"HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 1970'S" #8: GEORGE FOSTER AND HIS 50+ HOMERS IN 1977

If you're someone who grew up in the late-70's/early-80's like me and followed baseball somewhat seriously, you always came back to George Fosters 50-homer season of 1977 from time to time since he was the only guy to achieve such a feat in your lifetime.

52 homers in 1977. It was just awesome, and to many younger fans out there who may not believe it, it really seemed for a while that no one would hit 50+ homers again since we had home run leaders consistently in the high 30's in the early-80's.

When the 1978 set came out my friends and I were shocked when there wasn't some sort of "highlight" card for Foster's power display.

Well, 26 years later, here's one I designed:

Just imagine it: Foster's 52 home run season was the only 50+ homer season between Willie May's 52 homers in 1965 and Cecil Fielder's 1990 total of 51.

ONE player in 25 years managed to top 50 homers in the Major Leagues.

What a season Foster had for the Cincinnati Reds that year!

Following M.V.P. years in the decade by teammates Johnny Bench (70,72), Pete Rose (73) and Joe Morgan (75,76), Foster came up HUGE, slamming those 52 home runs while also hitting for average at a .320 clip, with 197 hits, a league-leading 124 runs scored and a whopping 149 runs batted in.

Those numbers made him the sixth Red's M.V.P. In the '70's, and pushed Foster to the top of the heap after finishing second in voting the previous year.

For a while there he was an R.B.I. machine, driving in 90+ every year but one between 1976 and 1983.

His 1981 season is often overlooked, as he drove in 90 runs, just one off the league lead (Mike Schmidt had 91) in only 108 games, along with 22 homers, good for third in the league.

The following year he signed with the Mets as a free agent, becoming the first $2 million a year player in Big League history.

It wasn't until Kirby Puckett in 1989 that we would see a $3 million dollar a year player (followed about a week later by Rickey henderson actually).

His four+ years with the Mets were decent, but he never had that "all-star" year the folks at Shea were hoping for, and he did catch some grief for it.

Nevertheless he had a decent 18-year career overall, finishing with just under 2000 hits, 348 homers and 1239 runs batted in with a .274 batting average.

Throw in five all-star selections, an M.V.P., and a solid cog in the "Big Red Machine" Reds of the mid-70's and he certainly left his mark on the game for the era.

If you're liking this "highlights" thread on my blog, keep an eye out for the next one, which shines a light on Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, who both reached 3000 hits during 1970, leading to a 1971 card I designed celebrating the two.

1975 "CY YOUNG AWARD" SUB-SET: WHAT IF? 1966

Today we'll look at the final year of the "Koufax-era" in my imagined 1975 Cy Young Award sub-set, 1966.

After a run of domination hardly seen in Major League baseball before or since, Koufax would retire from the game at season's end and shock many fans because of serious arm-trouble.

Along with Koufax and his third Cy Young in four years, the fine folks at SABR picked Jim Kaat of the Minnesota Twins as the American League Cy Young winner had they chosen one in each league at that time.

First up, my card design:

This would be the final year of voting on one winner for the award before they began voting on winners for both leagues beginning in 1967.

Koufax was once again out of this world spectacular, posting a record of 27-9 with a 1.73 earned run average and 317 strikeouts, all league leading figures.

He also lead the league in games started (41), complete games (27), innings pitched (323) and shutouts (5), easily taking home the award and unexpectedly capping a Hall of Fame career before injuries halted his career at age 30.

Sadly the season was also marred by the Dodgers' surprising loss to the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, getting swept mainly because of the "Birds" up-and-coming young pitching studs Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally, along with a surprise performance by reliever Moe Drabowsky in the first game.

Six years later Koufax was inducted into the Hall of Fame, getting named to 344 of 396 ballots when voting was announced.

Perhaps only Pedro Martinez' run in the late 90's/early 00's was there be another pitcher who had a run that far out-shined the rest of his league for a few years like Koufax's run between 1963-1966.

Over in the American League, the Twins were once again the beneficiaries of a fine performance by one of their young pitchers, this time Jim Kaat.

After a nice five year run between 1962-1965, Kaat came into his own in '66, finishing the season with a league-leading 25 wins (against 13 losses), a 2.75 E.R.A., and 205 strikeouts, while also leading the league in starts (41), innings pitched (304.2) and complete games (19).

He also picked up his fifth of what was to become 16 Gold Gloves in his 25 year career while finishing in fifth place in M.V.P. Voting.

Kaat would have two more 20-win seasons, in the 1970's while pitching for the Chicago White Sox, before switching over to relieving the final few years of his lengthy career in the early-80's with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Next we take a look at the first season where TWO Cy Young winners were selected, one for each league, 1967.

