Up on the blog today, we go with my 1976 "Dedicated Rookie" for former All-Star outfielder of the Montreal Expos, Ellis Valentine:
Valentine
had his first taste of the Big Leagues in 1975, hitting a blistering
.364 with 12 hits in 33 at-bats as a September call-up.
His
1976 season was solid, hitting .279 over 94 games, with seven homers and
14 stolen bases while scoring 36 runs and driving in 39.
Between 1977 and 1979 he became a solid, Gold Glove winning outfielder along with Andre Dawson and Warren Cromartie.
Just an amazing young trio of outfielders to come up at the same time and give the team a bolt of energy.
For
Valentine, between 1977 and 1979 he put in three very good seasons that
saw him top 20 homers, 76 RBIs and hit at least .276 getting named to
the NL All-Star team in '77 while taking home his lone Gold Glove the
following year.
Sadly, on May 30th of 1980, already putting
together another solid campaign, Valentine was hit in the face with a
pitch by St. Louis Cardinals Roy Thomas.
He would miss over a
month before coming back with the famous football guard on his batting
helmet, hitting .331 the rest of the way to end up at .315 for the
abbreviated season.
Other injuries began to plague him, from a
pinched-nerve, his wrist, and even a hamstring pull, and just like that
Valentine managed to play parts of the next few seasons for the New
York Mets, California Angels and finally the Texas Rangers in 1985.
Still
only 30, he played what turned out to be that last of his Major League
games, finishing up with a .278 average with 123 homers, 474 RBIs, 380
runs on 881 hits over 3166 at-bats.
