Here’s
a “not so missing” 1978 card for former catcher John Tamargo, who
started off his five-year Major League career with the St. Louis
Cardinals, including four games during the 1977 season after breaking in
with 10 in 1976:
Tamargo went 0-for-4 at the plate for St. Louis over those four games in
1977, while collecting three hits over 10 at-bats in his first taste of
the Big Leagues in 1976.
In 1978 he’d end up splitting the season between St. Louis and the San
Francisco Giants, batting .224 over 42 games, with 22 hits in 98
at-bats.
The following year he’d end up splitting between the Giants and Montreal
Expos, hitting .247, before playing out what would be his last as an
active player in 1980 with the Expos, hitting .275 over 37 games, with
13 runs batted in, both career highs.
Overall for his major League tenure, Tamargo ended up hitting .242 with
59 hits in 244 at-bats, scoring 19 runs while driving in 33 over 135
games.
Up
on the blog today we have a “not so missing” 1977 card for former Los
Angeles Dodgers pitcher Dennis Lewallyn, for whom I also created a 1978
edition a while back:
Lewallyn appeared in four games during the 1976 season, posting a record
of 1-1 with a nice 2.16 earned run average over 16.2 innings of work.
The 1977 campaign would go on to be the most action he’d see over his
eight-year Major League career, albeit still a small amount in the grand
scheme of things, as he’d pitch 17 innings over five appearances, with a
3-1 record and 4.24 ERA for the National League champs.
He’d pitch one season with the Texas Rangers in 1980, appearing in four
games, then moving on to the Cleveland Indians, for whom he’d pitch the
last two seasons of his career, appearing in 11 combined games between
1981 and 1982.
Overall, Lewallyn appeared in 34 Major League games, with a 4-4 record
and 4.48 ERA over 80.1 innings pitched, starting three of those games
and finishing 15.
The
next “Nicknames of the 1970’s” card in my long-running series is a 1971
edition for former New York Yankee Horace “Hoss” Clarke, second baseman
during the “dark years” of the Bronx franchise between 1965 and 1973:
I chose the 1971 template since Clarke was coming off of his two best
seasons in the Major Leagues, collecting 183 and 172 hits respectively
in 1969 and 1970, topping 80 runs each year along with 56 stolen bases
combined.
He led the American League with 641 and a whopping 686 at-bats in these
campaigns, with over 700 plate appearances each year as well.
A solid player for the Yankees during some lean seasons, Clarke played 9
1/2 of his 10-year Big League career in the Bronx, finishing up with a
half-season with the San Diego Padres in 1974 before retiring.
All told, “Hoss” finished with a .256 career average, with 1230 hits and
151 stolen bases over 1272 games and 4813 at-bats between 1965 and
1974.
Up
on the blog today we have a “not so missing” 1976 card for former
pitcher John Montague, who split his 1975 season between the Montreal
Expos and Philadelphia Phillies:
Over 15 combined appearances, Montague posted a record of 0-1 with an earned run average of 6.35 over 22.2 innings of work.
He’d spend all of 1976 in the Minor Leagues, putting in a very nice
season for the Phillies organization, before being selected in the
expansion draft by the Seattle Mariners.
In 1977 he’d go on to see the most action of any of his seven Big League
seasons, appearing in 47 games and pitching to a 8-12 record with an
ERA at 4.29 over 182.1 innings, with two complete games and four saves.
He’d go on to pitch another three years in the Majors, evenly split
between the Mariners and California Angels until 1980, finishing up his
career with a record of 24-26 over 223 appearances, posting an ERA of
4.76 in 546.2 innings, with 21 saves and two complete games in 17
starts.
Today
on the blog I post up a career-capping “not so missing” 1972 card for
former pitcher, and fellow-Brooklynite Sal Campisi, who pitched the last
games of his brief three-year Big League career in 1971:
Campisi, who originally came up with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1969 and
continued pitching for them in 1970, found himself a member of the
Minnesota Twins in 1971, appearing in six games, not factoring in a
decision with an earned run average of 4.15 over 4.1 innings.
The previous season he appeared in a career-high 37 games for the
Cardinals, posting a record of 2-2 with a very nice 2.92 ERA over 49.1
innings, with four saves.
Sadly for him however, he’d never make it back to a Big League mound,
and from what I can gather, he retired for good as a pro player as well,
with those six appearances with the Twins his last on a professional
level.
Moving
ahead in my “No-Hitters Through the 1970’s” thread, we have the first
gem tossed during the 1972 season, Burt Hooton’s No-No against the
Philadelphia Phillies on April 16th:
Hooton, making only the fourth start of his Major League career, went on
to strike out seven Phillies, while also issuing seven walks in front
of the home-town fans at Wrigley Field, completing the game in 2 hours
and 22 minutes.
The 4-0 win was helped by two RBIs by catcher Randy Hundley, as well as
an RBI by second baseman Glenn Beckert, with future Hall of Famers Billy
Williams and Ron Santo each collecting three hits and scoring a run.
Hooton would go on to have a nice first full-season in 1972, posting an
ERA of .280, though his record betrayed the year, finishing at 11-14.
He would go on to have an excellent 15-year run, mainly with the Los
Angeles Dodgers, which saw him be a part of three National League
champion teams, as well as a World Championship in 1981.
His post-season resume was very good, finishing at 6-3 with an ERA at
3.17 over eleven starts, with 33 strikeouts and a complete game.
His final regular season numbers: 151 wins against 136 losses, a very
nice 3.38 ERA and 1491 strikeouts in 480 appearances (377 of those
starts), and 2652 innings pitched, with 29 shutouts and seven saves.
Here’s
a “not so missing” 1973 card for former second baseman and left-fielder
Chuck Goggins of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who made his MLB debut with
five games during the 1972 season:
Goggins went 2-for-7 at the plate, good for a .286 average, with a walk
thrown in while playing second base in one of those games.
The following year, after starting the season with Pittsburgh, he’d be
purchased by the Atlanta Braves where he’d appear in 64 games, batting a
combined .297 in 101 at-bats with 19 runs scored.
As the 1974 season was about to open up, he was traded to the Boston Red
Sox, where he’d end up playing in only two games, the last two games of
his Big League career, and what would end up the last of his pro
career.
All told, he played in 72 games in the Majors, batting a very nice .293
with 29 hits over 99 at-bats, with 19 runs scored and seven runs batted
in.
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