#658 - Lee Lacy

I really am stretching this thing out but, trust me, it’s not intentional. Too much work and other stuff. For our third-to-last card we get Lee Lacy at Shea looking very serious. That face could have something to do with what was going on at the time in the LA infield, then Lee’s professional stomping ground. ’73 saw the initiation of that long-lasting combo of Garvey/Lopes/Russell/Cey which meant that Lee’s playing time contracted considerably from his rookie season. For a while things would stay that way and barring injury it would be tough for Lee to get any field time. But his versatility would prove to be his saving grace and that ability to play just about anywhere in the field would help him have a long fruitful career.

Lee Lacy was born in Texas and relocated to Oakland before high school. He did the multi-sport thing and then went to nearby Laney College where he played both hoops and baseball. He was drafted midway through his second year there in January ’69 and then played mostly third while producing some pretty good offense that included a .402 OBA. In ’70 he moved up to A ball and over to shortstop where he produced more good plate numbers but had a super tough time in the field. His offense got him to Double A in ’71 where on top of another good offensive season he improved at both shortstop and third but actually spent most of his time at second, which seems to have been a better fit. Lee remained at that level and position for ’72 where he banged the ball super well, putting up a .417 OBA, continued to improve his defense, and got his call up in June.

The late Sixties and the early Seventies were sort of a transitional mess for the Dodgers outside of first base. There were lots of crash and burns at third – Bob Bailey, Bill Sudakis, and Billy Grabarkewitz – and for a little bit Ted Sizemore seemed to be the man at second after his ROY season in ’69. But he went to St. Louis to get Dick Allen, Jim Lefebvre got hurt and was needed to fill the gap at third, fellow young guy Bobby Valentine played everywhere, and converted outfielder Bill Russell eventually settled at shortstop. Into this stew came Lacy in the summer of ’72 to pretty much take over the regular job the rest of the way.while plugging the gap on defense and doing an OK job at the plate. He then began ’73 in the same role, got hurt in mid-May while hitting .195, and returned to see his spot taken by Davey Lopes, who wouldn’t give it up until Lee was long gone. In ’74 his at bats fell even further during the championship season though he hit .282 and got a bit of post-season time. In ’75 LA got hit big by the injury bug which killed their playoff chances but worked nicely for Lee, who posted a .314/7/40 line in 306 at bats while filling in at second and for the first time in the outfield. After that season he joined rapidly-aging Jimmy Wynn, Tom Paciorek, and Jerry Royster in a trade to Atlanta for Dusty Baker and Ed Goodson. With the Braves, Lee took over regular duties at second before a hitting slump and then an injury took him out of action a couple weeks. But he got his average up to .272 before he was traded again, this time back to LA with reliever Elias Sosa for Mike Marshall. The rest of the way for the Dodgers he spent the bulk of his time in center and hit .266 overall, with a .385 average as a pinch hitter in what would be his busiest year for a while. In both ’77 and ’78 he did his back-up thing in both the infield and outfield, averaging in the mid-.260’s. That first year he hit very well in a return to the post-season and in that second year he added some power, with a .261/13/40 line in 245 at bats. That winter he left LA as a free agent and signed with the Pirates.

In Pittsburgh Lacy again assumed a back-up role, but this time exclusively in the outfield and there nearly all the time in left. His stats – a .249 average with 15 RBI’s in 182 at bats – weren’t anything special but his timing sure was as he joined a Series champion. He then moved into a platoon role in left and hit a ton better in ’80 with a .335/7/33 line with 18 stolen bases and 45 runs in just 278 at bats. After an off season in the strike year of ’81 he hit his stride in ’82 with .312/5/31/40/66 numbers in 359 at bats. Then followed a ..302/4/13/31/40 ’82 in 288 at bats; and a .321/12/70/21/66 ’84 in 474 at bats in his final season in Pittsburgh. After that it was another departure via free agency, this time to Baltimore where he became the regular right fielder, averaging .290/10/48 seasons in ’85 and ’86 before ending things in ’87 when he was 39. Lee finished with a .286 average with 91 homers, 458 RBI’s, 185 stole bases, and a .340 OBA. In the post season he hit .241 in his 17 games.

