REVISIT: DEDICATED ROOKIE- 1976 HENRY CRUZ

Up on the blog today, we have a "Dedicated" rookie card for Henry Cruz, originally posted 10 years ago as part of my "1976 Project" for my buddy Jim:

Cruz actually saw a chunk of playing time during the 1975 season, appearing in 53 games and collecting 25 hits over 94 at-bats, good for a .266 average.
Jim needed him on a dedicated card for his special project so here you go.
Actually, as far as I’m concerned, Cruz has two other “missing” cards, in the 1977 and 1979 sets, which will be tackled in the near future.
What’s funny about that is the fact that he DOES get a card in the 1978 set, after seeing the LEAST playing time of his short 4-year career the year before!
Go figure...

REVISIT: MISSING IN ACTION-1976 CHRIS ARNOLD

Good day all!

On the blog today, we revisit a ten-year-old post featuring my 1976 "Missing in Action" card for former San Francisco Giant infielder Chris Arnold, which was part of my "1976 Project" for my buddy Jim:

Arnold played in 29 games during the 1975 season after coming off a half-season of play the previous year, easily the most of his six-year career.

While playing both in the infield and outfields, Arnold chipped in with a .267 batting average based on his eight hits in 41 at-bats, all of those hits being singles.

His 1976 season would end up being the last of his career, which was spent entirely in 'frisco, finishing with a .237 career average with 103 hits in 435 at-bats over 273 games.

REVISITING A POST FROM 10 YEARS AGO: MISSING 1976 WINSTON LLENAS

From ten years ago on the blog, today we revisit a "missing" 1976 card for former California Angels infielder Winston Llenas, part of the "1976 Project" I worked on for my buddy Jim:

Llenas appeared in 56 games for the Halos, hitting .186 with 21 hits over 113 at-bats while playing five different positions plus some DH-ing.

The action he saw in 1975 would be the last of his career, all spent with the Angels since he came up in 1968.

He didn't play in 1970 or 1971, so over the six seasons he did see action in the Majors, he hit .230 with 122 hits over 531 official at-bats, spread over 300 big league games.

In 1973 he led the American League with 16 pinch-hits and 56 pich-hit at-bats, while seeing the most action in any season he played, 78 games.

He then went on to play a year in Japan, for the Taiheiyo Club in 1976, hitting .227 before going to to play, coach and manage in the Dominican Republic for years, eventually getting inducted into the Caribbean Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.

 

REVISITING A POST FROM 10 YEARS AGO: MISSING 1976 KEN FRAILING

Good day all!

Revisiting a post from 10 years ago this week, my "missing" 1976 card for pitcher Ken Frailing, part of a "1976 Project" worked on for my buddy Jim:

Frailing squeezed 53 innings out of those 41 games, all in relief, posting a 2-5 record with a 5.43 earned run average and a single save.

The previous year he put in 125.1 innings over 55 games, 16 of which were starts, going 6-9 with a 3.88 E.R.A., a save and 71 strikeouts.

Those two seasons would be the bulk of his five-year career, the first two of which were as a Chicago White Sox player in 1972 and 1973.

The 1976 season would turn out to be his last, as he appeared in six games, going 1-2 with a 2.41 E.R.A., with three starts.

He'd play in the minors until 1978 before leaving the game for good, with his final Major League numbers: a 10-16 record with a 3.96 E.R.A., two saves and 136 strikeouts over 116 games, 19 of which were starts.

On a side note: I'm not too familiar with the Topps Vault and that whole "scene", but one thing that I wonder about is the fact that all of the photos are posed shots, and I wonder why there are no "action" shots in the Vault considering so many of the actual cards that came out in the mid-70's on up were awesome "in game" pictures (think Johnny Bench, Willie Horton, etc in the 1976 set for example).

So are all the "action" photos taken by someone other than Topps, which Topps then licensed from the photographer?

Just curious....I thank anyone in advance for any clarification!

