Here’s
a “not so missing” 1973 card for former Oakland A’s outfielder Bobby
Brooks, who made it back to the Majors in 1972 after a year in Minor
League ball:
Brooks appeared in 15 games for Oakland during the 1972 season, batting
.179 with seven hits over 39 at-bats while filling in at centerfield.
In 1973 he’d find himself as a member of the California Angels, where
he’d play the last four games of his brief four-year Big League career,
collecting a single over seven at-bats.
Overall, he retired with a .231 batting average, with 33 hits over 143
at-bats spread out over 55 games, while playing all three outfield slots
for Oakland and California.
I
always wanted to create a card for Hall of Fame reliever Hoyt Wilhelm
in a California Angels uniform, so I figured a Nickname card for the
1970 set would be a good fit, so here goes, a card for “Old Sarge”:
Incredibly, Wilhelm was already a 47-year old “uber-veteran” by the time
this card would have come out, splitting the 1969 season between the
Angels and Atlanta Braves after an excellent six year run with the
Chicago White Sox that saw him post sub-2.00 ERA’s five straight
seasons, ALL after the age of 40!
The man was amazing. To think he didn’t even break into Big League ball
until the age of 29, yet still put together a 21-year career!
Imagine if he was able to get into the Majors in his early-20’s?
Regardless, he went on to set the Major League record (since broken) for
appearances by a pitcher, with 1070, post 228 saves, win 143 games, and
post a wonderful 2.52 earned run average.
I’ve always also loved the fact that in the only two seasons of his
career that he pitched enough innings to qualify, he led the league in
ERA: 1952 and 1959.
AND, he is STILL the last pitcher to throw a complete game no-hitter
against the Yankees, which he did in 1958 while with the Baltimore
Orioles.
A true baseball legend.
Next
up in the 1975 “In-Action” thread is Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman
Ron Cey, aka “The Penguin”, who was just about getting started as a
perennial National League All-Star, on his way to an excellent 17-year
career:
Cey was coming off of his first All-Star berth in 1974, helping the
Dodgers get to the World Series before losing the series to three-time
champs the Oakland A’s.
Over the next 16 seasons you could pretty much pencil him in for about
25 home runs,80-85 runs batted in, and a .275 batting average.
After the 1982 season he moved on to the Chicago Cubs where he’d play
for another four seasons, then finish up his career with a single season
in Oakland.
By the time he retired, he collected 1868 hits, with 316 home runs, 1139 RBIs and 977 runs scored with a .261 batting average.
He was named to the All-Star team six straight seasons between 1974 and
1979, and garnered MVP consideration five seasons, with four of them
consecutive from 1974 to 1977.
Here’s
a “not so missing” 1975 card for former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Dave
Johnson, who played the first 11 games of his Major League career during
the 1974 season:
Johnson posted a record of 2-2 over those eleven games, all out of the
bullpen, with a very nice 2.93 earned run average in 15.1 innings
pitched, with two saves.
He’d appear in six games during the 1975 campaign before spending all of
1976 in the Minor Leagues. In those six appearances he’d go 0-1 with a
4.15 ERA in 8.2 innings of work.
He would make it back to the Big Leagues in 1978 and 1979, now as a
member of the Minnesota Twins, going 2-5 and 0-2 respectively in what
would end up being the last action on a Major League mound for his brief
four-year career.
Overall, he’d finish his stint in the Majors with a record of 4-10, with
an ERA of 4.64 over 53 appearances and 108.2 innings pitched.
Now,
while I am aware that our good friend at “Bottomms Cards” went ahead
and beat me to the punch on “missing” rookie trophies on 1970’s Topps
cards, I must state that I had this planned for months, and even created
the first few that will be profiled, so allow me to add to the mix and
post the first of quite a few, 1973 Tom Hutton:
Why Topps would miss the rookie trophy on some cards, yet go ahead and
place them on others in the SAME set is beyond me. Then again, there
were quite a few Topps decisions during the “wild-70’s” that left many
of us scratching our heads.
Anyway, picked as the “All-Star Rookie” first baseman by Topps for 1972,
Hutton should have had his card jazzed up with one of the trophies, but
he wasn’t, so I made the adjustment you see above.
Seeing full-time action six years after having his first taste of the
Majors in 1966, Hutton put in a nice rookie showing, batting .260 with
99 hits and 40 runs scored for the Philadelphia Phillies.
He also collected 22 extra-base-hits while driving in 38, also filling
in at all three outfield positions during the season when not at first
base.
He would go on and put together a 12-year Big League career before
retiring as a player in 1981, finishing up with a .248 average, with 410
hits in 1655 at-bats over 952 games.
Sadly for him, the amount of playing time he saw in that rookie season
of 1972 would be the most in any one year for him the rest of the way.
I
love coming across the original images that were “touched up” by Topps
for their releases during the 1970’s. Here’s another, the image used for
former pitcher Bill Bonham’s 1978 card, reflecting his new team the
Cincinnati Reds:
Not a bad job here by the Topps artists! Once they saturated the image in production it really came out well.
Bonham spent the first seven seasons of his Big League career with the
Chicago Cubs, and though you may think leading the league with 22 losses
in 1974 is a terrible thing, you’d be surprised to see that besides the
losses, the campaign was perhaps his best season of his 10-year career!
He posted a 3.83 earned run average over 36 starts, with ten complete
games, two shutouts and 191 strikeouts over 242.2 innings pitched.
Obviously being a pitcher on a hard-luck team leaves you snake-bitten
(unless your name is Fergie Jenkins!), but Bonham did follow up that
year with a 13-15 season in 1975, though with an ERA almost a run higher
at 4.71.
He’d have a nice first year with the Reds, going 11-5 with a 3.53 ERA
over 23 appearances, all starts, and would go 9-7 and 2-1 over the last
two years of his career, finishing up with a record of 75-83 along with
an ERA of 4.01 over 300 appearances and 1487.1 innings between 1971 and
1980.
Time
to go and add another card to the 1970 set, a favorite of mine to do!
This time it’s a “not so missing” card for former White Sox pitcher Fred
Rath:
Rath appeared in what tuned out to be the final games of his brief Major
League career during the 1969 season, playing in three games, going 0-2
with a 7.72 earned run average over 11.2 innings of work.
The previous season was his first taste of the “Big Show”, appearing in
five games as a 24-year-old, not factoring in a decision while pitching
to a very nice 1.59 ERA over 11.1 innings, all out of the bullpen.
He’d spend the 1970 and 1971 seasons in the Minor Leagues, for both the
White Sox and Minnesota Twins organizations, before retiring as a player
for good.
All told his short stay on a Big League mound resulted in a record of
0-2 over eight games, with a 4.70 ERA in exactly 23 innings pitched.
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