Burroughs was coming off of the finest season of his 16-year career, taking home the MVP trophy while leading the Texas Rangers to an excellent season while under the managerial eye of Billy Martin.
The team also had the rookie of the year in Mike Hargrove, and the second-place finisher in the Cy Young race in Fergie Jenkins!
For Burroughs, he went on to drive in a career-high 118 runs, which led the league, as well as bat .301 with 25 homers and 84 runs scored.
I never really realized that this was all done at the age of only 23, yet already in his fifth season in the Majors after being the #1 overall pick in the 1969 amateur draft by the (then) Washington Senators.
He would have another monster year in 1977, now with the Atlanta Braves, where he hit a career-high 41 home runs while driving in 114 runs.
But when you do this in a season that had George Foster’s incredible MVP year, you can expect to get lost in the shuffle.
By the time Burroughs retired after the 1985 season, he finished with 240 homers, a .261 batting average and 882 runs batted in, with 1443 hits over 5536 at-bats.
