NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1973 LEE RICHARD

Time to go and give former Chicago White Sox infielder Lee Richard a “not so missing” card for 1973 after he played in just under a dozen games the previous season:

Now, you may notice I called Richard an “infielder”, yet the card shows him as an outfielder. Well that’s because in 1972, for the only season of his 5-year career, he played more games in the outfield than infield.
In the other four years he was primarily an infielder, so this makes for a unique card in his career, which spanned 1971 through 1976.
Richard appeared in only 11 games for the White Sox in 1972, hitting .241 with seven hits over 29 at-bats in his second year as a Big Leaguer.
In 1971 he made his debut and hit .231 over 87 games and 260 at-bats, collecting 60 hits with 38 runs scored and 17 runs batted in.
Sadly for him however, those would all be career-highs, as he’d never come close to that amount of action over the course of his career.
In 1976, which ended up being his last in the Majors, he was with the St. Louis Cardinals and played in 66 games, getting only 97 plate appearances and hitting .176.
He’d go on to play another two years in the Minors for the White Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates organizations, but never got the call-up to the Big Leagues again, retiring after 1978.

MISSING IN ACTION- 1977 LEE RICHARD

Here’s a “missing” 1977 card for Lee Richard, who finished up his five-year Major League career in 1976 with the St. Louis Cardinals:

Richard, who spent the first four of his MLB seasons as a member of the Chicago White Sox, played in 66 games for the Cardinals in 1976, batting .176 with 16 hits over 91 official at-bats.
After getting considerable playing time in his rookie year of 1971, playing in 87 games with 288 plate appearances, he’d never really get that shot again, topping out with those 66 games in his final year in the big leagues.
Over his five year career, Richard finished with a .209 batting average along with 103 hits in 492 at-bats while playing both the infield and outfield.