Up on the blog today, a "not so missing" 1973 card for former speedster Frank Taveras of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who was just starting out as a 22-year-old and a handful of games in the Majors in 1972:
Taveras
appeared in four games during the 1972 season, this after one single
game in 1971, and through those five combined games he failed to get a
hit, going 0-3 at the plate with one walk and a strikeout.
He
would spend all of 1973 in the Minors before getting substantial playing
time in 1974 when he appeared in 126 games, hitting .246 with 13 stolen
bases and 33 runs scored.
It would be more of the same in
1975, as he would hit .212 over 134 games, upping his stolen base total
to 17, with 44 runs scored and 80 hits.
1976 would be a strong
season for the shortstop, as he would hit .258 but steal 58 bases for
the Pirates, scoring 76 runs over 144 games and 519 official at-bats.
Between
1977 and 1979 Taveras would have his best Major League seasons,
collecting as many as 182 hits (1978), scoring as many as 93 runs
(1979), and leading the league with 70 stolen bases in 1977.
In
1979, unfortunately for him, he was shipped off to the New York Mets
after appearing in only 11 games for Pittsburgh, going from a team that
would eventually win the World Series that year to the basement dwelling
Mets.
He would play full-time over the next two years with
the Mets before finding himself North of the border in 1982 with the
Montreal Expos, appearing in only 48 games, the last of his Big League
career, hitting only .161 with 14 hits in 87 at-bats, with four steals.
All
told, Taveras played parts of 11 seasons, hitting .255 over 1150 games,
collecting 1029 hits and stealing exactly 300 bases, with 503 runs
scored and 214 RBIs.