For the National League we have Giants pitcher Mike McCormick, while in the American League we have Red Sox hurler Jim Lonborg.

Two guys who easily had career years that season.

"GIMME A DO-OVER"- PART XXXII: 1972 #285 GAYLORD PERRY

When I went to write up this post for today's topic I realized that somehow I've only profiled Gaylord Perry once (??) in the entire run of my blog, and the guy is one of my favorite "characters" from the decade.

I'll have to double-check that, maybe I missed labeling a post at some point.

But for now let's move ahead with the subject of today: redesigning Perry's 1972 Topps card.

Take a look at what Topps had out there for his 1972 card:

Not necessarily a bad card, but definitely in need of a redesign since not only does it show Perry in his San Francisco Giants uniform (he was traded to Cleveland around Thanksgiving of 1971), but 1972 ended up being a banner season for the Hall of Fame pitcher.

First up I offer you my 1972 redesign:

Just a nice action shot of Perry on the hill for the Indians during his award-winning year. A bit nicer than the "yearbook"-type pose on the issued card, don't you think?

In his first season pitching for the Indians, all Perry did was post a 24-16 record with a 1.92 earned run average, 234 strikeouts and 5 shutouts.

Those numbers got him his first Cy Young Award, as well as a sixth place finish in M.V.P. voting, all while playing for a team that went 72-84, good for fifth place in the American League East.

Not bad at all.

In somewhat of a coincidence, his National League counterpart in Cy Young winner that year, Steve Carlton, also pitched for a sub-.500 team (actually a last place team in Carlton's case).

Go figure.

REVISITING PITCHER BOB GARIBALDI- THIS TIME HIS 1970 LATE SERIES TOPPS CARD

Back in August of last year I profiled pitcher Bob Garibaldi and his 1971 Topps card (#701) because it showed him as a Kansas City Royal player even though he  never appeared in a single game for them in his career.

As a matter of fact, Garibaldi would never appear in another Major League game after the 1969 season, leaving us with a pretty cool mystery as to how he was photographed in a Royals uniform since he never suited up for them (I suspect it was a Spring training shot during the 1971 pre-season).

But it was only after I profiled this card that I realized that he was also given a high-numbered card in the 1970 Topps set (#681), even though he only appeared in ONE game during the 1969 season, good for only five innings!

Here's the card:

It's wild to think that this guy got a card in BOTH the 1970 and 1971 set based on one game and five innings!

For his career Garibaldi totaled 15 games and 26.1 innings over four sparse years pitching for the San Francisco Giants, finishing with an 0-2 record and a 3.08 E.R.A.

He pitched in the bulk of his games during his rookie year in 1962 with 9, then got into four games in 1963, a game in 1966 and that final game in 1969.

I'm sure it's little or no consolation to him, but at least he walked away from the game with TWO baseball cards as a Big Leaguer.

"Half-full" right?!

MISSING IN ACTION- 1974 JEFF TORBORG

You know, California Angels catchers of the early to mid 1970's got "dissed" left and right by Topps.

My last "Missing in Action" subject was Angels' backstop Art Kusnyer, and today's player is another California signal-caller, Jeff Torborg, who should have had a card in the 1974 set.

But before we get into the player, take a look at my design for the "missing" card:

You think a guy who caught no-hitters by BOTH Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax in his career would get a little love, especially since he did actually play in 102 games in 1973!

In those 102 games played he had 284 plate appearances and started more than half the Angels games that year with 95.

Then take into account that Topps instead went ahead and gave a card in their 1974 set to both Charlie Sands and Rick Stelmaszek, who appeared in only 17 and 22 games respectively as the Angels fourth and fifth string catchers the previous year!

How does that compute?

If you're keeping track, I've only named four catchers here, yet I stated Sands and Stelmaszek as the fourth and fifth string.

Turns out (and thank you to reader "ecloy" for the heads up) Topps also omitted ANOTHER Angels catcher that year by leaving out their second-most active back-stop in 1973, catcher John Stephenson, who appeared in 60 games, good for 132 plate appearances.

???

So Topps leaves out the three most active Angels catchers of 1973 and gives cards to two guys who totaled 39 games between them!?

I just can't figure it out.

Nevertheless, with the missing 1973 Kusnyer card, this 1974 Torborg card, and in the near future the missing Stephenson cards (yes, there were multiple missing cards for this player in the decade), I hope to fill in all the blanks for Angels catchers of the 1970's.

I'll also be writing about Charlie Sands and his TWO inexplicable cards during the '70's as well.

