#656 - Adrian Garrett

Technically, this is the third rookie card for Adrian Garrett, big brother to the Mets’ Wayne. Adrian had a rookie card in the ’71 set and also back in ’66, when he had one under his nickname, Pat. That’s a mighty long gap and I would bet that Adrian had about the longest one between his initial rookie card and his first solo one – eight years – but I have not the time to research that one. This card commemorates his busiest MLB season to date during his second go-round in Chicago. After returning via a sale from Oakland late in ’72, Adrian had a short .377/8/20 line with a .515 OBA in just 53 at bats in Triple A and was recalled for some back-up work. Despite his card’s designation most of his plate time came as either a catcher or pinch hitter; his best offensive work was in the latter role in which he hit .286. Despite the minimal plate appearances to date Adrian was in the midst of a very long baseball career at the time of this card, in which he appears to be squirreled away somewhere in Candlestick. He wouldn’t see another card until ’76 when he would get his final MLB one on a different team and plate appearance-wise he was still a rookie. That, too, has gotta be about the longest run for anyone with that many cards. So in his own way Adrian helps get to the end of the set with some record-type tidbits.

Adrian Garrett was a big deal halfback and baseball player at Sarasota High School when he was signed by the Braves in ’61 and began his career that summer in D ball, hitting .242 for a couple teams. After ramping that up the following year to a .254/19/87 line with a .385 OBA, he would begin a long run at stops with an A at the beginning. He split ’63 between A and Double A, recording a .249/13/60 line in his 277 at bats while missing half the season for his military commitment. ’64 was spent entirely at the higher level where his power was reduced a bunch but his average moved higher in a .280/7/48/.355 season in 477 at bats. In ’65 he moved up to Triple A and earned his first rookie card on the basis of his .224/20/63/.319 season in which he was one of the Braves’ system’s biggest homer producers. But that year, despite his debut in Atlanta, he slumped pretty hard - .196/16/40 in 342 at bats – and he spent most of ’67 in Double A. That year he put up much better numbers with a .257/28/92/.350 line and hit .310 in his few games up in Triple A and also began playing third base in addition to his outfield duties. ’68 was a bit messy as his line slid to .212/12/37 in 363 at bats at both levels. But he enjoyed a big bounce in a ’69 spent primarily in Double A, putting up a .254/24/77/.382 line. After the season he was released by the Braves, picked up and released by the Phillies, and picked up by the Cubs.

With Chicago in ’70 Garrett would get some more MLB at bats and would spend most of his time in Double A where he had a .277/29/86/.365 line while leading his league in homers. He then moved up to Triple A, where he enjoyed his biggest season, posting a .289/43/119/.406 line that drew attention from the vastly improving Oakland A’s. Late that August they picked up Adrian for catcher Frank Fernandez and Adrian spent the balance of the season doing some left field and pinch hitting work for the division champs. He also spent a bit of the summer with the team as well in ’72 but most of the year was spent in Triple A where he posted a .277/12/32.372 line in his 220 at bats. Then came the September sale to Chicago and after his work in ’73 he got a few more at bats up top but spent most of ’74 back in Triple A where he had another big season, in just 318 at bats posting a .280/26/83/.414 line. He pretty much mirrored that success in ’75 when he put up .321/12/48/.380 numbers in half a season before a sale to California, where he finished the year with his best MLB totals by far: a .262 average with six homers and 18 RBI’s in 107 at bats, nearly all at first base or DH. In ’76 he caught a few games for the Angels before a sale to San Diego landed him back in Triple A where he again hit well, with a .310/9/31/.360 line in 126 at bats. That would be it for his time in The States and Adrian finished with MLB totals of a .185 average, eleven homers and 37 RBI’s in his 276 at bats. He also had 87 strikeouts which helps explain why he never stuck. In the minors he hit .259 with 280 homers, 961 RBI’s, and a .360 OBA.

As has been a recent trend, Garrett moved on to Japan after his US playing time ended and had a pretty good run there, pretty much parallel with Gail Hopkins from a few posts back. He spent three seasons with Hiroshima where his first two were by far his best: a .279/35/91/.358 line in ’77; and a .271/40/97/.378 line in ’78. In ’79 his numbers fell to .225/27/59/.326 but that was the year he helped the Carp take the Japanese Series, a fitting way to go out as a player. He then returned to the US, spending a few years in the White Sox system, as a coach (’80-’81); minor league hitting instructor (’85); and manager (’82-’84), going a combined 169-150. After a year off he moved to the Kansas City system where he coached a season in the minors (’87) and then five in Kansas City (’88-’92). Then it was on to the Marlins where he was a minor league hitting coach (’93-’98) and hitting coordinator (’99-2001). After another year off he hooked up with Cincinnati where from 2003 through 2011 he served as the Triple A hitting coach. Since 2012 he has been employed by the Reds as a part time coach. Busy boy.

This being Adrian’s first solo card, he has yet another tidbit of never having his annual minor league stats appear on a Topps card. Expanding on the star bullets, he led four leagues in homers in the US and did so once in Japan. He got into catching in spring training of ’73 when Pete Reiser, a Cubs coach at the time, suggested he give it a shot to help him stick. So he did tons of bullpen and batting practice catching and it would be his primary position in three MLB seasons. Another brother Charlie also played pro ball but he only got as high as Double A as his career was interrupted by two full years of military duty. Adrian has a very expansive “Bullpen” tab on baseball-reference.

Sometimes for these guys with limited at bats these paths can be pretty long:

1. Garrett and Joe Lahoud ’75 to ’76 Angels;

2. Lahoud and Reggie Smith ’68 to ’71 Red Sox;

3. Smith and Mike Tyson ’74 to ’76 Cardinals.

#650 - Mike Epstein

And the penultimate action shot belongs to .... Mike Epstein on his last Topps card swinging away at Yankee Stadium and apparently connecting since it looks like Thurman Munson’s glove is empty. Mike got back to California the hard way – through the Texas Rangers – and by the time this card came out was pretty much done emotionally with his first go in baseball. According to the book “Seasons in Hell” Mike was admittedly mailing it in and was more interested in getting his pilot’s license than in anything going on on the field. Looking at this photo, though, he still seemed to have the ability to uncork a huge swing every now and then. This shot was taken in either early June or September since those were the only two times since Epstein’s acquisition he played in NY for California and I believe this shot is from the same game as the one of Vada Pinson. Mike got with the Angels via a May trade that moved him, Rick Stelmaszek, and Rich Hand for Jim Spencer and Lloyd Allen. That was after the trade that got him out of Oakland initially, when he was sent to Texas rather cheaply for reliever Horacio Pina. That trade was initiated by one of two events, depending on the source: Mike’s o-fer performance in the ’72 Series (A’s owner Charlie O); or Mike’s laying out of Reggie Jackson in the locker room (Epstein). Either way it led to a pretty fast decline for Mike who would go from getting some MVP votes for his ’72 work to being out of the game less tan two years later. But he wouldn’t stay away for too long...

