The next custom 1960 "Stars of the Game" card to get the spotlight here on the blog is my card for Baltimore Orioles pitcher Chuck Estrada, who had himself a very nice rookie year in 1960:
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Estrada
finished in second place for the Rookie of the Year Award that year
because of his league-leading 18 wins, as he started 25 games while
appearing in 36 total, completing twelve, saving two and tossing a
shutout.
In 1961 he would follow it up with another solid
season, going 15-9 over 33 appearances, all but two of those starts,
pitching to a 3.69 ERA over 212 innings.
Sadly for him it
would be his last "good" year in the Majors, as 1962 would see him lead
the league in losses with 17 against only nine wins, posting an ERA of
3.83 over a career best 223.1 innings of work.
In 1963 arm
issues led to an abbreviated season that saw him appear in only eight
games, going 3-2 with a 4.60 ERA, and it would go downhill from there,
as his ERA would bump up to 5.27 over 17 appearances in 1964, with only
six of those games as a starter.
He would spend all of 1965 in
the Minors, and would be back on a Big League mound in 1966 as a member
of the Chicago Cubs for nine games, getting hit hard to the tune of a
7.30 ERA over 12.1 innings.
In 1967, he would put in what
turned out to be the final games of his Major League career, suiting up
for nine games with the New York Mets, going 1-2 with a 9.41 ERA over 22
innings, while also spending the bulk of the season in the Minors.
He'd
pitch in the Mets Minor Leagues in both 1968 and 1969, but never get
another shot at the Majors, closing out a once promising career with a
record of 50-44 over 146 games, with an ERA of 4.07 and 535 strikeouts.