Keep an eye out for all of them here…

As for Torborg, after a very successful college career playing for Rutgers University in New Jersey in the early 60's Torborg was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1963.

He made it to the Majors in 1964 and went on to play seven years for L.A. as a back-up catcher before being purchased by the California Angels in March of 1971, where he went on to play for another three seasons.

After the 1973 season, as the Angels primary catcher among a slew of guys behind the plate that year, Torborg was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher John Andrews.

Turns out both players never appeared in another Major League game again.

Torborg was out of the game as a player for good, but he almost immediately made a go of it as a Major League manager, landing the job of Cleveland Indians skipper during the 1977 season (remember his card as manager in that awesome manager sub-set in the 1978 Topps set?).

This lead to an on-again/off-again eleven year managerial career between 1977 and 2003 managing five teams: the Indians, White Sox, Mets, Expos and Marlins.

Some of you may also remember that Torborg was the Marlins manager at the beginning of what was to be their World Championship season in 2003 before being replaced by Jack McKeon after a rough 16 and 22 start.

As a player Torborg never really became a full-time player, but man was he lucky with the opportunity to catch some memorable games for some memorable pitchers!

On September 9th, 1965 while with the Dodgers he was behind the plate for Sandy Koufax's perfect game against the Chicago Cubs.

Then on July 20th, 1970 he caught Bill Singer's no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies (funny enough he'd also be a teammate of Singer over in California).

But if that wasn't enough, Torborg ended up catching Nolan Ryan's first of a record seven Major League no-hitters when he was behind the plate for Ryan's masterpiece on May 15th, 1973 against the Kansas City Royals.

Not a bad string of historical experience for a part-time catcher in ten years!

As for Angels' catchers, next week I should have a card (or two) designed for yet another missing player, John Stephenson, who really got shafted multiple times by Topps.

Keep an eye out for it...

"HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 1970'S" #7: NOLAN RYAN'S 383 STRIKEOUTS IN 1973

I'm a strikeout fan. A HUGE strikeout fan.

Power pitchers have always been "Gods" to me, from Tom Seaver through Dwight Gooden through Randy Johnson to today's K-Kings like Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander.

And for a kid who idolized power-pitchers, the 1970's were the apex of strikeout kings, giving us all-time legends like Seaver, Steve Carlton, Gaylord Perry, and the all-time "King of Kings", Lynn Nolan Ryan.

Though he catapulted himself to superstar status in 1972 in his first year with the Angels, it was 1973 that just affirmed his spot in the annals of baseball history.

Not only did Ryan throw two no-hitters during the season, but in his final start he whiffed batter number 383, thus breaking Sandy Koufax then eight-year-old Major League record set in 1965.

What I always found incredible about the whole thing was that Ryan set the record in the 11th inning of his final start of the year!

He fanned the final batter he faced, Rich Reese, for the final out of the inning before the Angels won it in the bottom of the inning, thus ending Ryan's historic season.

An 11-inning complete game with 16 strikeouts!

What a way to cap it off…

Sadly Topps was too wrapped up with Hank Aaron's home run festivities (and rightly so I have to admit) to give Ryan a nice tribute card in honor of his feat in their 1974 set, so I went ahead and designed one myself.

Take a look:

I took the Aaron layout of card #1 and utilized it here for Ryan's highlight card.

The older I get, the more Nolan Ryan's "legend" grows with me.

With all the pitch-count watches, careful handling of young pitchers and innings limitations in today's game, Ryan's Major League resume just gets more and more incredible as time goes on.

A freaking machine…

27 years of fire-balling power, well into his 40's.

"Ryan Express" indeed!

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

It's Thursday, so that must mean it's trivia time once again…

This week we again look at the decade's seasonal home run champs of the '70's.

See which ones you can get.

As usual the answers will be posted here tomorrow…

1. Of all homer champs during the decade, who posted the lowest slugging percentage that season?

2. Who hit the fewest extra base hits in a season they lead the league in homers?

3. Who posted the lowest on-base-pct in a homer leading year?

4. Who had the fewest walks in a year they lead the league in homers?

5. Among all home run champs in the '70's, who posted the fewest at-bats in their leading season?

***SPOILER ALERT! ANSWERS BELOW: 

1.  Graig Nettles, Yankees. .475 in 1976.

2. Bob Melton, White Sox. 53 EBH's in 1971.
 
3. Graig Nettles, Yankees. .327 in 1976.
 
4. Dave Kingman, Cubs. 45 in 1979.

5. Dick Allen, White Sox. 462 AB's in 1974.