Lacy got into a bit of trouble when he was named late in his playing career as one of the cocaine-using players during the Pittsburgh drug trials. By then he’d had his daughter Jennifer, who would grow up to be a star hoops player at Pepperdine and is still playing in the WNBA. Lee did the year-plus in the Senior League in ’89 –’90 and appears to have remained in the Southern California area since playing for LA. He is a regular at autograph and other events for the Dodgers though I haven’t been able to nail down what he’s done professionally since playing.

Lee’s star bullets give us a look at some of his achievements in high school and at Laney. His is also the final card that gives us a look at what he did during the off-season via the cartoon.

Getting these two together is relatively lengthy:

1. Lacy and Jerry Royster ’76 Braves;

2. Royster and Jeff Burroughs ’77 to ’80 Braves;

3. Burroughs and Jim Shellenback ’70 to ’73 Senators/Rangers.

#616 - Larry Gura

If you were a Yankee fan in the mid-Seventies you’d have thought this poor guy was a mixture of Satan and Liberace. Billy Martin hated Larry Gura for some reason and would on a regular basis question his toughness, which is a little bizarre because Larry never actually pitched in one regular season game for Billy. But Martin’s doghouse was a tough place from which to extricate oneself – ask Reggie – and Larry didn’t have Reggie’s leverage so when Billy said “begone” off he went. I remained an NY fan through all its Billy and non-Billy incarnations but I always thought Larry was unfairly dissed so – outside of playoff time – I have to admit I was pretty happy when he beat the Bombers, which he did a lot. But that was years away and in ’73 Larry was a struggling pitcher having a nasty time as a spot guy in the NL and  not much of a better one in Triple A. But things changed for the better after the trade indicated here though he never threw one regular season game for Texas. By the time ’74 spring training was over Larry was in NY, pitching for the Yankees for whom he did a pretty good job, actually. His regular card shows him in a home uniform in what must be spring training while his Traded card features a not-too-bad airbrush job in Candlestick. It would be in KC, though, where the lights came on for Larry.

Larry Gura grew up in Joliet, Illinois where he was a pitching star and once threw two successive no-hitters in an American Legion tournament. He then went to Arizona State where as a sophomore he won a game in relief during the CWS championship season of ’67 and then as a senior in ’69 went 19-2 while pitching in four of the team’s six CWS games as ASU won it all again. He was then drafted by the Cubs that spring in the second round. At first he would work fast through the minors, beginning his career that year in Triple A before throwing great ball in the Instructional League that fall. He began ’70 in the minors also but was called up at the end of April where he got into one game in a month before returning to do some work in Triple A. He was back in Chicago by late June but was barely used the rest of the way, though he did record his first win in his first start, a complete game. In ’71 he did the back and forth though his time was nearly all in Triple A. ’72 was looking to be a repeat of the past when he asked the team to just keep him at the lower level so he could get in more games. Then in ’73 he stayed up top until August when he went down for the last month of the minor league season. To punctuate his frustrating time in Chicago his best effort in ’73 in a start was cancelled because of darkness. For the trade illustrated here Larry went to Texas as the player to be named later when the Cubbies got Mike Paul.

Gura had a '74 training camp that didn’t make Texas manager Billy Martin too happy and Larry spent the first month of the season in Triple A, where he went 1-1 with a 3.10 ERA in four starts before a May trade to the Yankees for catcher Duke Sims.  He remained at that level for NY and in his 17 games – 16 starts – he went 7-7 with a 2.14 ERA and a save. Larry was a control guy and when he was on a roll did a great job brushing the corners. NY liked his Triple A work and called him up in late August and for the stretch run he was the team’s hottest pitcher, going 5-1 with two shutouts and a 2.41 ERA in his eight starts. ’75 would be tougher, though, as both Larry’s and the team’s performance was uneven, his appearances would be irregular, and his role was best described as a spot guy. Still, his numbers weren’t too bad at 7-8 with a 3.55 ERA. Then along came Billy again and Larry got minimal time in spring training ball and none at the top of the regular season before an early trade sent him to Kansas City for catcher Fran Healy.

