Today we come to the last 1973 "expanded league leaders" card in my recent thread of creating dedicated league leader cards celebrating the top 3 in their respective category, and this one is for the American League Firemen of 1972:
We start off with the New York Yankees Sparky Lyle, who had himself quite a year with his league leading 35 saves and 44 points.
Lyle posted a record of 9-5 with a very nice 1.92 ERA over 107.2 innings in his first season with the Bronx Bombers.
Of
course, he would take home the A.L. Cy Young Award five years later
when he'd go 13-5, with 26 saves and a 2.17 ERA for the eventual World
Champion Yanks, on his way to a Hall-worthy (in my opinion) career that
saw him appear in 899 games, all out of the bullpen, saving 238 games
while winning 99.
In second place with 35 points is former
Chicago White Sox reliever Terry Forster, another pitcher who put in a
nice lengthy MLB career.
It was Forster's first full season in
the Big Leagues, and he did not disappoint, going 6-5 over 62
appearances, with a nice 2.25 ERA over 100 innings, saving 29 games. He
would eventually finish up with 16 seasons under his belt, saving 127
games while appearing in 614, with a final ERA of 3.23.
In
third place with 32 points, none other than future Hall of Famer Rollie
Fingers, who was still in the beginning of what would be an excellent 17
year Major League career.
In 1972 Fingers helped the Oakland
A's to the first of their three straight championships, going 11-9 with
21 saves, posting an ERA of 2.51 over 111.1 innings of work.
Of
course, he would go on to put in season after season of excellent
relief work, starring for the A's, then the San Diego Padres, followed
by the Milwaukee Brewers, for whom he'd take home a Cy Young and MVP
Award in 1981 when he helped them make the postseason for the first time
in their franchise's history, posting a microscopic 1.04 ERA over 47
games, with a league-leading 28 saves in the strike-shortened campaign.
By
the time he was done in 1985, he finished with a (then) MLB record 341
saves over 944 games, with an excellent 2.90 ERA and seven All-Star
nods.
Well there you have it! 1973 "expanded league leaders" is a wrap.
Next we move on to 1974 and tackle those stats, giving the top-3 in each league the props they deserved!
