Continuing with my "Missing All-Star Managers" cards thread here on the blog, today we come to the 1974 set and the American League skipper for the 1973 game, Oakland A's manager Dick Williams:
Now,
while Topps did return to having All-Star cards in their base set that
year, instead of the multi-player (or manager in this case) format they
utilized, I went with a base-card version as I did with the starting
nine for each league a few years back.
The colors do just "pop" here don't they?
As manager of the Oakland A's, he arrived just in time as the team
was just about to become the dynasty they'd turn out to be, winning the
American League West in 1971 (losing to the Baltimore Orioles in the
playoffs), but then winning the following two
championships in 1972 and 1973 before Williams went on to manage the
California Angels in 1974.
Over the course of his 21-year managerial career, Williams managed
five first-place teams, reaching the playoffs with four of his teams:
Red Sox, A's, Expos and Padres.
He guided three of THOSE teams to the World Series, and finished with 1571 wins, four pennants and two World Series wins.
All of that eventually led to Williams being inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Veteran's Committee in 2008.