REVISITING MY MISSING 1976 CARD FOR GENE PENTZ

On the blog this fine day, revisiting my card posted just about ten years ago today, a "missing" 1976 card for former pitcher Gene Pentz of the Detroit Tigers:

Though his actual rookie card would be in the 1977 set as a Houston Astro, Pentz did in fact pitch in 13 games during the 1975 season for the Detroit Tigers, good for 25.1 innings of work, so we went ahead and created a card for him in the awesome 1976 set.

For the season he posted a 0-4 record with a 3.20 earned run average and 21 strikeouts.

He'd go on to pitch the next three years with Houston, but would be out of the Majors after 10 games in 1978.

His career numbers: 8-9 record, with a 3.63 E.R.A., seven saves and 116 strikeouts in 104 games and 191 innings.

 

REVISITING MY MISSING 1976 RAY SADECKI CARD

From a post ten years ago, we revisit my "missing" 1976 card for former ace pitcher Ray Sadecki, with a slight "twist":

As part of a project I created for my buddy Jim for his personal collection, he wanted a 1976 card of Sadecki suited up with the Atlanta Braves, whereas I would have created a Kansas City Royals version since he finished the season with them in 1975.

Nevertheless...Here's the original write-up as it appeared in November of 2015:

"Now, this card has a bit of a twist to it, since if I followed my usual routine, I’d have had Sadecki shown as a Kansas City Royal, the team that he finished the 1975 season with.
However, following Jim’s lead, we felt it better to have him for the team he saw the most action with, the Atlanta Braves, for whom he tallied 25 appearances and 66.1 innings pitched.
He also suited up for the St. Louis Cardinals (who he opened up the season with), and the Royals as I mentioned.
All together with all three organizations Sadecki appeared in 38 games, good for 80.1 innings of work, posting a combined 4-3 record with a 4.03 earned run average while striking out 32 batters.
Sadecki put in a nice long 18-year career in the Majors, coming up as a young arm with the St. Louis Cardinals, even posting a 20-win season in 1964, helping them win the World Series over the New York Yankees.
All told he pitched for six teams (Cardinals, Giants, Mets, Royals, Braves and Brewers), posting a final record of 135-131 with a 3.78 ERA and 1614 K’s over 563 games and 2500.1 innings."

A 1976 REDO OF ONE OF MY OWN- TIM BLACKWELL

On the blog today is a “re-do” of one of my own early creations, a 1976 “missing” card for former Boston Red Sox Tim Blackwell, the original of which appeared here in March of 2015.
I’ve since found a great Topps Vault image that makes for a much better version, so here goes:

Blackwell was actually "missing" from both the 1976 AND 1975 sets (Which I remedied some time ago with a 1975 edition as well here on the blog).
The guy posted over 135 plate appearances both seasons, yet Topps didn't have him on a card until the 1978 set, which is ALSO strange since in 1977 he only appeared in 17 games, good for only 25 plate appearances (???).
So weird…
For the 1975 season, (relating to the card here), Blackwell played in 59 games, good for 157 plate appearances, which saw him hit .197 with 26 hits, 15 runs scored and six runs batted in while filling in for Carlton Fisk and the Red Sox.
After his first two MLB seasons with the Red Sox, Blackwell was purchased by the Philadelphia Phillies, and only got into four games during the 1976 season.
He collected two hits over those contests, spread out over eight at-bats, and would find himself playing for the Montreal Expos the following year, before finding his groove with the Chicago Cubs in 1978, who he’d play for through the 1981 season.
After two more years with the Expos in 1982 and 1983, his MLB career would come to a close, batting .228 with 238 hits in 1044 at-bats in ten seasons, generally as a back-up/platoon catcher.

1976 RE-DO OF A "MISSING IN ACTION"- 1976 STEVE HUNTZ

Way back in June of 2015 I created a “missing” 1976 card for former San Diego Padres third baseman Steve Huntz for the long-running “1976 Project” for my buddy Jim.
Recently, I came across a much better image to use for the card, so I went ahead and re-did the card using the better photo:

Here’s what I originally wrote for the blog-post back then:

“After playing in 35 games for the Chicago White Sox in 1971, Huntz bounced around in the Minors before coming back up to the "Big Show" in 1975 with the San Diego Padres.
He appeared in 22 games, good for 62 plate appearances.
He tallied eight hits in 53 at-bats, good for a .151 batting average, with four doubles, four runs batted in and three runs scored.
It would turn out to be the last of his Major League playing time, as he'd suit up for the Padres Triple-A Hawaii team in 1976 and 1977 before retiring for good.
Could have been a decent "Long Time No See" card since he last appeared in the 1972 set.
One final note, Huntz was part of the trade that brought slugger Dick Allen to the North Side of Chicago when he was traded along with Tommy John to the Los Angeles Dodgers for the "Wampum Walloper" in December of '71.

