1971 "BASEBALL'S GREATEST MOMENTS": TOMMY DAVIS

Today we have another "missing" 1971 Baseball's Greatest Moments" card, this time a card celebrating underrated Tommy Davis and his two straight batting titles in the early 1960's while with the Los Angeles Dodgers:

Still in his early 20's, the Brooklyn native reeled off two titles in 1962 and 1963 when he hit .346 and .326 respectively, giving him top-10 MVP finishes each year.

The highlight of his career is easily his 1962 season when he won the first of his two straight batting titles, hitting .346 with 230 hits, 27 homers, 153 RBIs and 120 runs scored.

Incredibly, those numbers only got him a third place finish in the National league MVP race at season's end, with teammate Maury Wills taking the award and Willie Mays seemingly robbed with a second place finish.

By the time he finished up, he played in 1999 games, with a nice .294 lifetime average, 2121 hits, 153 homers and 1052 runs batted in.

The advent of the Designated Hitter prolonged his career between 1973 and 1976, as the previous few years were sporadic efforts at best with no less than five teams: the White Sox, Pilots, Astros, A's and Cubs.

As a D.H. he found new life with the Baltimore Orioles as their main "man with the bat" between 1973 and 1975.

One last thought: interesting to remember that between 1949 and 1998, Tommy Davis was the ONLY Major League player to reach 150+ runs batted in for a season, when he did so in 1962, funny enough the ONLY time he even topped 100 in his 18-year career.

REVISITING A POST FROM OCTOBER, 2013: A MISSING 1973 TOMMY DAVIS CARD

On the blog today, we revisit my blog post from Halloween of 2013, a "missing" 1973 card for two-time batting champ, and a favorite of mine to use on Immaculate Grid, Tommy Davis:

Here's the original write-up for the post from way back when:

"You'd think a former two-time batting champ and twelve year veteran of the Major Leagues would get a little more respect than Tommy Davis did in 1973 with Topps.

In a year that see's Topps issue player cards to the likes of Jose Arcia, Monty montgomery or Jim Geddes, you'd think that a former star player who accumulated over 100 at-bats the previous year would warrant a card.

Well, we've seen a bunch of other strange choices Topps made regarding player selection for their sets, so I guess I shouldn't be TOO surprised here.

But funny enough, even though Tommy Davis was in a state of flux with his career in the early 1970's, 1973 would be a sort of rebirth for him, as he filled in wonderfully for the Baltimore Orioles as their first full-time designated hitter, ending the season with a 10th place finish in the A.L. M.V.P. Voting.

For the season Davis ended up hitting .306 with seven homers and 89 runs batted in over the course of 137 games. Not bad for a guy who bounced around and played for five teams the previous three years.

By all accounts Davis went on to an even better year in 1974, hitting .284 with 11 homers and 84 R.B.I.'s with 181 hits in 626 at-bats at the age of 35, once again getting Most Valuable Player attention.

Well, I've gone and created a 1973 card for Davis, one that easily should have been in place of a few players Topps decided to go with that year.

I can't finish this post profiling Tommy Davis without mentioning his kick-ass 1962 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That season he crushed everything thrown his way, hitting a league-leading .346 with 230 hits, nine triples, 27 homers and astounding 153 runs batted in! He also threw in 18 stolen bases for good measure. 

All those numbers got him a third place in M.V.P. Voting behind teammate Maury Wills and the Giants' Willie Mays, who I think got robbed of the award.

But hey, that's for another day…"

EXPANDED YEARLY LEADER CARDS: 1974 A.L. BATTING

Ok now!

Today we move on to the American League in my on-going "expanded league leaders" thread, celebrating the top-3 hitters of the Junior Circuit for 1973:

 

Of course we begin with the great Rod Carew, who obliterated the league with his .350 batting average, 44 points ahead of the second place batter!!!

Carew took home his third batting title that year, aloso leading the league with his 203 hits and 11 triples, while making his seventh straight All-Star team and finishing fourth in the MVP race at season's end.

Seriously, the man was just eons ahead of anyone else at this point as far as hitting, heading straight for the Hall of Fame and cementing his place as one of the game's greatest natural hitters.

Surprisingly, the second and third place finishers in the A.L. batting race, both tied at .306, were a slugger who posted his career-best average, George Scott, and a man who made a big comeback, resurrecting his MLB career as a Designated Hitter, former two-time batting champ Tommy Davis.

For Scott, his .306 average was accompanied by his 24 home runs and 107 runs batted in, while leading the league with 295 total bases.