Mike Epstein was a big kid born in the Bronx, NYC. Sometime after he was bar mitzvahed his family relocated to the west coast and Mike went to high school in LA where he was all-area as both a fullback and a first baseman. He then went to Berkeley where he continued to play both sports and after hitting .375 his sophomore year was wooed by the Dodgers via Tommy Lasorda but remained in school at his dad’s insistence. In ’64 he upped his average to nearly .400, made All-American, and was selected to the first ever US Olympic baseball team. He then signed with the Orioles, put in some IL time, and returned to Berkeley to finish his studies. In ’65 he broke in with a bang, putting up a .338/30/109 line in A ball while playing first. In ’66 he jumped to Triple A where his line of .302/29/102 earned him TSN’s Minor League Player of the Year and a brief end of season look in Baltimore. Around then Boog Powell had settled in at first base so Baltimore wanted to turn Mike into an outfielder, which would require more time in the minors. Mike balked and early in June of the ’67 season after barely playing he was sent to DC for pitcher Pete Richert.  He immediately took over first but he was putting up too many K’s and not enough power so by the end of the season he was splitting starts with Dick Nen. After winter ball and a good spring training Mike was back in as the regular guy in ’68 but by mid-May his average was still below .100 so he returned to Triple A for some hitting work where he put up a .400/5/13 line in just eleven games. He was back up top in June and hit .276 with twelve homers and 31 RBI’s the rest of the way.

In ’69 Washington named a new manager in Ted Williams and Epstein would become one of Ted’s star pupils. Pretty much all of Mike’s offensive numbers would rise significantly and that season he sported a .414 OBA as the Nats put up their first winning season in this rendition. Expansion probably contributed to those numbers, though, and the next year Mike fell back to earth a bit. The next year Oakland was looking for a power guy at first and Mike went to the A’s with reliever Darold Knowles for catcher Frank Fernandez, first baseman Don Mincher, and reliever Paul Lindblad that May. He got the lion’s share of work at first the rest of the way, continued to have pretty good OBA numbers, and got his first post-season action. Then in ’72 he led Oakland in homers and got his Series win though he didn’t have such a great time offensively. That November he was sent to Texas and he then finished things early in the ’74 season with California. For his career Mike hit .244 with 130 homers, 380 RBI’s, and a .358 OBA. In the post-season he hit .108 with a homer in his 13 games and in just over two minor league seasons he hit .325 with 64 homers and 224 RBI’s.

As mentioned above, Epstein had sort of moved away emotionally from baseball by the time he retired. He would relocate to Colorado where he had his own ranch and also his own precious metals company for a few years. But the baseball bug never left him entirely. By the early Nineties he was in the San Diego area and coaching, first for a big deal amateur team and then in the Milwaukee system (’93, when he also went 4-7 as an interim manager), for some independent teams (’96-’99), and in the San Diego system (2000). He also coached at San Diego High School in ’95. Since about ’94 he has also run his own hitting school which by now has a sort of national network and has developed a system called rotational hitting. Both Mike and his son are busily involved in the school and if that photo on the site is recent Mike looks damn good.

This is a good swan song card and has some serious star bullets. Per the cartoon, Mike was no Ron Hunt, but every season from ’68 to ’72 he was in the top four in the AL for HBP. After coming across the “Seasons in Hell” book for the Joe Lovitto post I had to hunt it down. It’s a hilarious book with lots of behind the scenes dope of the Rangers from ’73 to ’75. Though Epstein was barely there at the time, he gets lots of mention, especially in a bit in which he pissed off some former teammates after being traded to California by indicating none of them was incentivized to win. Texas then won its next three games against California to kick off its only real winning streak that year.

Another hook-up that takes us through the AL:

1. Epstein and Bernie Allen ’67 to ’71 Senators;

2. Allen and Roy White ’72 to ’73 Yankees;

3. White and Fernando Gonzolez ’74 Yankees.

#648 - Terry Crowley

Here we have the subject of the penultimate Traded card in the set in Terry Crowley, who actually looks relieved in the hatless photo of the Traded card, which is usually why those photos were taken in the first place. Terry was actually itching for a trade as his usage in ’73 was way less than he thought was warranted. After being Baltimore’s Opening Day DH – and going 2 for 4 – he was pretty quickly supplanted by Tommie Davis after Terry’s average moved down to Mendoza levels by mid-April and never really recovered. The rest of the season he got a little outfield and first base work and also some as DH and pinch hitter. That last role would become sort of a double-edged sword for Terry since he would gain some notoriety for his performance in that position, but his degree of skill at it would limit his usage elsewhere. But all that wouldn’t happen until his second go-around in Baltimore. Regarding the trade – actually a sale – like some recent subjects, Terry wouldn’t actually play a regular season game for his new team and by the time these cards came out he’d be with a whole other team in a whole other league.

Terry Crowley grew up on Staten Island in NYC where he was a Yankees fan and a pitcher. He had acquired lots of MLB interest in that role in high school until he was injured his senior year and he had to leave pitching behind. When interest abated he decided to go to Long Island University where he relocated to the outfield and his sophomore year was an All-American. That performance got the scouts interested again and Baltimore drafted him that spring of ’66, but he took so long to sign that he only got some IL ball that year. In ’67 he played mostly first base in A ball where he hit .262 with some good power – ten triples - and stole 21 bases. He then split ’68 between Double A and Triple A, hitting a combined .265 while playing mostly outfield at the lower level and first base the latter part of the season. In ’69 he had a big year at the higher level with a .282/28/83 line before a September call-up got him in the middle of some division-run action. In ’70 he stayed with Baltimore as a reserve outfielder/first baseman and hit pretty well in his limited work, posting a .394 OBA. In ’71 he hurt his leg during spring training, missed some time, and was sent to Triple A for rehab. He had a big year, posting a .282/19/63 line with a .399 OBA in just 259 at bats while playing first, though his short time back up wasn’t too productive. But in ’72 a hot start got him a bunch of starts in right field in the wake of Frank Robinson’s trade to LA. By the end of May his average was at .378, but a sub-.200 the rest of the way would contribute to his return to the minors in ’73. In the meantime, though, he had a pretty good action card in that ’73 set.

