#336 - All Star Left Fielders

On to the outfielders. First off, the only thing saving this card from being labeled an ugly one because of that huge hole in Pete Rose's teeth is the guy behind him in one of those old straw campaign hats who looks like he's puffing on a stogie. Now that's old-time baseball. Pete is at an away stadium somewhere while his counterpart Bobby Murcer gets to pose near his home batting cage. When these teams were selected it seems that the AL went heavy on the infielders while the NL loaded up on outfielders. For the NL it worked, judging by the score. The specific outfield designations are pretty subjective so I am defaulting to the designations given by the box score and baseball-reference. Let's look at the AL left fielders first:

Bobby Murcer - .305 with 18 homers and 68 RBI's
Willie Horton - .349 with 13 homers and 40 RBI's.

Can't argue with these picks. Willie was killing the ball despite some missed time and Bobby was putting up one of his best seasons. Willie actually played left that year but Bobby was actually all center field so he got to pull an Aaron for the game.
Over in the NL we get:

Pete Rose - .324 with 2 homers and 34 RBI's
Bob Watson - .325 with 9 homers and 62 RBI's
Manny Mota - .351 with 1 homer and 20 RBI's
Ron Fairly - .307 with 10 homers and 27 RBI's
Willie Stargell - .293 with 28 homers and 72 RBI's

See, lots and lots of left fielders and they were all primarily in that position in the regular season in '73 so the NL gets high grades for accuracy. Rose was on his way to an MVP so nice going by the fans. Watson was making a name for himself with his second consecutive big year after finally getting to play regularly. Mota only played about half the games but he sure seems to have maxed out his time. Fairly was the sole Expo on the team and Willie was chasing Pete for that MVP. Again I think the NL gets the nod on this position.


So now the cat is pretty much out of the bag as to our All-Star Game MVP.

Since after the long weekend there's no music to catch up on, let's get caught up some more on the whole Watergate thing:

9/29/72 - The Washington Post, pretty much breaking a story a day at this point, reported that while John Mitchell was Nixon's Attorney General he controlled a slush fund used to finance intelligence-gathering operations against Democrats.

10/10/72 - The Post gets some FBI dirt that found out the break-in was only part of a big political spying and sabotage campaign waged by CREEP on the Democrats.

11/11/72 - Nixon wins a second term in a huge landslide.