He also took home his fifth Gold Glove Award, and would end up with eight such awards before his career was over.

For Davis, who was the Baltimore Orioles full-time DH in its first year in existence, he came back to have his best year in the Big Leagues since 1967 when he was a New York Met, giving the "O's" 89 RBIs in addition to his second place finish in the batting race, garnering a tenth-place finish in the MVP race.

The 35-year-old found new life as a DH, and would give Baltimore another solid season the following year when he'd hit .289 with 84 RBIs with 181 hits, his last truly full season in the Majors before retiring after 1976.

Next up, we move on to the National League's top home run hitters of 1973. See you next week!

GIMMIE A DO-OVER: 1970 TOMMY DAVIS

On the blog today we have a do-over for former batting champ Tommy Davis and his 1970 card, which had some generic image of him while being depicted as a Houston Astros player:

I found a really nice image of him suited up with the Astros, so I figured I'd "fix" the original, which also adds a little more color as a bonus because of the uniform.

Davis began the 1969 season as a member of the one-year wonders Seattle Pilots before finding himself down South with Houston.

Combined he put together another solid season, driving in 89 runs while hitting .266 with 142 hits and 32 doubles between the two teams.

It would be a hectic period for the former two-time batting champion, playing for no less than NINE teams between 1967 and 1976 after starting his career with eight years as a Los Angeles Dodger.

The highlight of his career is easily his 1962 season when he won the first of his two straight batting titles, hitting .346 with 230 hits, 27 homers, 153 RBIs and 120 runs scored.

Incredibly, those numbers only got him a third place finish in the National league MVP race at season's end, with teammate Maury Wills taking the award and Willie Mays seemingly robbed with a second place finish.

By the time he finished up, he played in 1999 games, with a nice .294 lifetime average, 2121 hits, 153 homers and 1052 runs batted in.

The advent of the Designated Hitter prolonged his career between 1973 and 1976, as the previous few years were sporadic efforts at best with no less than five teams: the White Sox, Pilots, Astros, A's and Cubs.

As a D.H. he found new life with the Baltimore Orioles as their main "man with the bat" between 1973 and 1975.

One last thought: interesting to remember that between 1949 and 1998, Tommy Davis was the ONLY Major League player to reach 150+ runs batted in for a season, when he did so in 1962, funny enough the ONLY time he even topped 100 in his 18-year career.

MINOR LEAGUE DAYS- TOMMY DAVIS

I just had to give two time batting champ Tommy Davis, a fellow Brooklynite, a card in my long-running 1971 "Minor League Days" sub-set since I feel the man is a bit overlooked.

So here you go:

Davis was a 19-year-old Minor League stud when this photo was taken while playing for the Victoria Rosebuds back in 1958, a season split with the Montreal Royals that saw him hit .304 with 14 homers and 74 runs batted in over 136 games.

He would put in one more year in the Minors the following season, a monster, hitting .345 with 211 hits for Spokane before a late-season call-up where he appeared in one game for Los Angeles.

In 1960 he was off to the races, going on to play 18 years in the Big Leagues, the highlight being his 1962 season when he won the first of his two straight batting titles, hitting .346 with 230 hits, 27 homers, 153 RBIs and 120 runs scored.

Incredibly, those numbers only got him a third place finish in the National league MVP race at season's end, with teammate Maury Wills taking the award and Willie Mays seemingly robbed with a second place finish.

By the time he finished up, he played in 1999 games, with a nice .294 lifetime average, 2121 hits, 153 homers and 1052 runs batted in.

The advent of the Designated Hitter prolonged his career between 1973 and 1976, as the previous few years were sporadic efforts at best with no less than five teams: the White Sox, Pilots, Astros, A's and Cubs.

As a D.H. he found new life with the Baltimore Orioles as their main "man with the bat" between 1973 and 1975.

One last thought: interesting to remember that between 1949 and 1998, Tommy Davis was the ONLY Major League player to reach 150+ runs batted in for a season, when he did so in 1962, funny enough the ONLY time he even topped 100 in his 18-year career.
Go figure...