Crowley did not make it out of spring training with Texas in ’74 and went to Cincinnati in a sale. In a prelude of things to come, he would get some outfield work, but the majority of his time was spent in the pinch. In ’74 he put up a .204/0/7 line in 59 plate appearances in that role and in the Series year of ’75 he upped it to .280/0/4 with a .357 OBA in 56 appearances. Following that year he went to Atlanta in a trade for pitcher Mike Thompson, but after just a couple games he was released. Shortly thereafter he was picked up by the Orioles and he initially put in some games at Triple A, where he hit .261, before returning to Baltimore for some games at DH but lots more in the pinch, hitting .246 overall in 61 at bats. In ’77 he was back in Triple A where he had another big year with a .308/30/80 line in just over 400 at bats before he made some late appearances with the O’s and hit .467 with nine RBI’s in just 15 at bats. That success pretty much sealed his fate the next few years as he rejoined the Earl Weaver platoon system as a sometime left-handed DH and mostly pinch hitter. He especially delivered the next two seasons with a line of .368/0/9 with a .372 OBA in 38 ’78 at bats and in ’79 of .302/1/7/.426 in 43 at bats. He became a fan favorite and was the subject of a pretty hilarious foul-mouthed Earl Weaver diatribe that can be heard on YouTube. That second year he helped Baltimore to its final pennant of the Seventies. In ’80 he got his most time at DH, putting up a line of .288/12/50 in just 233 at bats. His average came down a bit in the ’81 strike season, though his line of .246/4/25 with a .376 OBA was still impressive for just 134 at bats. He closed things out with another year as a pinch guy in ’82 before doing some time with Montreal in the same role in ’83. Terry finished with a .250 average, 42 homers, and 229 RBI’s and a pretty good .345 OBA. In the post-season he hit .273 with three RBI’s in 13 games.

After playing Crowley turned immediately to coaching for what would turn into a long run in that role. In ’84 he became Baltimore’s minor league hitting coach before joining the Orioles from ’85 to ’88. He then spent ’89 to ’90 in the Boston system as its hitting coordinator before joining Minnesota for a long successful run from ’91 to ’98. He then returned to the Orioles as the team’s hitting coach from ’99 to 2010 before giving up that role to become the system hitting evaluator, a position he still holds.

There are lots of one-liners in the star bullets. In ’70 Terry hit .310 as a pinch hitter with a .429 OBA. Regarding the homer, it won the game in the 10^th inning to put the O’s only a game back. Unfortunately some under-.500 ball the rest of the way kept them in third place.

Well, that’s a nice headline. It makes Terry seem like a box of fruit. He was sold to Texas for $100,000, not a bad price back then. This post goes up on St. Patrick's Day; I gotta believe this guy has at least a little Irish in him.

The connection here could have been Texas, had things gone a bit differently:

1. Crowley and Bobby Grich ’70 to ’73 and ’76 Orioles;

2. Grich and Juan Beniquez ’81 to ’85 Angels.

#646 - George Foster

What we have here is a high-hatted George Foster looking concerned about something, perhaps his career? Two years after coming to Cincinnati to replace the injured Bobby Tolan in center George, bedeviled by a low average and many strikeouts, was in the minors for most of the ’73 season. While his Triple A numbers were by no means eye-popping – a .262 average with 15 homers, 60 RBI’s, and 109 K’s in 496 at bats – his time there certainly seemed to have done the trick. While those K totals weren’t exactly low they were a long way better than his ratio up until then in MLB at bats, which was more than one in four. After about a year-plus of settling in time George would become the biggest slugger in the mid- to late-Seventies version of the Big Red Machine and eventually earn himself a fat payday on the free agent market. So no need for concern, at least not for another decade.

George Foster was born in Alabama but had relocated to California by the time he was in high school. Cut from his freshman team he started lifting weights and made the roster the rest of his HS time and played football and ran track as well. After graduating in ’67 he tried out for the Dodgers but didn’t make the cut and instead went to nearby El Camino College, where he continued to participate in all three sports. In the meantime he’d been selected in the January ’68 draft by the Giants and once his college season ended he signed and hit .277 in A ball with not too much power. In ’69 he put up much better numbers at that level with a .321/14/85 line and a .381 OBA before his successful September debut in a couple games. In ’70 he played nearly the whole season in Triple A where his line was .308/8/66 before he again hit well in some short time in San Francisco. Back then the Giants were awash in young outfielders, fielding two spots on the ’68 Topps Rookie team in Bobby Bonds and Dave Marshall, and also sporting a franchise roster that included Ken Henderson, Bernie Williams, Garry Maddox, and Gary Matthews. In ’71 George was pulled up to San Francisco as one of the bunch and while he hit OK while playing the outfield corners, the Giants decided they needed more help in the infield and traded George that May to Cincinnati for shortstop Frank Duffy and minor league pitcher Vern Geishert. Eventually it would turn into another monster deal for the Reds but at the time they were desperate for a center fielder to fill the spot made open by Bobby Tolan’s pre-season injury. George did not so bad defensively: he had a big arm and covered enough ground but he wasn’t the most accurate thrower. And offensively his power wasn’t too bad but he at times seemed overmatched at the plate and he wasn’t the offensive catalyst Bobby was in ’70. When Tolan returned in ’72 and the Machine made that big deal with Houston, the presence of Tolan and new guy Cesar Geronimo pushed George to a back-up role which didn’t really suit him as his average floundered and he struck out once every three at bats.

After the transitional year of ’73 Foster was back up for good. Tolan was gone, having experienced his own funk in ’73, and the outfield was populated by Pete Rose, off-season acquirees Merv Rettenmund and Terry Crowley, and a bunch of young guys including Geronimo, Ken Griffey, Dan Driessen, and George. For the ’74 season George shared time at the corner spots with Driessen and Griffey while Geronimo took over center field. George hit well enough, posting a .264/7/41 line in his 276 at bats. The Reds continued that system to start the ’75 season but then blew it up a bit in a good way by moving Rose to third base and giving Griffey and George the regular corner spots, Foster taking over left field. His numbers improved markedly to a .300/23/78 line, and he followed up his year with a nice post-season. In ’76, now a regular from day one, he became an All-Star by putting up a line of .306/29/121 while keeping the K’s relatively low and leading the NL in RBI’s which he would also do the next two years. ‘77 was his big MVP season with his .320/52/149 line with 124 runs and a .382 OBA. He led the NL with his totals in runs, homers, and RBI’s, becoming the first NL guy to post over 50 homers since Willie Mays in ’65 and the first NLer with that many RBI’s since Tommie Davis in ’62. In ’78 he again led the league in homers and RBI’s while recording a .281/40/120 line as he continued to do well despite the loss the last two seasons of Tony Perez behind him in the line-up. The next few seasons George would continue to post excellent numbers though they would be discounts to his big three seasons due to various factors: .302/30/98 despite missing over a month in the summer of ’79 due to injury; .273/25/93 after the departure of Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench’s injury meant lots less protection in the line-up; and .295/22/90 while missing about a third of the season due to the strike. By then George was looking for the big bucks and though he departed Cincy in a trade to the Mets for Jim Kern, Alex Trevino, and Greg Harris, it was really sort of his departure to free agency.

