Today
we have a “not so missing” 1975 card for Ken Macha, who made his MLB
debut during the 1974 season as a catcher, something he wouldn’t do much
of again over the course of his six-year Major League career:
Macha went 3-for-5 at the plate over his first taste of the Big Leagues,
scoring and driving in a run while playing one game behind the plate.
He would spend all of 1975 and 1976 in the Minors before making it back
to the Majors in 1977, appearing in 35 games where he hit .274 with 26
hits in 95 at-bats.
Now generally a third baseman, he would go on to play parts of the four
seasons with the Pirates, Montreal Expos and Toronto Blue Jays before
taking his bat and glove to Japan in 1982.
He’d play four years there, putting up some nice slugging numbers
including 31 homers in 1984 with 93 RBIs for Chunichi, averaging over
.300 for his career in the JPCL.
He’d never make it back to the Big Leagues as a player, but he would go
into coaching, then later on managing, where he’d spend four years with
the Oakland A’s (2003-2006) and two with the Milwaukee Brewers
(2009-2010), really having a nice managerial career where he finished
with a .568 winning percentage based on a 368-280 record.
In his four years with Oakland, the team finished two seasons in first place, with the other two years in second.
As a player, he finished his career with a .258 batting average, with 98
hits over 380 at-bats over 180 games, driving in 35 runs while scoring
30.