Both a “missing” card and “career capper”, here’s a 1978 Cookie Rojas creation to celebrate a nice 16-year career:
Rojas appeared in 64 games for the Western Division champ Royals in 1977, hitting an even .250 with 39 hits over 156 at-bats.
A five-time all-star, Rojas slapped his way through the Majors,
collecting 1660 lifetime hits over 1822 games, with only 333 of those
hits going for extra bases.
Of his 16 years in the Major Leagues, he played eight with the Royals
and seven with the Philadelphia Phillies, for whom he first made a name
for himself between 1963 and 1969.
Time
to go and create a “traded” card for “Boomer” George Scott, the player
the Red Sox got in return for Cecil Cooper on December 6th, 1976, who I
covered a while back:
Already an all-star for the Red Sox between 1966 and 1971 before heading
to Milwaukee, Scott came back and continued his bashing ways in 1977,
hitting 33 homers with 95 runs batted in and 103 runs scored, getting
him his third and final all-star nod.
Sadly for the Red Sox, Scott’s production would drop-off, to the point
he found himself in Kansas City in 1979, whereas Cecil Cooper went on to
a borderline Hall of Fame career with the Brewers through the 1980’s.
Nevertheless, Scott put together an excellent 14-year career that saw
him collect just under 2000 hits, 271 home runs and 1051 RBI’s along
with eight Gold Gloves for his fielding at first base.
Not bad at all...
Let’s cap off former MVP Ken Boyer’s career with a 1970 card after wrapping up a very nice 15-year career:
Boyer played out his Major League playing days with 25 games for Los Angeles, hitting .206 while playing first base.
That would mark the end of a career that saw him top a .300 batting
average five times, drive in 100 or more runs twice and score 100+ three
times while collecting over 2000 hits, slam 282 homers and drive in
over 1100 runs.
He also would cop the 1964 National League Most Valuable Player Award
after leading the team to a World Series win over the New York Yankees.
He was also named to seven all-star teams while taking home five Gold Gloves for his fielding at third base.
After
completing what was to be a Hall of Fame career as a player, Nellie Fox
put in some time as a coach for both the Houston Astros and Washington
Senators/Texas Rangers.
So I decided to whip up a 1971 “Fantasy Coach” card for him:
After coaching in Houston between 1965 and 1967 he moved on to
Washington where he seemed to be in line to take over managerial duties
after Jim Lemon stepped down. But after the great Ted Williams was hired
to take over at the helm, Fox stayed on and moved with the organization
to Texas when they became the Rangers.
Sadly, Fox was diagnosed with skin cancer in 1973, and after a two year
battle he passed away in December of 1975 at the very young age of 47.
Though he just missed being elected to the Hall by the BBWA in 1985,
garnering 74.7% of the vote, he was finally (and justly) elected by the
Veteran’s committee in 1997, capping off a tremendous career that saw
him collect over 2600 hits, score over 1200 runs and take home an MVP
Award in 1959 while sparking the “Go-Go” White Sox to an American League
pennant.
Next
up in my “Turn Back the Clock” thread is former Brooklyn Dodgers
pitcher Carl Erskine, who pitched his second career no-hitter in 1956
against the New York Giants on May 12th:
After tossing his first gem back in 1952 against the Chicago Cubs,
Erskine came back to do the same against a powerful Giants team led by
Willie Mays, joining the likes of Virgil Trucks and Allie Reynolds to
pitch more than one no-hitter in the decade.
He put together a very nice 12-year career, all with the Dodgers
organization between 1948 and 1959, posting a 122-78 record, good for a
.610 winning percentage while being a part of five World Series,
collecting a 2-2 record with two championships in 1955 and 1959.
Here’s another great in-action card from the 1971 Topps set, Lee May:
Nothing fancy. Just a nice in game shot of the big man at first base holding a man close to the bag.
It’s a wonder why Topps screwed up their “In-Action” sub-set the
following year when they had so many good action cards in the 1971 set
(Munson, McDaniel, etc).
Nevertheless, a classic shot on a classic set right here.
Sadly for May, he was about to find himself in Houston as part of the
trade that brought Cincinnati their final piece of the “Big Red Machine”
puzzle, Joe Morgan.
While the Reds would go on to arguably be the team of the decade with
Morgan as their spark plug, May would play for the Astros and then the
Orioles, missing out on all that Reds glory.
I
think blog reader Joe mentioned that I should create a “missing” 1972
“in-action” card for former all-star catcher Ray Fosse, so here goes:
Fosse was coming off of two straight all-star campaigns in 1970 and 1971 with the Cleveland Indians.
Of course we’ll always remember his meeting at the plate with a
steamrolling Pete Rose, resulting in an injured shoulder for Fosse that
some say curtailed his promise the rest of his career.
Nevertheless, Fosse put together a very nice 12-year career that
included two Gold Gloves to go with the all-star nods, as well as two
championships while with the Oakland A’s in 1973 and 1974.
FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER...
@wthballs
Everything baseball: cards, events, history and more.