The Mets of the late Seventies and early Eighties were a pretty sorry bunch and the acquisition of Foster was hailed as the beginning of a turnaround. But even the post-Morgan, Rose, and Perez line-up of the recent Reds teams was vastly superior to the one George joined in ’82. Young outfielder Mookie Wilson and third baseman Hubie Brooks showed promise but the rest of the batting order was nothing special and the dynamic mound staff was a thing of the past. George had a pretty terrible first year as he put up a line of .247/13/70 while overswinging helped pile up the strikeouts. That didn’t make too many NY fans happy and poor George was christened with the new last name of Flopster. He would recover a bit the next two years to lines of .241/28/90 in ’83 and .269/24/86 in ’84 as some key acquisitions and the development of the young guys put the Mets in the right direction. In ’85 he had a line of .263/21/77 as the Mets moved to the cusp of the playoffs with the acquisition of Gary Carter. Early in the ’86 season George was still getting starts in left but he began to be pushed for time by kids Lenny Dykstra and Kevin Mitchell. When his complaint about playing time – either on his own behalf or that of Mookie Wilson’s, depending on the source – took perceived racial overtones he was released and missed the post-season. After playing a couple weeks with the White Sox he was done. George finished with a .274 average with 348 homers and 1,239 RBI’s. He made five All-Star teams, was a Silver Slugger once, and in 23 post-season games hit .289 with three homers and twelve RBI’s.

Despite the tough times in NY after Foster retired he made the area his home and settled in Connecticut. There he began a ministry and worked with various levels of kids in team and private baseball coaching. He initially ran a non-profit in the Dayton area and since has started his own group that benefits children of military personnel. He continues to coach privately and also does motivational speaking.

An early playoff highlight occupies one star bullet and those four homers are pretty impressive for only 39 ’73 at bats.This card is really off center.

These two were a decade apart as Mets:

1. Foster and Tom Seaver ’83 Mets;

2. Seaver and Ken Boswell ’67 to ’74 Mets.

#627 - Carl Taylor

Carl Taylor gets a standard pose for his final card in Oakland. This really is Carl’s final card, too, as he didn’t have one at bat at any level after his final one in ’73. That year was his second straight one of back-up work in KC and most of his work behind the plate came early and late in the season: May and September were his busiest months. That was because former starter Ed Kirkpatrick got moved to the outfield and new guy Fran Healy had a tough start early and then got hurt late. Carl wasn’t too bad of a hitter and he did a pretty good job at getting on base; his ’73 OBA of .363 was about his lifetime average. But he could never really capitalize on his fat average in ’69 and he settled in for a pretty decent run as a number two or three guy. He was versatile and could play infield and outfield as well as catch. But he didn’t make it out of spring training in ’74 and moved onto his next role pretty impressively. He better have a bitchin’ coiff under that hat because he probably could have used the advertising.

Carl Taylor was born in Sarasota, Florida, and got down to Key West by the time he was in high school. Prior to that he and his step-brother Boog Powell were on a hotshot Little League team that made it to their world series, but didn’t win. After a multi-sport career at Key West HS, Carl was signed by the Pirates in ’62 and that summer hit .246 with a .348 OBA in D ball. In ’63 he moved up to A ball where he became a bit of a slugger with a .295/11/58 line and continued to hit well at that level in ’64 with a .291 average and 54 RBI’s. He lost some points off his average the next year when he moved up to Double A but was back in line in ’66 with a .292 and in ’67 with a .293 at that level. By then he’d begun doing his military time and had also begun doing some outfield work. In ’68 he had a pretty good spring and made the Pirates Opening Day roster. While he got a smattering of work behind the plate mid-season he also pinch hit a bit and didn’t see too much plate time. That changed the next year when a hot run in the pinch to start the season got him some starting time at first base and the outfield corners – he got zero time behind the plate – and he put up a big .348 average and a .432 OBA while putting in a decent run as the second guy in the order. After the season St. Louis, desperate for some timely hitting, traded Dave Giusti and Dave Ricketts for Carl.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals and for Taylor, Carl didn’t bring his big average with him when he changed teams. Again used almost exclusively in the outfield and at first base, he spent a significant part of the spring trying to claw above .200 but from late June until the end of the year hit .272 to improve things a bunch and his 45 RBI’s weren’t too shabby. But the Cards weren’t crazy happy with how things rolled and shortly after the season they sent Carl to Milwaukee with infielder Jim Ellis for pitcher George Lauzerique and catcher Jerry McNertney. Carl didn’t even make it to spring training with the Brewers though, as he was sent to KC even up for fellow catcher Ellie Rodriguez. He would get a bit of work with the Royals that season but most of it was spent in Triple A where put up a .362 average and .470 OBA while again working primarily in the outfield. Late that season he was sold back to Pittsburgh for help during the stretch run but didn’t see too much action and got shut out of any post-season work. In ’72 he returned to KC in another sale and returned to catcher as he split the season between Triple A - .291 with a .399 OBA in 117 at bats – and up top as he backed up Kirkpatrick and Jerry May behind the plate. After continuing in that role strictly in Kansas City in ’73 he was done. Along with the stats on the back of this card, Carl put up an MLB OBA of .367 and one of nearly .400 in the minors, where he hit .291.

Soon after Taylor was done playing he opened his own hair salon back in Florida which he kept going for 17 years. Towards the end of that run he did some bullpen  work for the short-lived Senior Leagues and then signed on with the Yankees as a bullpen coach, sometimes barber, and eventually the team’s videographer, which he did from ’90 to ’97. He then did some local baseball clinic, school, and camp work before retiring a few years ago. He was always in the right place to do that.

Carl Means Taylor? I would have though that Carl meant Carl, but that’s just a bad joke. That last star bullet showcases the average that put Carl for a while in the Pirates starting line-up. I think Topps is a bit over the top in its characterization of Boog in the cartoon.

After a one-post delay, here’s some more Watergate timeline:

7/9/73 – Around this date two important things happened. One was that in the wake of John Dean’s testimony President Nixon, despite his statement in May that he would respect and cooperate in the Watergate investigation, announced that he would neither testify before nor provide any documentation to the Senate Watergate Committee. The second bit, which wouldn’t come out for a while, is that Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein initially learned of a scheme, authored by White House staff member Chuck Colson, to burglarize and/or firebomb the Brookings Institution, a DC-based think tank he believed may have been behind the leaking of sensitive information to the press in the ’70 to ’71 time-frame.

7/16/73 – John H.R. Haldeman’s deputy testifies before the Senate Committee, Alexander Butterfield was a former Air Force pilot who knew Haldeman from UCLA and was asked by his former classmate to join the White House staff in ’69. He was never believed to be part of the Watergate conspiracy and was never indicted. But he had intimate knowledge of the workings of the Nixon administration and when asked if he knew of an existing tape recording system he answered in the positive. He therefore confirmed John Dean’s suspicions and sent the Special Prosecutor and the Committee itself packing in a whole new direction to what would eventually be the smoking gun in the whole affair.