1976 PROJECT RE-DO: DICK SHARON

Back in November of 2014, as part of my “1976 Project” for my buddy Jim, I created a “missing” Dick Sharon card using the best image we had available at the time.
Since then a couple of better Topps images were released, and we updated the card, yet I never posted it here on the blog, so here goes:

Here’s the original write-up on Sharon as well:

“After appearing the previous two years in Topps sets as a Detroit Tiger, Sharon was left out of the 1976 set, even though he played in 91 games for the Padres, good for 191 plate appearances.
His numbers for the year: a .194 batting average, with 31 hits in 160 at-bats.
Among his hits were seven doubles and four homers to go along with 14 runs scored and 20 runs batted in.
As it turned out it would be the final year of Sharon's brief three-year career, and he finished up with a lifetime .218 batting average with 13 homers and 102 hits over 242 games.
But his story doesn't end there!
I came across this article on Sharon as I was looking over his career for this post.
Seems he was one of those characters that graced the game in the 1970's, and the article is an entertaining read for those interested:

http://blog.detroitathletic.com/2014/02/26/outspoken-tigers-outfielder-dick-sharon-went-fly-chasing-fly-fishing/

He even commented on the article! (scroll down to the bottom of the article for his post).
You have to love a guy like this!”

Just one more step to getting my all-time favorite set fully represented!

1976 PROJECT- JAMIE QUIRK ON A DEDICATED CARD

It’s been a while since we added to the long running “1976 Project”, but recently my buddy Jim sent me a nice photo of Jamie Quirk, who appeared on a multi-player rookie card in the ‘76 set, so we went and gave him his own dedicated card:

Quirk, who would eventually become mainly a catcher during his 18-year Major League career, originally saw action as an outfielder/third baseman during his 1st taste of the big leagues.
In 1975 he appeared in 14 games, batting .256 with 10 hits in 39 at-bats, while playing 10 games in the outfield with a couple over at third base.
Turns out he’d have three different stints with the Kansas City Royals, playing a combined 11-years for the organization, while also suiting up for seven other teams: Cardinals, Indians, Yankees, Orioles, White Sox and A’s between 1975 and 1992.
He finished his career with a .240 batting average, collecting 544 hits in 2266 at-bats over 984 games, while defensively playing every single position in the field but pitcher and center fielder.

1976 PROJECT- A RE-DO FOR NELSON BRILES

Here’s a redone 1976 card for former pitcher Nelson Briles, at the request of “Reader Jim”, who wanted a card of the righty with the team he actually played for the year before, the Kansas City Royals:

Briles wrapped up his second season in K.C. With a 6-6 record over 24 games, 16 of the starts, with a 4.26 earned run average and 73 strikeouts in 112 innings of work.
On November 15th however, he was traded to the Texas Rangers for speedster Dave Nelson, and I have to remind everyone that Topps managed to produce one of the better airbrush jobs of the decade just in time to have an “accurate” card for the upcoming 1976 set:

Pretty damn good no?
Briles originally came up with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965 and had his best years there, leading the National League in winning percentage in 1967 after posting a 14-5 record, followed up by a 19-11 record in 1968, both with sub-3.00 ERA’s.
Over the course of his 14-year career he posted a 129-112 record, with a 3.44 ERA and 1163 strikeouts in 452 appearances and 2111.2 innings.

