NICKNAMES OF THE 1970'S- 1976 "ACTION DOG" DAVE CASH

Time to go and give former All-Star second baseman Dave Cash, aka "Action Dog, a "Nickname's of the 1970's" card in my long running thread here on the blog:

 

Cash, who played the first five years of his Big League career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, came over to the “City of Brotherly Love” in October of 1973 in a trade for pitcher Ken Brett, and did not disappoint the Phillie faithful, having his three best years as a Major Leaguer between 1974-1976.
In those three seasons Cash averaged over 200 hits a season, along with a .300 average while playing pretty much every single game, even setting the MLB record (since broken) of 699 at-bats during the 1975 season.
He’d sign with the Montreal Expos in the Winter of 1976 as a Free Agent, and would have one more very good year in 1977 before quickly having his career turn South.
After an injury-plagued 1979 season he found himself with the San Diego padres in 1980, where he hit .227 over 130 games, before retiring at only 32 years of age.
All told, Cash finished with a very nice .283 career average, with 1571 hits over 5554 at-bats and 1422 games between 1969 and 1980, stealing 120 bases and scoring 732 runs.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1975 TIM HOSLEY

On the blog today, the third "not so missing" card created for former catcher Tim Hosley here on the blog, this one a 1975 edition:

 

Hosley appeared in 11 games for the Oakland A;s during the 1974 season, hitting .286 with two hits over seven at-bats with three runs scored and an RBI.

He would go on to play nine seasons as a back-up catcher between 1970 and 1981, toiling in the Minors all of 1972, 1979 and 1980.
The most action he ever saw in a season would be in 1975 when he was with the Chicago Cubs and appeared in 62 games, hitting .255 with 36 hits in 141 at-bats, pretty much setting career-highs across the board in every category.
By the time he retired, he finished with a .215 batting average with 79 hits over 368 at-bats in 208 Big League games, playing for the Tigers, Oakland A’s and Cubs.

EXPANDED YEARLY LEADER CARDS: 1973 N.L. FIREMEN

Rolling right along in my on-going "expanded league leader" series, we move on to the national League's finest relievers of 1972, aka "Firemen", determined by simply adding a pitcher's wins and saves for a "point" total:

 

The leader in this department for 1972 was Cincinnati Reds reliever Clay Carroll, who had an impressive season with six wins and 37 saves, good for 43 points.

Carroll finished fifth in the Cy Young race that year, finishing with a record of 6-4 with an ERA of 2.25 for the National League champs, appearing in 65 games while making his second straight All-Star team.

Right behind him with 35 points was New York Mets reliever Tug McGraw, who posted a record of 8-6 while saving 27 games, pitching to a brilliant 1.70 ERA over 54 appearances.

He made his first All-Star team that year and it was also the second straight season with a 1.70 ERA.

So over 105 games between 1971 and 1972, the man was incredibly "light's out" with that miniscule ERA.

In third place with 32 points, and giving us a small glimpse of what was about to happen, is iron-man pitcher Mike Marshall, who posted a record of 14-8 for the Montreal Expos with 18 saves.

Marshall was just getting started as the premier reliever in the National League for the next few seasons, the pinnacle of which was his 1974 Cy Young Award winning campaign when he appeared in a STILL MLB record 106 games while going 15-12 with 21 saves and a 2.42 ERA over 208.1 innings, ALL out of the bullpen!

By the way, I'm sure you've already noticed that as per the usual back then, I also recycled an airbrushed image of Marshall since there really are none of him during that period, as he avoided Topps photographers, leaving us with nothing to use on custom cards all these years later.

Nevertheless, a fun card to add to the "collection"! Hope you enjoy it!

ON-CARD ALL-STAR: 1974 PETE ROSE

Time to go an add the great Pete Rose to my "On-card All-Star" thread, where I slap a bug beautiful All-Star banner on a player's base Topps card in the years Topps decided to have a separate All-Star card in their set:

 

For Rose it was business as usual, no matter what position he was playing, as he would get the All-Star nod throughout the first 20 years of his incredible career, whether it was at second base, the outfield, or first.

In 1973 he took home his only MVP Award after winning his third batting title while collecting a career-high 230 hits, scoring 115 runs for the potent Cincinnati Reds team that would soon win two straight championships in 1975 and 1976.