Taylor did double duty with Pittsburgh so this should be pretty easy:

1. Taylor and Richie Hebner ’68 to ’69 and ’71 Pirates;

2. Hebner was on the ’73 Pirates.

#624 - Bob Miller

There is a lot to say about this card. First of all it is the third card in a row that represents the subject's final Topps card as a player. Bob Miller had at this point had a pretty long run that began in the Fifties and, especially recently, had covered a whole bunch of teams. Secondly, this is a damn ugly card, which we have happily been without for a long time. Nothing against Mr. Miller, who in younger years was a good looking guy, but he is all of 33 years old at the oldest (see below) in this photo and he looks 20 years older. Plus this must be about the nastiest air-brush job in the set, with Bob’s Pirates uniform being compromised into a Mets one. The neck line is horrific and the hat looks like a pile of atomic waste. Third, the newest this card is is from ’72 and it may even be much earlier because the background is very Forbes Field-ish and that park closed in ’70. So it’s probably a spring training shot. Lastly, and best-ly (I know that’s not even a hyphenated word but you get the drift) it has Roberto Clemente in the background, which is awfully nice and pulls the card back to respectability. Don Leppert appears to be there also over Bob’s right shoulder, but I’m no good with the rest of those guys. ’73 was an all too-typical year for Bob in the Seventies: lots of traveling conjoined with some pretty good pitching. He actually went through nearly all of spring training with Pittsburgh, only to get released right at the end of it. Immediately picked up by the Padres he got off to a pretty good start in relief until some messy outings in May pushed up his ERA. Unfortunately, too, in not one of the San Diego games in which he pitched did the team record a win. So after 18 games he was placed on waivers from which he was again snatched pretty quickly, this time by Detroit. Bob won two of his first three games with the Tigers, threw generally good ball, and added a save through late September. He was then sold to NY for a very short stretch drive, especially for him since he only threw one inning. So Topps really didn’t get much of an opportunity to not airbrush Bob. But it would be nice if they did a better job.

Bob Miller grew up in St. Louis where at Beaumont High School he went 22-1 during his career and 12-0 as a senior. He also led his team to the American Legion national championship and in ’57 was signed as a bonus baby by St. Louis out of high school. Like most players signed under that umbrella Bob rarely played his first year and after the rule associated with those kinds of signings was changed in ’58 he went to the minors. After beginning the year in Triple A with a bit of a fat ERA he moved to Double A where he went 8-11 with a 3.54 ERA in the rotation. The next year he pretty much matched those numbers in Triple A – 8-12 with a 3.50 ERA – before he returned to St. Louis that August, winning his first game in his first start. He threw well the rest of the way but then had an injury-filled ’60 during which he missed most of the middle part of the season and did some Double A rehab time. In ’61 he moved to a reserve role and saw a spike in his ERA – but everybody did that year – and recorded his first three saves. After that season he was one of the early round picks by the new Mets in the expansion draft.

Miller spent most of the ’62 season in the NY rotation but probably wished he didn’t. He lost his first 12 games and didn’t put up his first win of the season until late September. Mercifully he was traded after the season to LA for Larry Burright and Tim Harkness, two infielders. Bob’s timing was pretty good and his first year he worked as a swing guy for the Series winners, getting a save in his relief work. After being shut out of any post-season work he was pretty much strictly a reliever the next few seasons. In ’64 he led the NL with his 74 appearances and recorded nine saves. He hit that save total again in ’65 and then put up five in ’66. Both those years he threw shutout ball in the Series. In ’67 the Dodgers did a fast fade and Bob went right with them as both his record and his ERA deteriorated and he was shut out in the saves department. In ’68 he went to Minnesota in a big trade with Johnny Roseboro and Ron Perranoski for Mudcat Grant and Zoilo Versalles. With the Twins Bob basically did set-up work for Perranoski and over the next two years garnered five saves for himself. In ’69 he added some spot starts which bumped up his innings and returned to the post-season. Then with the beginning of the Seventies came the real onset of his travels. Three years during that decade he played for three teams, beginning in ’70 when prior to the start of the season he was involved in another big trade, going to Cleveland with Dean Chance, Graig Nettles, and Ted Uhlaender for Luis Tiant and Stan Williams. It wasn’t a great year for Bob: as a swing guy for The Tribe, a starter for the White Sox (he went there in June for Buddy Bradford), and a reliever for the Cubs (a sale in September), his work was below par and his ERA escalated quite a bit. But in ’71 after a lousy start for the Cubbies he went to San Diego after being released in May and did some excellent work in the pen, recording seven saves with his miniscule ERA. He continued that after an August trade to Pittsburgh for Ed Acosta and Johnny Jeter. After posting three saves for the Pirates he again got some post-season work, winning another ring. In ’72 he stayed put for a change, adding another three saves, before he did the three team thing again in ’73. In ’74 he finished his MLB time with pen work for the Mets, going 2-2 with a 3.58 ERA and a couple saves in 58 games. Bob finished with a record of 69-81 with a 3.37 ERA, seven complete games, and 51 saves. In his post-season work he was 0-2 with a 3.07 ERA in nine games.

In ’75 Miller returned to the Padres as a player/coach for the team’s Triple A Hawaii franchise. He went 0-1 with three saves in his 15 games and the following year got a straight-up manager gig, going 81-54 for the team’s Double A franchise. In ’77 he was named pitching coach of the new Toronto Blue Jays – so he got a card that year – and retained that role through the ’79 season. After a year off in ’80 he joined the Giants as a minor league pitching instructor from ’81 to ’84 and then returned to The Show with an ’85 stint in San Francisco. After the whole staff was canned following a disappointing season Bob became a scout for the club. He was still doing that when he was killed in a car accident outside San Diego in August of ’93. He was 54.

Bob has zero room for star bullets, mostly because of his travels in the Seventies. Sixteen different managers, huh? Dare I name them? Why not:

Fred Hutchinson (’57 Cards);                                Don Gutteridge (’70 White Sox);

Solly Hemus (’59 -’61 Cards);                               Leo Durocher (’70 –’71 Cubs);

Johnny Keane (’61 Cards);                                    Preston Gomez (’71 Padres);

Casey Stengel (’62 Mets);                                     Danny Murtaugh (’71 Pirates);

Walt Alston (’63 -’67 Dodgers);                            Bill Virdon (’72 Pirates);

Cal Ermer (’68 Twins);                                          Don Zimmer (’73 Padres);

Billy Martin (’69 Twins and ’73 Tigers);               Joe Schultz (’73 Tigers);

Al Dark (’70 Indians);                                           Yogi Berra (’73 –’74 Mets).

Bob also famously roomed with another Bob Miller on the ’62 Mets which was memorialized by a Topps card.