Gura’s initial experience in KC wasn’t exactly a panacea for his career to date. He had some rough outings in May, wasn’t used at all in June, and then righted his ship a bit in July, all his games in relief to that point. In August he pitched well in a loss to Chicago but his best effort of the year would be his eight innings of one-hit relief vs. Billy Martin’s Yankees his next game. From there it was nearly all good, culminating in an important shutout win against Oakland in late September. Larry went 4-0 on the year with a 2.30 ERA and a save. He pitched not too badly in the AL playoffs and came back in ’77 to be a swing guy as he went 8-5 with a 3.13 ERA and ten saves in his 52 games. He really hit his stride in ’78 when he finally joined the rotation full-time mid-year and went 16-4 with a 2.72 ERA. In ’79 he went 13-12 as his ERA fattened a bit but he got things right again in ‘80 when he was 18-10/2.95, was the AL All-Star starting pitcher, and had an excellent post-season. In ’81 he was 11-8/2.72 despite a late season hand injury and in ’82 he won 18 again. Things shifted pretty radically the next couple seasons as his ERA spiraled up and he went a combined 23-27. In ’85 he returned to the Cubs where he finished out his career, unfortunately missing out on the KC Series run. Larry finished with a record of 126-97 with a 3.76 ERA, 71 complete games, 16 shutouts, 14 saves, and only 600 walks in his over 2,000 innings, not bad for a guy Billy Martin once said couldn’t find the plate. He was 2-3 with a 3.89 ERA in his nine postseason outings.

Gura had settled into an off-season life in Arizona while playing and it was to there he returned professionally after playing. For the past bunch of years he has taken over running a family organic farm there that was started by his in-laws. He will sign pretty much anything for a small fee that goes to cover farm expenses.

Larry has about the cleanest signature I’ve seen to date and gets star bullets that could have easily been exceeded by some college info. He was admitted into the ASU hall of fame in ’78 and his local Joliet one a couple years later. Two things I remember about him in relation to his Yankees days. One is recounted in “The Bronx Zoo” when during ’75 spring training Billy Martin spotted Larry and Rich Coggins playing tennis. According to Sparky Lyle Martin thought tennis was “a pussy game” and it was one of the reasons he wasn’t a Gura fan. Another was that I always had the impression Larry bulked up after he left NY. His neck looked a lot thicker and his guns a lot bigger on his KC cards than on his earlier ones. It’s tough to tell from his card backs though. Here he’s listed as 185. On his ’80 card he’s 178 and on his ’81 card he’s 195.

Topps doesn’t give us too much trade-specific info here. As noted above Larry went to the Rangers in November for Mike Paul, who’d gone from Texas to the Cubs back in August. Ironically Larry played the bulk of his career under Whitey Herzog, another guy displaced by Billy Martin.

In Watergate news, we are up to April of ’73:

4/3/73 – G. Gordon Liddy had been testifying in front of the Grand Jury and gave them absolutely nothing which infuriated Judge John Sirica who already wasn’t a fan. Sirica imposed an additional eight to 18 months on Liddy’s sentence for contempt of court. Around now H.R. Haldeman’s name was being leaked from testimony as another co-conspirator in the bugging and other “dirty tricks.” Haldeman was Nixon’s Chief of Staff.

4/5/73 – Nixon withdraws his nomination of Patrick Gray as permanent FBI director. Gray, who’d been the acting director after J. Edgar Hoover’s death in ’72 hadn’t won any fans in Congress when he revealed he turned over FBI documents regarding Watergate to White House counsel John Dean.

4/17/73 – The White House announces that a new internal investigation had been initiated in late March because of “serious charges.” The announcement is made by Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler who earlier had written off the Watergate affair as “a third-rate burglary attempt.” When asked by the press to define the current status of the White House’s understanding of the Watergate affair Ziegler indicated that statement made this day was “operative.” When further asked what that meant he replied that all past statements were “inoperative.” This instance and one other sort of immortalized Ziegler’s involvement in the scandal.

These two were both in Chicago uniforms in ’73 but things can’t be that easy:

1. Gura and Ed Herrmann ’75 Yankees;

2. Herrmann and Johnny Jeter ’73 White Sox.

Or maybe they can.

#604 - '74 Rookie Infielders

As has been the recent trend, on this infielders card we get a couple guys who had significant MLB careers and a couple who didn’t stick around terribly long. Andy(?) Thornton looks like he’s up on a mountain somewhere and appears to be in his Braves uniform which I only know about pre-research because he was on the Atlanta team card. Two of these guys appear to be smiling and Frank White actually seems to be suppressing a laugh which would make this by far the most jovial of the rookie cards to date.

