On the blog today,
we have a 1977 “expanded league leader” card featuring the National
League’s top three home run hitters of 1976, with two players you’d
expect to see from the era, and a surprise third-place
finisher:
Of course we begin
with Hall of Fame slugger Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies, who
smashed 38 homers, good for his third straight home run title, on his
way to eight such titles before he was done.
It was a great
season for the third baseman in 1976, as he would also take home the
first of his eventual ten Gold Gloves, while finishing third in the MVP
race at season’s end.
Just one home run
behind him with 37 homers, none other than “Kong” Dave Kingman of the
New York Mets, who topped his previous career-best by one homer while
also making his first All-Star team.
Of course this led
to one of my all-time favorite Topps cards, his 1977 slab with the
beautiful blue “All-Star” banner running across the bottom. Just a
perfect baseball card!
In third place with
32 home runs, which would have been good enough for a share of the A.L.
title that season, Rick Monday of the Chicago Cubs, who easily bested
his previous career-best of 26 homers from
1973.
Monday, the very
first #1 overall pick in the history of the Amateur Draft in 1965, gave
the Cubs a great season in 1976, hitting .272 with a career-high 107
runs scored in what turned out to be his last season
in the “Windy City” before being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers over
the Winter for Bill Buckner and Ivan DeJesus.
So there it is, the
top three home run hitters of 1976 in the National League celebrated on
an “expanded” league leader card in the 1977 set.