Bob played with everybody apparently except this guy:

1. Miller and Lindy McDaniel ’57 and ’59 to ’61 Cardinals;

2. McDaniel and Celerino Sanchez ’72 to ’73 Yankees.

#612 - Luke Walker

Luke Walker looks plenty happy showing his form in spring training while his memorial electrical tape patch dances in the wind. On good days that’s what his curve ball did as well. It could be nasty on hitters but also nasty on Luke and unfortunately for him in ’73 it was much more the latter than the former. Back then many writers thought that Luke’s pitching embodied his last name a bit too much. But it wasn’t all his fault. After his big coming out season in ’70 Luke’s career pretty much went in the wrong direction, much of it due to injury. If it wasn’t bone chips in the elbow in ’71 or the bad back that really compromised that curve in ’72 and ’73 then it was the shot to his temple off a Johnny Bench bat early in ’74 that messed up his balance the remainder of the year. So Luke was n full decline mode when this photo was shot but you couldn’t tell that by the big smile. Attitude can be a wonderful thing. The photo from his Traded card appears to be from pretty much the same location as his regular card.

Luke Walker grew up in Dekalb, Texas, a town very close to the borders with Oklahoma and Arkansas. There he played the big three sports in high school where in baseball he threw 12 no-hitters and averaged 16 strikeouts per game with his big heater and curve. After graduation he attended Paris Junior College – in Paris, Texas for you Sam Shepard fans – in ’61 and ’62 and then moved on to Texarkana College from where he was signed as a free agent by the Red Sox in ’63. That summer he pitched well in A ball but then not so hot in Double A. After that season he was taken by Pittsburgh in the first year draft and then in ’64 in Double A went 8-14 with a 3.72 ERA in the rotation. After a poor start in Triple A in ’65 he improved a ton at the lower level, going 12-7 with a 2.26 ERA and 197 K’s in 183 innings. Those numbers got him a short look up top where he remained to start off the ’66 season before returning to Triple A to go 11-11 with a 2.77 ERA. In ’67 he was off to a 3-5 start with a 2.96 ERA when the injuries began with an elbow banged up in a game that killed the rest of his season. But the Pirates had seen enough and in ‘68 he spent the season on the Pittsburgh roster where he took tentative steps back while working in the pen, posting a low ERA and adding three saves while exhibiting pretty good control. In ’69 he moved to what would become a more common role for him as a swing guy, starting 15 of his 31 games and working most of the rest as a set-up guy.

In 1970 Walker had a sort of bipolar season. He began the year in the rotation and was 3-2 by early May when he was moved to the pen. There he had a streaky run and didn’t get his first save until mid-June, though he kept getting wins in his decisions. When he won a rare start in mid-July he was 7-3 and he returned to the rotation full-time in August and threw a shutout. He won his next two, lost three straight, and then won his last five to become the team’s winningest pitcher. He followed that up with a quality start in the playoffs and was ready to win 25 in ’71. But that year the elbow issue returned with the chips and while Luke at least got to stay in the rotation the whole season the results weren’t as good and his post-season was pretty messy though he did get a ring. In ’72 the bad back led to some DL time and back to his swing role. After his messy ’73 Luke was pretty happy to get out of town in the sale to Detroit but it really wasn’t a panacea, especially injury-wise. In an early-season exhibition game against Cincinnati he got nailed in the head by a Johnny Bench line drive which sort of took the wind out of his sails the rest of the season in which he went 5-5 with a 4.99 ERA. He was released early the following season and signed with Houston for whom he went 7-7/4.33 as a starter in Triple A in his final year. Luke went a combined 45-47 with a 3.64 ERA, 16 complete games, seven shutouts, and nine saves for his MLB line and 47-52 with a 3.23 ERA in the minors. In the post-season he was 0-1 with a 6.23 ERA in his three games.

While playing Luke worked off-seasons on a family farm in New Boston, Texas, to which he presumably returned when done playing on a full-time basis.

1965 was probably Luke’s best season in the minors as ‘70 clearly was up top. Chuck Norris would make that surname popular in Texas a few years down the road.

Topps gets the word play going again in the headline. In ’74 Luke joined Mickey Lolich, John Hiller, and Woodie Fryman as lefties on the Detroit roster.

Since Luke doesn’t give us too much to work with post-baseball there is room for more Watergate catch-up stuff:

10/10/12  - The Washington Post released the results of FBI research into the break-in and other action associated with CREEP. The investigation revealed a few of what would become known as the “dirty tricks” enacted by both CREEP and The White House in connection with the ’72 election. Named among the tactics were the stalking of various family members of opposing candidates; the forging of documents purported to be written by opposing candidates on those candidates' letterheads; and the leaking of false information to the press. The best example of the last two was a letter released to a local paper in New Hampshire that claimed that Edmund Muskie had laughed at a derogatory term used in reference to French Canadian-Americans. It was a big deal because there were lots of them in New Hampshire and the letter was sent to the paper a week before that state’s primary. Muskie, who was actually ahead of Nixon in the polls about a month earlier, defended himself outside the newspaper office in what became known as “the crying speech” although the YouTube video doesn’t look that dramatic. The charge and his response contributed to the dismantling of his run. The Post found out that the author of the letter was a White House aide named Richard Clawson who bragged about it while trying to pick up a woman at a bar who happened to work for the paper. Though he later denied it officially the damage was done.

The Post also interviewed three attorneys from around the country who said they were contacted by a California attorney named Donald Segretti who asked them to disrupt various democratic campaigns in their home areas. Segretti was a consultant to CREEP who had also been a lawyer for the Treasury Department. He had served in Vietnam with the three attorneys, all who turned him down. He was financed by a slush fund that amounted to as much as $700,000 controlled by John Mitchell, first as Attorney General and then as the chairman of CREEP.  

That gets us back to where I got the first round.

The hook-up gets a bit tough since Rick Stelmaszek barely played. Let’s go the NL route:

1. Walker and Matty Alou ’66 and ’68 to ’70 Pirates;

2. Alou and Jose Cardenal ’71 Cardinals;

3. Cardenal and Rick Stelmaszek ’74 Cubs.

#610 - Dave Kingman

In the spring and early summer of ’76 this guy was a big deal in NY, my first summer working in the city. He was banging homer after homer and I am pretty sure went into the Al-Star break on a pace that was ahead of Roger Maris’s one in ’61. The tabloids loved his big homers and his big strikeouts and called him Kong. It was a big name and a big stage for a big guy who was actually pretty quiet. That was a few seasons away from this photo in which we get to see the mighty swing on what I would bet was a missed pitch. Dave had sort of arrived in ’72 with a pretty big homer and RBI total despite having less than a full season. But between playing positions at which the Giants were nominally well stocked – first base and the outfield – and his high strikeout totals, playing time was hard to come by early in ’73. His preferred position was actually third base and things should have gone Dave’s way when at the beginning of the season San Francisco had finally had enough of Al Gallagher and sent him to California. And Willie McCovey was starting to show his age at first so even though fellow young guys Ed Goodson and Gary Thomason were competent enough at those two positions, respectively, Dave should have had enough time to get in his starts. The trouble was that when he did start it didn’t go terribly well. He was uneven at best at third and by late August he was buried in a season-long offensive rut, hitting .183 with eleven homers and 27 RBI’s, including a hitless August by that point. But Dave was a streaky guy and from August 26th on he put up a line of .237/13/28 in just 114 at bats. Goodson helped him out a bunch by going down with a shattered thumb and fully half of Dave’s hits during that run were homers. When the Giants traded Willie to the Padres Dave was feeling pretty good about getting more playing time. That would happen but with a whole other club.

