NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1977 JIM COX

Having already creating a 1975 card for today’s player of the “missing” variety, today I present a “not so missing” card for former Montreal Expos second baseman Jim Cox, who played the final baker’s dozen games in his brief four year career:

Over those 13 games, Cox batted .172 with five hits in 29 at-bats, driving in and scoring a couple of runs for Montreal, the only team he’d play for in the Big Leagues.
As a matter of fact they would be the only organization he’d ever play for, suiting up for Montreal’s Major and Minor league teams between 1972 and 1979.
It was odd that he didn’t get a card in the 1975 set since he played in 77 games during the 1974 season, with 270 plate appearances!
However we can easily forgive Topps for leaving him out of the 1977 set, leaving him with a spot on a multi-player rookie card in 1974 as the only card appearance of his career.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1972 MARV STAEHLE

Here’s a “not so missing” 1972 card for former infielder Marv Staehle, who wrapped up a seven-year Major League career with the Atlanta Braves the previous season:

Coming over from the Montreal Expos, where he played the 1st two seasons in the organization’s existence, Staehle appeared in 22 games for the Braves, batting .111 with four hits over 36 at-bats while playing both second and short.
He spent the first four years of his career with the Chicago White Sox, where he never appeared in more than 32 games in any one season.
All told, for his MLB career Staehle batted .207 with 94 knocks over 455 official at-bats, with a single home run, 33 runs batted in and 53 runs scored while playing the middle infield positions.

NEGRO BASEBALL LEGENDS- NEWT ALLEN

Today we celebrate the somewhat overlooked great Negro League second baseman Newt Allen, who is sadly not in the Hall of Fame with some of his peers, but nevertheless was and still is considered one of the great players of his time:

A veteran of about 25 Negro League seasons spanning 1922 to 1947, he spent the bulk of it with the Kansas City Monarchs, building a reputation as one of the fastest base runners of his time, while also becoming arguably the greatest fielding second baseman of his era.
Sadly I can’t find much on this forgotten star, but am more than happy to have him included in this thread honoring the guys that paved the way for others after them!
He did make the list of 39 finalists in 2006 for the special Negro Leagues Hall of Fame election, but fell short of the 17 players who eventually were voted in.
Hopefully this can be rectified sooner than later, bringing him into the Cooperstown fold for countless more baseball fans to appreciate by seeing and reading his plaque.

1975 IN-ACTION: TONY PEREZ

The next star of 1970’s baseball to get the 1975 “In-Action” treatment is none other than Tony Perez, “Big Red Machine” cog and RBI-machine, who was on his way to a sixth 100+-RBI season by season’s end:

Perez truly was an overlooked star on a team that would also have guys like Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan, just to name a few, and it’s just plain criminal considering he logged 10 seasons in a row over 90+ runs batted in, with six of them over 100 as stated earlier.
With a batting average hovering around .280, he was a solid and steady force at the plate and out in the field for a team that would become legendary, on their way to two straight championships in 1975 and 1976.
He would play for 23 seasons in the Major Leagues, and end up with 379 homers, 1652 RBI’s, 2732 hits and a very nice .279 average before he left the game at the age of 44.
The “Big Dog”, Sparky Anderson always stated that what killed the “Big Red Machine” from dominating longer was trading away their slugging first baseman in December of 1976 to the Montreal Expos for Woodie Fryman and Dale Murray, a trade that still baffles me.
Nevertheless, after nine tries, he finally made it into the Hall of Fame in 2000, and rightly so. Hopefully Pete Rose can also join his former teammates someday as well.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION-1974 JIM GEDDES

Next up on the blog is a “not so missing” 1974 card for two-year Major League Pitcher Jim Geddes of the Chicago White Sox:

Geddes, who had his rookie card in the 1973 set, played out what would be the rest of his brief MLB career when he appeared in six games during the 1973 season, not factoring in a decision but posting a nice 2.87 earned run average over 15.2 innings of work.
The previous season he appeared in five games, again not factoring in a decision, while posting a bloated 6.97 earned run average in 10.1 innings pitched.
Those two brief tastes of the Big Leagues would be it for Geddes, as he’d pitch two more seasons in the Minor Leagues before calling it a career.
All told, he pitched 26 innings of Major League ball, without a record and a 4.50 E.R.A. over eleven appearances, all for the South-Siders.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1975 TOM HEINTZELMAN

Here’s a 1975 card for a guy who had one card as a Major League player, a spot on the multi-player rookie cards of the 1974 set, Tom Heintzelman, who would put in a brief four year career, but could be argued to have missed out on two cards by Topps:

After a brief cup-of-coffee in 1973 (hence the rookie card the following year), he would make it back to the Big Leagues in 1974 with the St. Louis Cardinals, appearing in 38 games, batting .230 with 17 hits over 74 at-bats.
He also had 10 runs scored and nine walks in that brief period of play, but would find himself spending the next few seasons in the Minor Leagues, putting up some nice numbers.
In 1977 he’d be back, albeit for only two games with the San Francisco Giants where he went 0-for-2 at the plate as a pinch-hitter before playing the last 27 games of his career the following season, batting .229 with eight hits in 35 at-bats, generally as a pinch-hitter.
All told he played four brief seasons, batting .243 with 34 hits in 140 at-bats spread out over 90 games with the Cardinals and Giants.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1977 AL JAVIER

Here’s another former player from the decade that only appeared during a late-season call-up for the sum total of his MLB career, former Houston Astros outfielder Al Javier:

Javier’s big league career consisted of eight games between September 9th and October 1st of 1976, batting .208 with five hits over 24 at-bats, all of the singles variety.
Toiling in the Houston Minor League system since 1971, he would find himself back down there in 1977, having a very nice season for the Columbus Astros of the Southern League before moving on to the Chicago Cubs organizations, for whom he’d play through the 1980 season before leaving for a couple of years in the Mexican League.
He never did get another shot in the Majors and was out of pro ball at the age of 28 in 1982.