DEDICATED ROOKIE: 1974 BAKE McBRIDE

Today's blog post has a 1974 "dedicated rookie" for Bake McBride, who would end up taking home the N.L. Rookie of the Year that year:

McBride made an immediate splash in the Majors, hitting .302 in limited play in 1973 before coming back and taking home the 1974 National League Rookie of the Year Award when he hit .309 with 173 hits and 30 stolen bases.
Sadly, even though he would keep that average around .300 for the rest of his career, he was repeatedly dealing with injuries, ranging from knee and shoulder ailments, to missing almost an entire season because of eye problems relating to contact lenses.
Over his 11-year career he managed to play a full season only four times, with three of those years coming consecutively between 1978-1980.
In that last of consecutive full years, he helped the Phillies win the 1980 World Series, defeating the Kansas City Royals and giving the team their first title.
After that, he played three more years in the Big Leagues, never more than 70 games in any one season, finishing up with a .299 batting average over 1071 games and 3853 at-bats, with 1153 hits and 183 stolen bases.

 

NICKNAMES OF THE 1970s- 1978 BAKE McBRIDE

Time to go an add Bake McBride to my long-running “nicknames of the 1970s” thread, with this 1978 rendition for the .300-hitting former outfielder:

It’s funny, “Bake” could be the only player that had a nickname based OFF of his nickname: “Shake n’ Bake”, even though “Bake” was already  his nickname.
For those who didn’t know, his given name is Arnold Ray McBride.
I decided on going with “Bake” instead of “Shake n’ Bake” mainly because of the layout space I had on the card, with the former of the two nickname better suited to the card template.
McBride made an immediate splash in the Majors, hitting .302 in limited play in 1973 before coming back and taking home the 1974 National League Rookie of the Year Award when he hit .309 with 173 hits and 30 stolen bases.
Sadly, even though he would keep that average around .300 for the rest of his career, he was repeatedly dealing with injuries, ranging from knee and shoulder ailments, to missing almost an entire season because of eye problems relating to contact lenses.
Over his 11-year career he managed to play a full season only four times, with three of those years coming consecutively between 1978-1980.
In that last of consecutive full years, he helped the Phillies win the 1980 World Series, defeating the Kansas City Royals and giving the team their first title.
After that, he played three more years in the Big Leagues, never more than 70 games in any one season, finishing up with a .299 batting average over 1071 games and 3853 at-bats, with 1153 hits and 183 stolen bases.

TRADED: 1977 BAKE McBRIDE

On the blog today is a special 1977 “traded” card for a man who could rake at the plate, “Shake ‘n Bake” Bake McBride, who found himself in the city of Brotherly Love come June of that year:

McBride, who came up to the Big Leagues and spent all his time thus far with the St. Louis Cardinals, was dealt along with Steve Waterbury to the Philadelphia Phillies on June 15th for Rick Bosetti, Dane Iorg and Tom Underwood after alleged tension between he and recent managerial hire Vern Rapp, who was knows as a disciplinarian.
McBride made an immediate splash in the Majors, hitting .302 in limited play in 1973 before coming back and taking home the 1974 National League Rookie of the Year Award when he hit .309 with 173 hits and 30 stolen bases.
Sadly, even though he would keep that average around .300 for the rest of his career, he was repeatedly dealing with injuries, ranging from knee and shoulder ailments, to missing almost an entire season because of eye problems relating to contact lenses.
Over his 11-year career he managed to play a full season only four times, with three of those years coming consecutively between 1978-1980.
In that last of consecutive full years, he helped the Phillies win the 1980 World Series, defeating the Kansas City Royals and giving the team their first title.
After that, he played three more years in the Big Leagues, never more than 70 games in any one season, finishing up with a .299 batting average over 1071 games and 3853 at-bats, with 1153 hits and 183 stolen bases.

NICKNAMES OF THE 1970'S- 1976 "SHAKE N' BAKE" McBRIDE

Time to go and give former .300 hitter Bake McBride, aka “Shake n’ Bake” a card in my long-running “Nickname” series through the 1970’s:

The 1974 National League rookie of the year had himself a very nice 11-year Major League career, one that saw him top a .300 batting average seven of those seasons.
If not for injuries throughout his Big League tenure who knows what he could have done, as evidenced with his 1153 hits in only 3853 at-bats.
Only twice did he appear in more than 137 games in any one season, and in only six of them did he play in over 100.
Nevertheless, “Shake n’ Bake” would retire after a couple of years with the Cleveland Indians with a career .299 average, with 183 stolen bases and 548 runs scored in only 1071 games.
Think about it, if you were to translate that over let’s say 2500 Major League games, that is quite a career!

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR AWARD- 1975 SUB-SET

Next up in my ongoing awards sub-set through the 1970’s is a 1975 Rookie of the Year card for the 1974 winners, Bake McBride and Mike Hargrove, two players who went on to nice Major League careers:

In the National League, McBride played centerfield for the St. Louis Cardinals, and proceeded to bat .309 in his first big league season with 173 hits and 81 runs scored, 30 stolen bases and 56 runs batted in.
He would go on to bat a career .299 over his 11-year career playing with the Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies and Cleveland Indians before retiring after the 1983 season.
In the American League, Hargrove played in 131 games in his first taste of the Majors, ending up with a .323 batting average based on his 134 hits in 415 at-bats.
He also collected 49 walks, giving him an on-base=percentage of .395 which would be a familiar theme for his 12-year career, as the “Human Rain Delay” would retire with a very nice career OBP of .396, topping 100 walks four times.
Of course later on he would go into managing, leading the powerhouse Cleveland Indian teams of the 1990’s, winning two American League pennants before moving on to the Baltimore Orioles and Seattle Mariners through the 2007 season.