Dave Kingman moved around a bunch as a kid. Born in Oregon, he also lived in Colorado and California before he settled in a suburb of Chicago for high school. There Dave played hoops and baseball with Tom Lundstedt from a few posts earlier, and was a wide receiver and d-back in football. Dave was a big boy and his high school stats his senior year -  a .339/5/15 line in 19 games and a 7-4/1.60 mound line with 121 K’s (and 71 walks) in 67 innings – got him drafted the spring of ’67 in the second round by the Angels. But Dave wanted to go to school where he could ideally play hoops as well and he went to Harper College, a local two-year school. While there he got noticed by the Orioles, who drafted him in January ‘68, and by USC and its fabled coach, Rod Dedeaux. Dave turned down the O’s but not Dedeaux, who gave him the same deal he gave Tom Seaver a few years earlier: play summer ball in Alaska against some major college talent and if it works you’re good. So that summer Dave was a Goldpanner and while he didn’t do anything crazy great – he hit .154 and was 3-0 with three saves but a 5.46 ERA and many more walks than K’s – he was intriguing enough to get to Southern Cal. His sophomore year he pitched, pretty well too as he went 11-4 with a 1.38 ERA and 88 K’s in 85 innings. He also hit .250 with four homers and 16 RBI’s in his 22 games. When he returned to Alaska that summer his numbers were much better as well with a .323/6/16 hitting line and a 7-3/3.29 pitching one. His walks were still pretty high, though, and in ‘70 Dedeaux restricted Dave to offense. He was killing the ball at over .500 when he got involved in a nasty collision that broke his arm and tore ligaments in his leg. But those USC seasons were long and though Dave missed 30 games he still got into 32 in which his .353/8/26 line got him named second-team PAC-8 and first-team All-American. This time when he got drafted – again in the first round by the Giants – he signed. That summer in Double A he continued to hit at a nice clip, going .295/15/41 in 210 at bats, but with 64 K’s. That year he played both infield corners but was pretty challenged at third. Signs of things to come. In ’71 he moved up to Triple A where his line of .278/26/99 in only 392 at bats got him up to San Francisco by late July.

Though as noted above Kingman was a quiet guy, he made some noise with his bat and his second game up he hit a run-scoring double and then a grand slam in a barn-burner against the Pirates. He would spend the rest of the year primarily spelling Willie McCovey at first and got everyone excited with his big bangers. He didn’t hit too great in the playoffs but he came out of the box strong in ’72 while splitting time between his three positions. He put up six homers in April but started showing his streaky side with bouts of big hits and dry spells. His final power numbers were pretty good but not enough to get him a regular position since the Giants already had a player with fat strikeout totals in Bobby Bonds. After the ’73 experience Dave had a nearly similar ’74: lots of K’s and lots of errors – his fielding average at third was below .800  - leading to lots of bench time with bouts of big power. His line was .223/18/55. After that season he was sold to the Mets for $150,000.

When Kingman got to NY the original plan was to have him back up Rusty Staub, Cleon Jones, and Del Unser in the outfield as well as John Milner and Ed Kranepool at first. But Jones was coming back from a knee surgery that would help tank his career so Dave and Milner pretty much split left field while Milner’s time away from first gave Dave time there as well. He did his thing, setting a Mets record with 36 homers, knocked in 88, and hit .231 with 153 K’s. The next year he played the outfield much more and started on a pretty good tear with 27 homers by the end of June and 30 by the All-Star break, to which he was voted a starter. But shortly after the game Dave went down with a broken thumb and missed the next six weeks. By the end of the season his .238/37/87 line represented a new Mets homer record. Then things got weird in ’77 and started in training camp when he broke his nose and also got dinged in the foot by a pitching machine. That second one robbed him of his power and though Dave played regularly in his two spots and hit .300 the first month, he only had nine homers and 28 RBI’s when he was part of the big June purge NY enacted and went to San Diego for Bobby Valentine and Paul Siebert. With the Padres he returned to form with eleven homers and 39 RBI’s in his 168 at bats but he was placed on waivers anyway when he indicated he would need major bucks to sign as a free agent. The same thing happened with California, who quickly signed him and for which he had one good game. He spent the last couple weeks with the Yankees, ending the season as the first guy to play for a team in each division and with a homer for four teams in the same season. He signed too late with NY for post-season work though.

After the ’77 season the Yankees wanted Kingman but the Cubbies got him with a four-year million dollar deal. He fit into that Chicago line-up pretty well because the team had plenty of contact hitters and was able to absorb the big K totals. Dave absorbed some of that himself because his average picked up quite a bit while there. In ‘78 his line was .266/28/79 even though he missed nearly a month with a pulled hamstring. In ’79 he was healthy all year and responded with the best line of his career with a .288/48/115 as he returned to the All-Star game and led MLB in homers. In '80 he appeared headed for the same type of numbers when he slipped on a bat in late May and damaged his shoulder when he fell. He missed a bunch of time though he did return to the All-Star game and put up a line of .278/18/57 in just 255 at bats. Following that season he returned to the Mets for Round 2 in a trade for outfielder Steve Henderson. The Mets moved Dave to first and away from Chicago his average returned to its normal submerged level. In the strike season of ‘81 his line was .221/22/59 and in a full ’82, .204/37/99, a season in which he infamously – as NL home run leader – had a lower average than Cy Young winner Steve Carlton. In ’83 he was off to a crappy offensive start when a mid-year acquisition of Keith Hernandez moved Dave to some right field and pinch-hitting duties the rest of the season. After posting a .198/13/29 line he was released. Early in ’84 he was signed by Oakland and the team put Dave in his most natural defensive spot – DH. There he had a big year, winning the AL Comeback Player award with a .268/35/118 line while bolstering a young offense. His average slipped a bit the next two years but not his power as he hit over 30 homers each season, closing with 35 in ’86, his last year. He finished with a .236 average, 442 homers, and 1,210 RBI’s. He also had 1,816 K’s – about one every 3.7 at bats - and a .302 OBA, both which seem destined to keep him out of the Hall. In the post-season he hit .111 in his four games. He is currently 38th all-time in homers and 15^th in homers per at bat.

