
the Minors for (yet again) the Oakland organization as well as Detroit.
For his career, he played in 285 games, mainly for the team that drafted
him, the New York Yankees, batting .199 with 145 hits over 727 at-bats,
hitting 39 homers with 116 runs batted in, which is not that bad
considering the at-bats to home runs.
Time
to add the “Big Red Machine’s” all-star shortstop to the on-going 1975
“In-Action” sub-set, Dave Concepcion, who was smack in the middle of his
arguably Hall of Fame worthy career:
Concepcion was a cog in the Reds’ two-time championship squad of 1975
& 1976, on his way to nine all-star nods, with five Gold Gloves and
two top-10 MVP finishes during his prime.
He would end up putting in 19-seasons in the Major Leagues, all with
Cincinnati, finishing up with 2326 hits and a .267 batting average over
2488 games and 8723 at-bats between 1970 and 1988.
He played in all four of the “Big Red Machine” World Series appearances
and batted a cool .297 over his Post Season action, with 30 hits in 101
at-bats over 34 games.
I’ll never forget opening up a pack of 1979 cards and seeing that the
“All-Star” banner was NOT on his card. I was stunned since he was always
the National league All-Star shortstop since I started collecting in
1976.
For me, he became somewhat of a baseball institution, playing through my
youth straight through college, retiring at the age of 40.
Anyway, once he became eligible for Hall of Fame induction, he was on
the ballot all 15 years and never got more than 16.9% (1998), but
really, if it IS called the Hall of “Fame”, I think you can make a
pretty good argument for the guy since he was indeed in that
upper-echelon during the wild-70’s.
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