So what’s special about this
card? Well it’s a milestone number which is pretty odd in that it is being used
for a Rookie card. Nothing against any of these guys and one of them would
certainly have some years that came close to justifying his appearance of a
card of this stature, but at the time of this set there were certainly many
other viable and worthy candidates for card number 600. I find it hard to believe that Topps’ intention was to give this group that number and that it was
an oversight. But who knows? Maybe everything was so crazy with Watergate – I
gotta get back to that – and inflation that the boys making bubble gum just
said the hell with it and let the chips fall. And here are the chips...
Ron Cash had an interesting
run of things before he even got to the professional level. A star third
baseman in high school in Atlanta, he was
drafted in ’67 in a low round by the Dodgers but instead decided to go to Manatee Junior College
in Florida. He
played ball there the next two years even though he was drafted each semester
by, successively, the Orioles, the Braves, the Padres, and the Twins. He hit
.335 his freshman year and .346 his sophomore one and made all-state both years
but his biggest moment was probably a horrible car crash in October ’68 in
which he nearly lost his life and did lose his spleen. After rejecting the
Twins in June of ’69 he continued school at Florida State
and over the next two years hit .342 with 76 RBI’s and a .451 OBA. In ’70 he
helped take the team to the CWS with teammates Mac Scarce and Johnny Grubb and
in ’71 he was all-Southeast. That year he was finally nabbed by Detroit and he hit .333
the rest of the summer while playing primarily left field in A ball. He would
continue to do outfield time the next couple seasons and also move back to
third during that time as well. In ’72 he hit .286 in a season split between A
and Double A ball. Then in ’73 he split time between Double A and Triple A,
hitting .303 with 73 RBI’s before a September call-up to Detroit. He hit the game-winner his first
start and .410 during his MLB time while playing third. During a good ’74
spring training it was decided to move Ron to first where he could give aging
starter Norm Cash – no relation – a run since third was occupied by a much
younger Aurelio Rodriguez. There he continued to hit, opening the ’74 season
with a .353 average, before beginning April 15 he missed a month due to “mental
exhaustion.” After he returned in mid-May his average dipped a bit and early in
June he was sent back to Triple A where he hit .246 while splitting time at
first and third. He returned to Detroit
in September but by season-end his average was down to .226 and he then spent
all of ’75 and ’76 in Triple A playing both infield corners, averaging .262 in
diminishing seasons. He was released after the latter season, ending his
playing time, and finished with a .297 average and eleven RBI’s in his 34 games
up top and a .289 average with a .366 OBA in the minors. He then seems to have
returned to the Southeast where he resided in his native Georgia and then Florida before passing away in 2009 at age
59. His nephew, Kevin Cash, followed Ron to Florida State
and then had a few years in the majors as a back-up catcher. He is currently
the Indians’ bullpen coach.
Jim Cox played hoops and
baseball at the University of Iowa after excelling in the same sports in high
school in Illinois.
He also got his early degree in microbiology while there, and during that time
turned down two draft choices: by the Senators in ’68 (to go to school); and by
the Indians in the first round in ’71 (not enough money). Since his studies
were done by January of his senior year he signed with Montreal when drafted in ’72 and then hit
.255 with some power in Double A. While there he worked on his D a bunch –
particularly his double play pivot – and had a great spring training in ’73
before hitting .267 in Triple A. He made his Montreal debut that July but his hitting was
light in his few games and by early August he was back in the minors. In ’74 he
had another great camp and was named the Opening Day starter, pushing incumbent
Ron Hunt to third base. Jim did pretty well defensively and was the everyday
guy through early June, though he was hitting only .224. He then suffered a
broken hand after being hit and after a month on the DL returned to Triple A,
where he hit .252, before returning up top to finish his season. He spent
nearly all of ’75 at Triple A because fellow young guy Pete Mackanin – from a
few posts back – arrived to take over second and Jim hit .267 with 67 RBI’s at
that level, and .259 during spare usage
up top. In ’76 it was pretty much the same deal as he played behind Mackanin
and Wayne Garrett in Montreal
but upped his average to .274 on the right side of the infield in Triple A. ’76
would be his final MLB season and he spent the next three years solely at
Triple A Denver where his stats got successively better as he put more and more
time in at third: .287/4/39 in ’77; .299/10/64 in ’78; and .305/12/77 in ’79
his final year as a player. He finished with an average of .215 up top and hit
.277 with 66 homers and 403 RBI’s in the minors. Then, like a lot of guys, he
becomes impossible to chase, though in the early 2000’s he resurfaced a bit
news-wise as an inductee into the Hawkeyes hall of fame.
Bill Madlock was born in Memphis and after being dumped by his parents was raised
by a grandmother in Decatur, Illinois,
a bit outside Chicago.
He played the big three sports at Eisenhower High School there and as a
football halfback – he once rushed for 300 yards and scored five touchdowns in
a game – and shortstop he was all-county. He was drafted by the Cards when he graduated in June ’69 but he passed because he didn’t want to get stuck behind
Dal Maxvill and so went to Southwestern Iowa Community College from where he
was drafted in January ’70 by the Senators. He didn’t hit too well right away,
putting up a .269 average in A ball that summer and a .234 the next year in
Double A, the season he moved to third. But he did steal some bases and had
some good camps and after a bad start in ’72 in Triple A he went back down a
level and did two things that would be emblematic of his career: he hit .328
but did so in only 131 at bats because he was suspended a bunch of the season
after getting into trouble on the field. He would split that year and the next
between second and third and in ’73 he broke out to post a .338/22/90 season in
Triple A before being called up to Texas in September, finishing with a .351
MLB average. After the season he and Vic Harris went to the Cubs for Fergie
Jenkins. Bill became the regular third baseman for Chicago, hit .313 his rookie year to make the
Topps team, made an All-Star team, and won batting titles the next two seasons.