Kingman seems to have lived a pretty quiet life since he retired. He played a season in the Senior League and eventually relocated to the Lake Tahoe area where he was running his own tennis club in 2008 according to an article in The Daily News. He has since been spotted at card shows and other baseball-related events where he is widely regarded as charming and outgoing.

Dave’s only bit of MLB pitching was in ’73, in which he gave up four runs, six walks, and rang up four strikeouts in four innings of work. That homer in the cartoon broke Dave’s drought and was hit in an August game against Ray Sadecki, giving Ron Bryant his 20th win. Dave had four RBI’s in the game. He also had that monster shot at Wrigley and could hit massive pop flies and foul balls as well. A couple times at Shea he also hit balls that landed in the parking lot behind home plate. Dave has his own site at which you will find more info about his career than you could possibly want to know.

One of the bigger trades from this set helps here:

1. Kingman and Juan Marichal ’71 to ’73 Giants;

2. Marichal and Rico Petrocelli ’74 Red Sox.

#595 - Steve Blass

In yet another final card action shot, Steve Blass gives a classic demonstration of his pitching form in Pittsburgh in which at the end of his motion each of his limbs was pointed in a different direction. Normally that flailing worked quite well for Steve but not in ’73 or thereafter and if this photo was taken from that year, there is really no telling where the pitch ended in relationship to the strike zone. Probably nowhere good. Steve famously lost all control that year immediately after his most successful season which sucked even more for him because he was a control pitcher. Really nothing went right for him all year and he would become the poster child for any player who inexplicably lost his ability to deliver a baseball to its intended spot. But Steve had a lot more going on than his fall from grace so let’s get to it.

Steve Blass grew up in Connecticut on the Housatonic River where he was all-state in basketball and by the time he graduated high school had thrown five no-hitters. That attracted attention from both his beloved Cleveland Indians and Pittsburgh. He signed with the latter team when it offered him a bigger bonus and the chance to play right away. That summer of 1960 in D ball he had a bi-polar season, going 4-1 with one team and 1-3 with a 6.68 ERA for another. Steve was a power pitcher back then and after averaging a K an inning that year returned to that level in ‘61 to go 13-6 with a 3.32 ERA and 227 strikeouts in 160 innings. In ’62 he had a season not too dissimilar to his first year when he had a huge year in B ball – 17-3 with a 1.97 ERA and 209 K’s in his 178 innings – after a 1-4 start with a 7.20 ERA in A ball. In ’63 he got moved up to Triple A where he met pitching coach Don Osborn – he has a bio on the Pirates coaches card – who was known as “The Wizard of Oz” for his ability to tutor pitchers. Osborn added a bunch of pitches to Steve’s arsenal during spring training. That first year Steve went 11-8 though his ERA was a bit fat at 4.44. The next year he was off to a nice start there before he was pulled up to Pittsburgh in May. In his first start in his second game Steve got a win against Don Drysdale. He went on to have a decent rookie year as a spot guy, recording a shutout, and in ’65 spent the full season back in Triple A, where he went 13-11 with a 3.07 ERA in his last season in the minors for a while.

In ’66 Blass returned to Pittsburgh where he spent the bulk of his time in the rotation and put up a nice sophomore year, improving his record and his ERA. But ’67 was a step back as the whole team fell into a sort of malaise and Steve moved from the rotation to the pen. Then in ’68 he had an excellent bounce as he led the NL in winning percentage, put up seven shutouts, and got some MVP votes. In ’69 his wins stayed up there but his ERA more than doubled and his pen time got him his only two saves up top. In ’70 he got in a hole by opening the season 2-8 before he went on a run that really didn’t stop until ’73. From then on he went 8-4 with a 3.01 ERA as the team’s best pitcher but got shut out of any post-season work. Then came the big Pirates Series year of ’71 in which Steve put up his best stats since ’68, led the NL with five shutouts, and after a tough playoff threw masterful ball in his two complete games wins over the Orioles. The magic continued in ’72 when Steve recorded personal bests in victories and ERA to finish second in Cy Young voting to Steve Carlton’s amazing year. But then up came the wall. ’74 would be even a worse experience than ’73 as after Steve’s first start – five runs on eight hits and seven walks in five innings – he was moved to Triple A for rehab. But it didn’t change things as he went 2-8 with an ERA above 9.00. He was done and he retired with a record essentially the same as the one on the back of his card: 103-76 with a 3.63 ERA, 57 complete games, 16 shutouts, and those two saves. In the post-season he was 3-1 with a 3.10 ERA in his six starts.

After playing Blass did some marketing work, first with a company that made class rings, and then with a beer distributorship, but he returned to baseball before too long. In ’83 he began doing color work for the Pirates on a local cable affiliate before in ’86 moving to the regular spot on KDKA, the broadcast Pittsburgh station. He has been there ever since. After a long dry run he must be pretty happy with how things are going this year.

Two good star bullets are presented here and it’s tough to imagine that career record was all done by 32. On the back of Steve’s ’71 card he is wearing some monster glasses. Maybe that is an indication as to what went wrong in ’73. He has a detailed SABR bio.

Steve’s card represents the initial one for the final ten per-cent of the set. Before we get to the stats so far for the first 90% let’s hook him up:

1. Blass and big Bob Robertson ’67 and ’69 to ’74 Pirates;

2. Robertson and Leroy Stanton ’78 Mariners.

Okay, here we go with a quick review:

Post-Season: Every post-season is represented by a player or coach present in this set from 1957 to 1990. Early outliers are ’51 and ’54 thanks to Willie Mays. Later ones are ’92 and ’95 thanks to Dave Winfield. ’73 continues to be the best-represented season with 89 participants.

Awards: There are now the following past or future award winners in the set to date: 25 MVP winners; 16 Cy Young winners; 25 Comeback Player of the Year winners; 12 Fireman of the Year winners; 22 Manager of the Year winners; 22 Rookie of the Year winners; and eight The Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year winners.

Milestones: We are up to 38 members of the Hall of Fame. 62 players are represented by official or unofficial Traded cards. There have been 46 rookie cards in the set so far although that number will bounce significantly. And there are now 61 cards representing managers or players that have since passed away.

Topps Rookie Teams: Here are the representatives by year of each past – and now future – Topps Rookie All-Star teams:

’59 – 3               ’63 – 3              ’67 – 6               ’71 - 9

’60 – 2               ’64 – 4              ’68 – 6               ’72 – 9

’61 – 3               ’65 – 5              ’69 – 7               ’73 – 10

’62 – 1               ’66 – 7              ’70 – 6               ’74 – 1

Miscellaneous: There are 338 players in away jerseys and 186 in home jerseys. There have been 137 action shot cards and 43 with parenthetical names on the card back. We are up to six ugly cards and stalled at five players who served in Viet Nam.

Next up is the set’s final special subset. See ya in a couple days.