Good day all!
On the blog today, a player new to the WTHBALLS blog, pitcher Dave Heaverlo and a "missing" 1981 card for the young man:
I
don't know why Topps would have skipped him in their 1981 set since he
had a rather productive 1980 season for the Seattle Mariners.
Donruss and Fleer included him in their 1981 sets, but Topps saw different for some reason.
In
1980, pitching his only season for the Seattle Mariners, Heaverlo went
6-3 over 60 games, with a 3.89 earned run average spread across 78.2
innings of work.
Definitely a decent season for a middle-reliever, while also picking up four saves and striking out 42 batters along the way.
Heaverlo
would pitch one more year in the Big Leagues, closing out a seven-year
run with a return to the Oakland A's in 1981 when he appeared in only
six games, going 1-0 with a 1.59 ERA in 5.2 innings.
Originally
up with the San Francisco Giants in 1975, he ended up with a record of
26-26 over 356 games between 1975 and 1981, pitching to a respectable
3.41 ERA over 537.2 innings, saving 26 games while striking out 288
batters, with every single appearance out of the bullpen.
