Orta came up for the White Sox in 1972 and immediately became a fixture for the organization, just putting in solid all-around years between 1973 and 1978, hitting as high as .316 in 1974 and driving in as many as 84 runs in 1977.
In 1974, when he hit that career high of .316, he finished in second place in the batting race in the American League, albeit a distant second, behind Rod Carew’s .364 average.
Nevertheless, Orta was a productive player for some time, though easily overlooked when you played in the era of Reggie Jackson, Rod Carew, Pete Rose and Johnny Bench.
Even his position contemporary, Joe Morgan, was getting all the attention, and rightly so with two straight MVP’s in 1975 and 1976, playing for the “Big Red Machine”.
By the time Orta retired after the 1987 season after four seasons with the Kansas City Royals, he’d finish with a nice .278 batting average, with 1619 hits over 5829 at-bats, along with 733 runs scored and 745 runs batted in, with 130 homers and 79 stolen bases.