1976 PROJECT: JUAN BENIQUEZ

Here’s a 1976 card for Juan Beniquez, NOT because he was missing from the set, but because Topps had him in an airbrushed job with his new team, the Texas Rangers, and “Reader Jim” needed a card showing him with the Boston Red Sox, for whom he suited up the previous year:

As part of the American League champs, I can see why Jim wanted to have a version of the Beniquez card showing him with the team he came up with.
I’ve already created 1973 and 1974 “missing” cards of the former utility hitter, and this makes a nice addition to the Beniquez “family” of cards on the blog.
Beniquez was always a decent hitter, but it is odd that he seems to have found his true stroke towards the end, when he batted over .300 a handful of times, including his career-high .336 for the California Angels in 1984.
He’d finish his 17-year career with a decent .274 batting average based on his 1274 hits in 4651 at-bats, playing for no less than eight organizations.

1976 JIM PERRY REDUX! THE WHITE WHALE APPEARS!

Well well well!
Just when you thought the ever elusive Jim Perry/Oakland A’s image was not to be had, “Boom”, (as Reader Jim so eloquently stated), HERE IT IS!!!
Needless to say I couldn’t wait to get home and modify my Photoshopped Franken-Card with the real deal:

As we all know by now, Jim Perry wrapped up a very nice Major League career with the Oakland A’s before getting released in August 1975, and the hunt for an image of him, especially a COLOR image, has been on many a want-list for decades now.
With the very interesting article recently on the Baseball Hall of Fame site into the final two Perry cards of his career (1974 and 1975), there was special mention of the fact that this A’s image has been long sought, and wouldn’t you know it, they even included one in the article!
Seems that there were five color images of Perry donning an Oakland uniform by a Topps photographer, long retired, and this was one of them.
Awesome!
So I had the template already made, a little presto-change-o, and voila!!
It’s like a Christmas present in February!!!

A RE-DO FOR MISSING IN ACTION- 1976 BOB HEISE: "1976 PROJECT"

Thanks to a MUCH better photo released for Bob Heise as a member of the Boston Red Sox, here’s a do-over for the “1976 Project” missing card I created for him a while back:

For those forgetting what the original was like, here’s a refresher:

Definitely a step up!
In 1975 Heise appeared in 63 games for the Boston Red Sox, collecting 138 plate appearances with 126 at-bats.
He batted .214 with 27 hits, three doubles and 21 runs batted in, while scoring 12 runs.
So while he got a card in 1970 based on his four games and 13 plate appearances, he was left out of the set six years later with almost sixteen times more playing time!
Go figure…

1976 PROJECT- A DEDICATED CRAIG REYNOLDS CARD

Here’s a 1976 card for a player who appeared on a multi-player rookie card in the set: Craig Reynolds of the Pittsburgh Pirates:

“Reader Jim” wanted a dedicated card for Reynolds based on the amount of action he had with the Pirates in 1975.
Reynolds came up in ’75 and appeared in 31 games, batting .224 with 17 hits over 76 official at-bats while playing shortstop.
After only four games in 1976 he would get his chance for full-time action as a member of the inaugural Seattle Mariners team of 1977, playing in 135 games as their very first shortstop (there’s a great trivia question!).
He would actually represent the team the following year at the All-Star Game, yet find himself playing for the Houston Astros the very next season, where he would end up playing the rest of his 15-year career.
A solid player generally off the bench, he would end up with a .256 batting average with 1142 hits in 4466 at-bats over 1491 games while playing through the entire infield.

1976 PROJECT: A RE-DO FOR TOM PACIOREK

Here is a card that wasn’t missing from the 1976 Topps set, but one that “Reader Jim” requested I redesign to show the player as a member of the team he suited up for in 1975, Tom Paciorek:

While Paciorek found himself as a member of the Atlanta Braves in 1976, with Topps airbrushing him to show this change of scenery, we created a card that shows him as a Los Angeles Dodgers player, the team he came up with in 1970, and the team he appeared in 62 games for the previous year.
Paciorek batted .193 for the Dodgers that year, collecting 28 hits over 145 at-bats while playing the outfield as a spot starter and player off the bench.
After spending two-and-a-half years in Atlanta he moved on to the Seattle Mariners, where he actually began getting full-time work and found his stroke topping .300 a few times with a high of .326 in the strike-shortened 1981 campaign.
He would go on the play 18 years in the Major Leagues, making it all the way to 1987 with 27 appearances for the Texas Rangers before calling it a career.
All told he’d end up with a very nice .282 batting average with 1162 hits in 4121 at-bats over 1392 games, with an All-Star game nod in 1981.

