MAJOR LEAGUE FOUNDERS: CAP ANSON 1876-1976

Cap Anson, the greatest player of the 19th Century, and one of the most important figures in baseball’s long history, and a guy you cannot leave out of a “100th Anniversary” sub-set celebrating the 100th season of Major League ball for the 1976 set:

Anson put together an outstanding 27-year career between 1871 and 1897, going from the National Association to the Majors and, alongside Al Spalding and George Wright becoming one of the most important figures in the games early league formation.
The first player to reach 3000 hits, Anson collected 3435 total professional knocks along with 2075 runs batted in, 1999 runs scored and 582 doubles before he hung up the spikes, all league records at the time.
During his storied career he led the league in RBI’s eight times, batting average four times, and topped .300 an incredible 24 times, 20 of which were consecutive from the start of his career!
His influence was huge, and not until guys like Cobb and Wagner came into the picture would there be another player like him, and was evident by his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.

A DECENT AIRBRUSH JOB THAT WAS INEXPLICABLY CUT SHORT...

The 1973 Walt “No Neck” Williams card is an interesting one.
Check it out:

Weird how the Topps folks went and airbrushed the “C” for Cleveland onto the old red White Sox cap, doping a decent job of it at that.
Yet you can clearly see the “S” from “Sox” on the right side of the jersey along with the red pin-striping of the Chicago jersey.
Reminds me of the 1972 Rich McKinney card with the same type of incomplete airbrushing job.
Gotta say though, I love stuff like this. Made it so much fun to notice these things as a collector.
Sadly, Williams passed away this January at the age of 72, leaving us with one of the best nicknames of the 1970’s, or any other decade for that matter.
RIP “No Neck”...

ANOTHER GREAT CARD FROM 1976- JIM PALMER

Wanted to spotlight yet another card from that awesome 1976 set that I love so much to this day: Jim Palmer’s colorful cardboard slab shown here:

Man the colors, the action, the future Hall of Fame pitcher in the prime of his career. It’s got it all.
Palmer was hitting 30 years of age with no sign of slowing down when this card came out, posting his sixth 20-win season with a league-leading 22 and taking home his third Cy Young Award, a record at that time.
He’d go on to finish with 268 wins with a brilliant 2.86 earned run average and 2212 K’s, along with 53 shutouts and a .638 winning percentage.
Throw in his three Cy’s, six all-star nods and four Gold Gloves and the man was the cream of the crop as far as American League pitchers go for the decade.
You know, there's something about those slightly unclear photos in this day of "high resolution/high definition" modernity that still hits home as far as "the way it was" and how great growing up when I did really is...

MISSING IN ACTION- 1977 CLAY KIRBY

Here’s a “missing” 1977 card for former pitcher Clay Kirby, who closed out a decent 8-year career in 1976 with a handful of games for the Montreal Expos:

Kirby appeared in 22 games for Montreal, finishing up with a 1-8 record with a 5.72 earned run average over 78.2 innings.
Those would be the last Major League games for him, after five seasons with the San Diego Padres and two with the Cincinnati Reds between 1969 and 1975.
He can probably be considered the first pitching ace of the San Diego Padres organization, putting up some solid seasons for terrible teams from the team’s inception through their fifth year in existence.
1971 would easily be his best season, when he posted a 15-13 record with a 2.83 ERA, 13 complete games, a couple of shutouts and 231 strikeouts.
On a good team this guy easily would have posted 20+ wins that season, but as it was his final career stats suffered, ending up with a 75-104 record with a 3.84 ERA, eight shutouts and 1061 strikeouts over 261 games and 1548 innings pitched.

MISSING IN ACTION- 1979 STEVE STAGGS

Here’s a “missing” 1979 card for former infielder Steve Staggs, who played parts of two seasons in the Major Leagues:

Staggs appeared in 47 games for Oakland since coming over from Toronto before the 1978 season.
In those games he hit .244 while filling in in the infield, with 19 hits spread out over 78 at-bats.
The previous season he got his first taste of the Majors when he came up with the Blue Jays and appeared in 72 games, hitting .258 with 75 hits in 291 at-bats.
For that action he got his one and only Topps card in the 1978 set.
But sadly for him those two seasons would be it, and he’d find himself in the Montreal Expos minor league system in 1979 before leaving the game for good as a player.
All told he hit .255 for his short career, with 94 hits in 369 at-bats over 119 games.

MISSING IN ACTION- 1976 ALEX JOHNSON (1976 PROJECT)

Here’s a card for former American League batting champ Alex Johnson, who was left out of the 1976 set by Topps, and is part of the ongoing “1976 Project” I’ve been working on with “Reader Jim”:

Nice shot of Johnson at the batting cages while with the New York Yankees.
Johnson was at the end of his career by the time he found himself in the Bronx, even though he could still hit and was only in his early 30’s.
He appeared in only 52 games for the Yankees during the 1975 season, hitting .261 with 31 hits in 119 official at-bats while DH-ing and playing some outfield.
The following year he found himself with the Detroit Tigers, playing a relatively full season and hitting a respectable .268 with 115 hits in 429 at-bats.
But that would actually end up being the last Major League action he’d see, playing one more season of pro ball down in Mexico before calling it a career at the age of only 33.
Johnson had some very nice seasons in the big leagues, topped off by his batting crown in 1970 while with the California Angels when he barely edged Carl Yastrzemski with his .329 average.
He collected a career high 202 hits that season, with 85 runs scored, 14 homers and 86 runs batted in while being named to his only all-star team and finishing eighth in MVP voting.
By the time his 13-year career was over in 1977, he collected 1331 hits over 4623 at-bats, good for a .288 batting average.
Very respectable for that era as we all know.

MISSING IN ACTION: 1971 CLEO JAMES

Here’s a “missing” 1971 Topps card for former Chicago Cubs player Cleo James, who actually appeared in 100 games for the Cubbies during the 1970 season:

James hit .210 in that time, collecting 37 hits over 176 at-bats, and scored 33 runs while driving in 14 with a dozen extra-base-hits while playing all three outfield positions.
Funny enough he’d appear in the 1972 Topps set with about half the playing time in 1971, so go figure. I could never figure Topps player selection out.
After 44 games for the Cubs in 1973 his career was over, playing parts of four seasons between 1968 and 1973 with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cubs, finishing with a .228 average based on his 87 hits in 381 at-bats over 208 lifetime games.