On the blog today,
we move on to the American League’s top three “firemen” of the 1976
season, celebrated on a 1977 “expanded league leader” card:
We begin with a
reliever who had a couple of outstanding seasons in the mid-70’s, Bill
Campbell, aka “Soup”, who paced the league with his 37 points.
Campbell’s 1976
season was incredible, as he would appear in a league-leading 78 games
for the Minnesota Twins while posting a record of 17-5, with 20 saves
and a 3.01 earned run average over 167.2 innings,
all out of the bullpen.
Those numbers were
enough for a seventh place finish in the Cy Young Award and an
eighth-place finish in the MVP race, and rightly so!
I’ve always been
fascinated by relievers who posted incredible high-inning seasons
completely out of the bullpen, and Campbells 1976 season ranks high up
there.
In second place with
33 points, Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers, who posted a record of 13-11
with 20 saves in his final year with the Oakland A’s, with a brilliant
2.47 ERA over 70 appearances and 134.2 innings
of work.
Another workhorse
out of the bullpen, it’s no surprise the man’s Big League output would
eventually lead to a Hall of Fame induction, at the time a rare
occurrence for a dedicated reliever.
In third place with
30 points, a man who I feel should be in the Hall of Fame, Sparky Lyle
of the New York Yankees, who led the league with his 23 saves while
posting a record of 7-8 with a 2.26 ERA over 103.2
innings for the A.L. champs.
Lyle would follow up
his excellent 1976 season with an even better 1977, taking home the
A.L. Cy Young Award based on his 13-5 record, with 26 saves and a 2.17
ERA over 72 games and 137 innings of work, helping
the Yanks win their first championship since 1962.
I absolutely loved
him as a kid, pitching for my Yanks, and was heartbroken when he was
sent to the Texas Rangers in part because of the arrival of Rich
Gossage, who took over the reliever role for the foreseeable
future.
There you have it,
the top three “firemen” called upon to put out those late-inning fires,
eating up innings and saving games in the American League in 1976.