1976 PROJECT- BOB GIBSON REDEUX

A LONG while back I created a 1976 “career capper” for the great Bob Gibson, since I feel players of this caliber deserve one last card showing their entire set of stats (just me, I know).
However, once I started the “1976 Project” for “Reader Jim”, he asked for me to create another version with a Topps Vault shot, fitting in with the true look and feel of the 1976 set.
So here it is:

Again, I have always felt it would have been awesome to gawk at the COMPLETE stats of a great player once they retired, just to get the true numbers in an age before internet and “answers-at-out-fingertips”.
In this case here was a two-time Cy Young Winner, World Series dynamo and at the time only the second pitcher to record 3000+ career strikeouts in Major League history.
Luckily all these years later, where anyone can design whatever card they feel like creating, we can crank these creations out, fulfilling those holes in our mental collections!

1976 PROJECT- ED GOODSON

Here’s a card created for the ongoing “1976 Project” a while back featuring former infielder Ed Goodson, who actually appeared in the 1976 set as a Los Angeles Dodger, with the team he finished the 1975 season with, the Atlanta Braves:

Goodson would go on to play the final two years of his eight-year career with the Dodgers in 1976 and 1977, but since “Reader Jim” shares my feelings that a set represents more of what happened the previous season, sort of like a “yearbook”, he asked me to create a Braves card.
Originally a San Francisco Giant between 1970 through midway 1975, Goodson found himself in Atlanta for the final 47 games before moving on to L.A.
Basically a catcher off the bench his entire career, he had a very nice 1973 season for San Fran when he batted .302 with 12 homers and 53 runs batted in over 102 games, easily his best season in the Major League.

1976 PROJECT- CESAR TOVAR (RE-DO)

As part of my ongoing “1976 Project” for Reader Jim, we went and created a Texas Ranger version of his 1976 card since he played the bulk of the 1975 season with them before moving on to the Oakland A’s at the end of the year, here’s what I came up with:

Tovar was bought by Oakland on August 31, 1975 for their stretch run, and ended up playing with them through the 1976 season before moving on to the Yankees for the final 13 games of his career that year.

A solid player during his years with the team he came up with, the Minnesota Twins between 1965 1972, Tovar once led the American League in hits with 204 in 1971, doubles and triples in the same season in 1970 and even garnered MVP consideration five years in a row between 1967 to 1971.

In his 12-year career he batted a very respectable .278 considering the “modern-dead ball era” he played in, with 1546 hits over 5569 at-bats in 1488 games, with 834 runs scored and 435 RBI’s and 226 stolen bases.

With guys like Tony Oliva, Rod Carew and Harmon Killebrew in the same line-up, it made for some good offense in their prime.

1976 PROJECT- FRANK ROBINSON (RE-DONE)

Although I created a 1976 “missing” Frank Robinson card here on the blog a long time ago, “Reader Jim” found a very nice Topps image to create another version, so here you go:

One of the games all-time greats, Robinson was wrapping up his monster career as player-manager of the Cleveland Indians by the the mid-70’s rolled around.
He not only was leaving behind a Hall of Fame career as a player, but historically made an imprint by becoming the first African-American manager in Major League history.
It’s a shame Topps didn’t think he should get a card in the 1976 set as a player since he played well enough during 1975, and he would STILL play in some games during the 1976 season.
But as we have seen quite a few time with Topps, this was a common practice with veteran’s at the tail-end of their careers.
Anyway, the Rookie of the Year in the National League for 1956, the MVP in 1961 as well as with the Baltimore Orioles in 1966, becoming the first player to win MVP in both leagues, and a Triple Crown winner for the World Champ Baltimore Orioles that very same year, 12-time all-star securely planted himself in the upper echelon of baseball legends over the course of his awesome 21-year career.