As
promised a few days ago, today on the blog I present my second version
of a 1970 “dedicated rookie” card for Oscar Gamble, this one a Chicago
Cubs edition since he made his MLB debut with them in 1968:
Gamble played in 24 games in 1969, again for the Cubs, hitting .225 with
a homer and five RBIs over 81 plate appearances and 71 official
at-bats.
On November 17th of 1969 he’d be traded along with pitcher Dick Selma to
the Phillies for Johnny Callison and a player to be named later, which
ended up being Larry Colton.
As I stated in my other post, Gamble only had ONE season where he topped
500 plate appearances, and that was in 1974 while playing for the
Indians (he had 508).
In 4502 career at-bats, Gamble hit 200 homers. Not bad when you think
about a full career would be around 8000 at-bats. We’re talking 400+
homers from him.
I'll always remember Gamble as a Yankee at the tail-end of his career.
He always seemed to hit a homer when he came up, and was always a fun
guy to watch play. A true character.
Always aware of his numbers, he'd frequently talk about his "home run
ratio", and years later Jim Kaat, while broadcasting games on the YES
channel, would always bring that up when some current player was hitting
home runs at nice pace.
Nevertheless, Gamble played 17 seasons in the Big Leagues, with those
200 home runs, 666 RBIs and 656 runs scored over 1584 games between 1969
and 1985.