After he asked for more pay he was traded following the ’76 season with Rob
Sperring to San Francisco
for Bobby Murcer and recent post subject Steve Ontiveros. Bill played third his
first Giants season and then primarily second the next year-plus, hitting over
.300 each of his first two years. In ’79, after his average dipped to .261, he
was sent to Pittsburgh
in a June trade and promptly hit .328 the rest of the way to help his new team
reach the playoffs and then win the Series. He would remain in Pittsburgh
through ’85 and during that time won two batting titles, got into two All-Star
games, had a big ’82 as a power guy after Willie Stargell went down – 19 homers
and 95 RBI’s – and was famously ejected, fined, and suspended for pushing his
mitt in the face of an umpire. In ’84 he missed two months for an operation to
remove bone chips from his elbow. He again started slowly the following year
and after another mid-season trade – this time to LA – again rallied down the
stretch, this time hitting .360 to help another team get post-season action. He
remained with the Dodgers through part of the ’87 season when shoulder surgery
and then a release got him to Detroit
and his last playoff push. He would finish as a player after that season and
had a .305 average with 163 homers, 860 RBI’s, 174 stolen bases, and a .365
OBA. Defensively he is in the top 75 third basemen all-time in assists and
double plays and in the post-season he hit .308 with twelve RBI’s and a .375 OBA
in 17 games. In ’88 he went to play in Japan where he put up a .263/19/61
season and then retired. After he finished playing Bill did the Senior League
thing, ran some investments he’d made while playing, and did some coaching and
rep work for some Far East teams. That got him
through the Nineties and from 2000 to 2001 he was Detroit’s hitting coach. In ’02 he worked in
the commissioner’s office and from ’03 to ’04 he managed the Newark Bears, an
independent team. He then coached a bit in Latin America and has since the
mid-2000’s has run his own hitting school in Las
Vegas.
This Reggie Sanders has been
tough to pinpoint because of the other
Reggie Sanders who played in the Nineties and 2000’s and is no relation. This Reggie was born in Birmingham, Alabama
and during high school relocated to LA where he was a big baseball and football
star and the A’s were so high on him when they drafted him during his senior
year that there were some improprieties and the pick was voided. So Oakland snapped him up
the following January of '68 and that summer Reggie, an infielder/outfielder, hit .264
with 22 homers in A ball. The next year at that level he bumped his homers to
25 with 75 RBI’s but only hit .235 with 154 K’s. In ’70 he moved up to Double
A, cut his strikeouts in half, and had an otherwise comparable season. By then
he was concentrating on first base and ’71 was a nearly identical season at the
same place. In ’72 he bumped his average up a ton – he would hit .338 in Double
A that year – but Oakland sent him mid-season to
Detroit for
pitcher Mike Kilkenny. He spent the final month of the year in Triple A where
he would also spend all of ’73, hitting .246. In ’74 Reggie had his biggest
year, hitting .292 with 14 homers and 88 RBI’s before being called up to Detroit early that
September and starting at first the rest of the way, batting .273. He homered
in his first at bat and generally had a decent short run but after the season
was sent to Atlanta
for other first baseman Jack Pierce. For the Braves Reggie resided for two
seasons in Triple A where he averaged .269 with 15 homers and 73 RBI’s per
season. In ’77 he went to Mexico
to play, which he would also do in ’79 around a season in Double A for the
Orioles in ’78. When the Seventies ended so did Reggie’s career and he finished
with minor league numbers of .265 with 156 homers and 677 RBI’s. His ’74 work
with Detroit
was his only time up top. After that Reggie goes missing media-wise until 2002
when he passed away in Los Angeles.
He was 52.
We get two guys from Decatur but in different
states. Both Cox and Sanders would also have Rookie cards in ’75. Madlock would
befriend teammate Steve Greenburg, Hank’s son, in his first year in pro ball
and Steve would go on to be Bill’s agent after he finished playing. He then
worked for the commissioner – it was he who actually enforced George Steinbrenner’s
brief ban from baseball – and then moved into investment banking where, among
other things, he helped engineer the Astros sale a couple years ago. We both
worked at the same shop. MLB service-wise we get 15 seasons, three All-Star
games, four batting titles, and a Topps Rookie Team member, nearly all from Mr.
Madlock. All pretty good, but not enough to warrant the waste of a “100” card.
Now for hook-ups. A pretty
good catcher helps big with the first one:
1. Ron Cash and Willie Horton
’73 to ’74 Tigers;
2. Horton and Tom Haller ’72
Tigers;
3. Haller and Steve Garvey
’70 to ’71 Dodgers;
4. Garvey and Greg Shanahan
’73 to ’74 Dodgers.
Here we go around the card.
Couldn’t they put Cash and Sanders together?:
1. Ron Cash and Willie
Horton ’73 to ’74 Tigers;
2. Horton and Tom Walker ’75
Tigers;
3. Walker and Jim Cox ’73 to
’74 Expos;
4. Cox and Steve Renko ’73 to
’76 Expos;
5. Renko and Bill Madlock ’76
Cubs;
6. Madlock and Willie
Stargell ’79 to ’82 Pirates;
7. Stargell and Luke Walker
’65 to ’66 and ’68 to ’73 Pirates;
8. Walker and Reggie Sanders ’74 Tigers.
That’s our longest one yet.
You also had an '8' a couple of posts back. Good effort! Keep up the great work!!
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