Time
to go and add “Stretch” Willie McCovey, who recently passed away on
Halloween day, to the growing “1975 In-Action” sub-set I’ve been
creating over the past couple years:
McCovey was beginning to enter the twilight of his Hall of Fame career which spanned 22 seasons between 1959 and 1980.
Over that time he took home a Rookie of the Year when he burst onto the
Major League scene with a .354 average and 13 homers in 52 games in
1959, an MVP in 1969 when he led the league with 45 homers, 126 runs
batted in, a .453 OBP and a .612 slugging percentage, while getting six
All-Star nods.
By the time he hung them up for good, he finished with 521 homers, 15555
RBIs, 1229 runs scored and 2211 hits playing for the San Francisco
Giants, San Diego Padres, and a brief 11-game stretch with the Oakland
A’s at the end of the 1976 season.
In 1986, in his 1st year of eligibility, he was voted into the Hall with
81.4% of the vote, an easy first-try inductee for the man from Mobile,
Alabama.
Here’s
a “not so missing” 1975 card for former Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jerry
Bell, who finished up a brief four-year Major League career with five
appearances during the 1974 season:
Bell, who originally came up to the Big Leagues with eight appearances
in 1971, pitched to a 1-0 record in 1974, with a nice 2.57 earned run
average over 14 innings of work.
The previous season had him see the most action in any one season,
making 31 appearances, with 25 of them starts, going 9-9 with a 3.97 ERA
in 183.2 innings along with eight complete games and a save.
But for whatever reason, he never made it back to the Big Leagues again,
spending all of 1975 in the Minors before retiring when the year was
over.
For his career, Bell finished at 17-11, with a nice 3.28 ERA over 69
games and 283 innings pitched, striking out 89 with eight complete games
and a single save.
Some of you may remember Bell from the 1972 Darrell Porter rookie card
with the images swapped, with Bell always signing over “Darrell Porter”
on the card years later. Hilarious.
Here’s
a “not so missing” 1977 card for a two-game Major Leaguer, former White
Sox catcher George Enright, who despite nine years in the Minor
Leagues, only got the briefest of Big League action:
Enright finally made it up to the Majors in August of 1976 after five
seasons of Minor League ball, then getting into his second, and last,
game about a month later, going 0-1 at the plate while spending seven
innings behind the plate.
Sadly for him that would all he’d get, as he’d be back in the Minors for
1977, where he’d stay through the 1980 season before retiring for good
at the age of only 26.
Nevertheless, he got to taste that Big League magic for two games, more than any of us can say. Cheers George!
It’s
about time I get around to creating a “Nicknames of the ‘70’s” card for
Red Sox all-star outfielder Dwight “Dewey” Evans, who formed a third of
what was an extraordinary young outfield for the Boston franchise in
the late-70’s/Early-80s:
Evans was part of the amazing outfield comprised of himself, Jim Rice
and Fred Lynn who all came up in the mid-70’s and went on to excellent
Major League careers.
For Evans, it was a career that lasted 20-years, all but one, his last in 1991 with the Baltimore Orioles, with Boston.
This was a career that included eight Gold Gloves and three All-Star
nods, while finishing in the top-10 in American League MVP voting four
times, while finishing up with 2446 hits, 385 home runs and 1384 runs
batted in, all with a .272 average in over 2600 games and just under
9000 at-bats.
Let’s not forget that the man had an absolute gun for an arm out in
right-field while being one of the top outfielders in the Junior Circuit
over the course of his career.
Often overshadowed by teammates throughout his career, Evans would end
up as a borderline Hall of Famer, outplaying many of the very guys that
got the spotlight.
Today
we have a 1979 “not so missing” card for former Seattle Mariners
infielder Jose Baez, who finished up a brief two-year Major League
career in 1978:
Baez was originally up with the 1977 inaugural Mariner team, getting his
first taste of the Big Leagues and appearing in 91 games for the new
franchise, hitting .259 with 79 hits over 305 official at-bats.
In 1978 he fell to only 23 appearances, batting .160 with eight hits in
50 at-bats, generally playing second base with a few games at third.
Turns out that would be it for him in the Majors, as he would go on to
play another season of Minor League ball in the St. Louis Cardinals
organization before going on to two seasons of Mexican League ball until
1980 before retiring.
For his MLB tenure, Baez finished with a .245 average, collecting 87 hits over 355 at-bats in 114 games, all for the Mariners.
Time
to go and give former speedster Larry Lintz a “not so missing” 1978
card after another season of a “designated running” for the Oakland A’s
in 1977:
Lintz, who didn’t quite get the full-on “D.R.” action that Herb
Washington had before him, did play in 41 games, with only 40 plate
appearances, stealing 13 bases while scoring 11 runs for Oakland.
The previous year, his first with the A’s, Lintz appeared in 68 games,
yet had only four plate appearances, scoring 21 runs while stealing 31
bases for the go-go team that stole over 300, 341 to be exact!
But Lintz’s MLB days were coming to a close, as he’d find himself with
the Cleveland Indians the following year, appearing in only three games
before being out of Big League ball for good.
All told, he played in 350 games during his career between 1973 and
1978, hitting .227 while scoring 137 runs and stealing 128 bases in 616
at-bats and 756 plate appearances.
Super-fun
card to create today, my 1972 card celebrating the great Bob Gibson and
his no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates on August 14th of 1971:
For Gibson, he came into the game at 10-10 for the season, just one year removed from picking up his second Cy Young Award.
But on this day he had everything working for him against the eventual
World Champion Pirates, who had a line-up of heavy hitters.
Over the next 2 hours and 22 minutes, Gibson would set the Pirates down
one by one, allowing only three walks while striking out 10, while also
staked out to an early 5-0 lead in the first inning thanks in part to a
three-run home run by Joe Hague.
Joe Torre and Ted Simmons both went 4-for-6 at the plate, while Gibson
helped himself as well with a 1-for-4 game with three runs batted in.
He’d go on to finish the year at 16-13, with a 3.04 ERA while leading
the league with five shutouts over 31 starts and 245.2 innings of work.
Of note, he also finished the season with 185 strikeouts, the first time
he didn’t reach 200 in a non-injury season (1967) since 1961.
Nevertheless, he also collected his seventh Gold Glove that season, while also finishing fifth in the Cy Young Race.
What a career.
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