 

SEASONAL LEADERS OF THE 1960¹s- RUNS BATTED IN

Next up for the 1960’s high-water mark leader’s sub-set in the 1970 set is Runs Batted In, which gives us our first tie in a statistical category.
Take a look:

First off we have the high-mark in RBI’s for the Majors during the 1960’s, and it was a doozy, with the 153 runs batted in that Tommy Davis had in 1962 while also leading the league in batting.
A monster year for the Los Angeles Dodger that, sadly for him, was lost with the performances of teammate Maury Wills, who would take home the Most Valuable Player Award that season.
Heck, he didn’t even finish SECOND in voting that year, having to also take a back seat to legend Willie Mays, who took the second slot behind the record-breaking speedster Wills.
As for the American high-mark, it was a tie between New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris, who notched 141 RBI’s during his record-breaking 1961 season, as well as Baltimore Orioles slugger Jim Gentile, who drove in the same amount to share the leader slot that very same season.
Ironically, for YEARS Roger Maris was credited as the A.L. leader with 142 RBI’s, one more than Gentile.
But some 20 years ago it was found that Maris was credited with an extra RBI so the number was “fixed” to 141, giving Gentile equal share of the leader position for not just the year, but 1960’s.

AWESOME CARD- 1972 IN-ACTION TOMMY DAVIS

I have always thought the Tommy Davis “In Action” card was one of the best of the 1972 sub-set by Topps.
Check it out:

What a great in-game photo used for the horizontal format card!
Looks like New York Yankee Horace Clarke is taking a running lead while Davis is coming off the bag on the pitch.
Now THAT is doing an “In Action” card right! Wish they were all this good instead of cards like Bob Barton, etc.
One last thought: interesting to remember that between 1949 and 1998, Tommy Davis was the ONLY Major League player to reach 150+ runs batted in for a season, when he did so in 1962, funny enough the ONLY time he even topped 100 in his 18-year career.
Go figure...

THEN AND NOW #28: TOMMY DAVIS 1977

Here was a rough one to create: a 1977 "Then and Now" card of Tommy Davis as a Kansas City Royals player.

Take a look:

By 1977 Davis was already done as a Major League player, having played his last game for the Royals during their first run to the playoffs in 1976.

He only appeared in eight games for K.C., and even his 1977 "last card" was an airbrush job.

I had to get a little creative and find a good pose to drop Davis into. Not my finest "Photoshopping", but for this post it will do. If I find an actual photo of him as a Royal, I'll gladly re-do this one.

Davis had himself a nice 18-year career that saw him win two consecutive batting titles with the Dodgers in 1962 and '63, and R.B.I. crown in 1962 with a whopping 153, and also a league-leader in hits with 230 the very same year.

By the time he finished up, he played in 1999 games, with a nice .294 lifetime average, 2121 hits, 153 homers and 1052 runs batted in.

The advent of the Designated Hitter prolonged his career between 1973 and 1976, as the previous few years were sporadic efforts at best with no less than five teams: the White Sox, Pilots, Astros, A's and Cubs.

As a D.H. he found new life with the Baltimore Orioles as their main "man with the bat" between 1973 and 1975.

MISSING IN ACTION- 1973 TOMMY DAVIS

You'd think a former two-time batting champ and twelve year veteran of the Major Leagues would get a little more respect than Tommy Davis did in 1973 with Topps.

In a year that see's Topps issue player cards to the likes of Jose Arcia, Monty montgomery or Jim Geddes, you'd think that a former star player who accumulated over 100 at-bats the previous year would warrant a card.

Well, we've seen a bunch of other strange choices Topps made regarding player selection for their sets, so I guess I shouldn't be TOO surprised here.

But funny enough, even though Tommy Davis was in a state of flux with his career in the early 1970's, 1973 would be a sort of rebirth for him, as he filled in wonderfully for the Baltimore Orioles as their first full-time designated hitter, ending the season with a 10th place finish in the A.L. M.V.P. Voting.

For the season Davis ended up hitting .306 with seven homers and 89 runs batted in over the course of 137 games. Not bad for a guy who bounced around and played for five teams the previous three years.

By all accounts Davis went on to an even better year in 1974, hitting .284 with 11 homers and 84 R.B.I.'s with 181 hits in 626 at-bats at the age of 35, once again getting Most Valuable Player attention.

Well, I've gone and created a 1973 card for Davis, one that easily should have been in place of a few players Topps decided to go with that year.

 

A comeback year for the former two-time batting champ.

 

I can't finish this post profiling Tommy Davis without mentioning his kick-ass 1962 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That season he crushed everything thrown his way, hitting a league-leading .346 with 230 hits, nine triples, 27 homers and astounding 153 runs batted in! He also threw in 18 stolen bases for good measure. 

All those numbers got him a third place in M.V.P. Voting behind teammate Maury Wills and the Giants' Willie Mays, who I think got robbed of the award.

But hey, that's for another day…