In the ten years spanning 1970-1979, he was on two world champion teams, four pennant winners, had six 200-hit seasons, and led his league in no less than 13 offensive categories!
And that's not all: in NINE of those years he received Most Valuable Player consideration, taking home the award as I stated earlier in 1973.
As a player, the man was incredible.

A Hall of Famer. The all-time hit leader in Major League baseball’s 150+ year history.

NICKNAMES OF THE 1970s- 1971 SANDY ALOMAR

Fun card to add to my long running "nicknames" thread, one for baseball patriarch Sandy Alomar Sr., aka the "Iron Pony", who had himself a very nice 15 year Major League career before giving way to two sons who did the same years later:

 

Alomar the Senior was to have his finest year in the Big Leagues in 1971, hitting .260 with 179 hits, leading the A.L. with 162 games played and 689 at-bats for the California Angels.

He was coming off his only All-Star season of 1970, where his numbers pretty much matched his 1971 output, with 169 hits, a .251 average and a career-best 82 runs.

Alomar came up with the Milwaukee Braves back in 1964, but didn’t get to play full-time until he joined the California Angels in 1969, where he would play until he was purchased by the New York Yankees in July of 1974.
He’d play the last two seasons of his career with the Texas Rangers, retiring after the 1978 season before moving on to coaching for various organizations.
Of course, he also had a couple of sons who became pretty good baseball players themselves, 1990 American Rookie of the Year Sandy Alomar Jr, and future Hall of Fame second baseman Roberto Alomar.
Not a bad baseball family tree!

1978 SPECIAL SUB-SET- "1977 30 HOME RUN CLUB" JASON THOMPSON

Today's blog post has us up to former Detroit Tigers slugger Jason Thompson in my on-going 1978 subset, "30 Home Run Club", celebrating the big bashers of the 1977 season:

 

Thompson had a breakout year in 1977, his second in the Big Leagues, though first truly full-time season.

Besides the 31 jacks, he drove in a career-best 105 runs while hitting .270 over 158 games and 585 at-bats, scoring 87 runs and getting his first All-Star nod.

He would remain consistent with his numbers over the next four seasons for Detroit, though never hitting 30+ homers or driving in 100+ runs again.

Nevertheless he hit 20+ each year, while reaching 90 RBIs as well except for his 79 in 1979, yet he found himself traded to the California Angels for Al Cowens just after the start of the 1980 season.

He only played for them that year, hitting 17 homers while driving in 70 over 102 games, certainly good production for his new team.

However, yet again, just before the 1981 season he was on the move again, this time traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Mickey Mahler and Ed Ott.

Thompson would play for Pittsburgh for the next five years, reaching 30+ homers again in 1982 when he also topped 100 RBIs with his 101, hitting .284 and making his third All-Star team.

He became (at the time) one of the rare batters to reach 30 homers in both the A.L. and N.L., and as a nerdy baseball 13 year old back then, I took notice of that!

After three more somewhat productive seasons for the Pirates, Thompson found himself North of the border in 1986, playing for the Montreal Expos, where he only appeared in 30 games in his 31-year-old season, with a combination of bad knees and an upstart young man named Andres Galarraga outperforming him causing Thompson to be released on June 30th.

Sadly, he never found another gig so even though only 31 years old, his career was over, hitting 208 homers with 782 RBIs over 11 seasons, with a .261 batting average and 1253 hits to his credit.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1978 DOUG KONIECZNY

Up on the blog today, a "not so missing" 1978 card for former Houston Astros pitcher Doug Konieczny, who already played what were to be the last MLB games of his career in 1977:

 

Konieczny appeared in only four games for the Astros in 1977, all starts, going 1-1 with an earned run average of 6.00 over 21 innings.

He spent all of 1976 in the Minors after pitching parts of the previous three seasons in the Big Leagues, with the 1976 season being the only of his brief four year career that saw him get any substantial playing time.

In that campaign, Konieczny appeared in 32 games, with 29 of those starts, going 6-13 with a 4.47 ERA over 171 innings of work, throwing four complete games including a shutout, striking out 89.

All told, his Major League career comprised 44 games, 38 starts, going 7-18 with a 4.93 ERA in 221 innings, with 110 strikeouts and the aforementioned shutout between 1973 and 1977.