Terry Hughes grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina where he was a local basketball and baseball legend and had been scouted in the latter sport since he was in eighth grade. Given what was generally viewed as “can’t miss” status, he was playing high school ball that year and during his HS Career hit .288, .321, .400, and .615. He only has four seasons because during his junior year he was suspended from both his hoops and baseball team (I do not know why). He also played American Legion ball in the summers and hit .415 prior to his senior year in that league. Apparently every team scouted him and in the ’67 draft the Cubs made him the second pick after Ron Blomberg (and before Bobby Grich). Terry eschewed another American Legion season to play Rookie ball and hit .278 at that level. In ’68 he moved around a bit and in A ball that summer hit .283 while on loan to Boston, .221 back in the Chicago system, and .328 with a .424 OBA in a month of Double A ball. ’69 was all Double A around some military time and was the first year he played principally at third as he had specialized in shortstop until then. In an off year he hit .249 but in ’70 he bounced to hit .286 in Triple A and made his MLB debut in September. The next two seasons were spent strictly in Triple A and both years he missed some time to injury. In ’71 he hit .255 while playing mostly in the outfield and in ’72 he had his best offensive season, hitting .302 with a .385 OBA and 13 homers as he returned to third base. Just prior to the start of the ’73 season he was sold to the Cards for whom he also played in Triple A, hitting .289 with 51 RBI’s before being called up in August to do late inning work the rest of the season. That year he also had his first Toops rookie card and so, like Sergio Robles on the prior post, this card isn’t technically Terry’s rookie one. After the season he was involved in a big trade, going to Boston with Reggie Cleveland and Diego Segui for John Curtis, Lynn McGlothen, and Mike Garman, another heralded ’67 draft pick. In ’74 Terry spent all of the season on the Boston roster, putting in time at third behind Rico Petrocelli and Dick McAuliffe. In ’75 he was the last guy cut in spring training and he returned to Triple A where he hit .253. He then put in a partial season back with the Cards at that level in ’76 and was done. Terry hit .209 in 54 games up top and .269 in the minors. By the early Seventies he was taking college classes and he eventually got a degree in education. After playing he returned to South Carolina where since 1989 he has been a baseball coach and teacher at Boiling Springs High School.

John Knox is listed here as a third baseman but he would play nearly exclusively at second for Detroit; Ron Cash from a few cards back was listed as a second baseman but he played both corner infield positions. With Reggie Sanders from Ron’s card the whole infield was covered almost so Detroit was sure in overhaul mode at the time of this card. John was born in Newark, NJ, but by the time he was in high school had relocated to Ohio and then went on to Bowling Green State University there where he graduated with a degree in education and finished as the school record holder with 107 career hits. He was drafted by Detroit in ’70 and that summer hit .315 in A ball with a .437 OBA. The next year he put up .271/.368 numbers in Double A before spending most of the next two seasons as a Triple A Toledo Mud Hen. He had pretty similar seasons, posting a .294/.374 year in ’72 and .274/.367 numbers in ’73. He made his Detroit debut the former year in August and then in ’73 hit .281 while playing sparingly, both years behind Dick McAuliffe and Tony Taylor. He then spent all of ’74 and ’75 on the Detroit roster where he hit a combined .287 while playing behind light-hitting Gary Sutherland. The knock on John back then was that he wasn’t a great fielder and in ’76 when Detroit had a bunch of younger infielders in the wings, he was sent back to Triple A. Early that year he was sold to Cincinnati – not exactly an open book at second – and for them stuck at the Triple A level. In ’77 he stopped playing to sell real estate and life insurance in the Toledo area and after a failed comeback in ’78 he was done. He finished with an MLB average of .274 in 219 at bats and a minor league average of .276 and did an inning of late defensive work in the ’72 playoffs. It has been hard to track this guy since then but he was later admitted to his school’s hall of fame and he does some work with a greyhound rescue group down in Texas so that may be where he now resides.

Andre Thornton would hold onto the “Andy” tag on his Topps cards through the ’76 set. Born in Alabama, he and his family relocated to a suburb of Philadelphia where in high school Andre was a big three sports star. He was also a bit of a pool hustler and when he was signed it was in a pool hall, by the Phillies in the late summer of ’67. He only hit .182 in a few games in A ball that year but upped it in ’68 at the same level to .249 with 31 RBI’s in 185 at bats. In ’69 he missed a bunch of time for his National Guard military hitch but hit .251 with 13 homers and a .373 OBA around that in the year he became deeply religious. In ’70 he was off to yet another A team but his at bats went south by about 100 as he missed time to both The Guard and to a broken hand. In ’71 he had a strong bounce. Finally up to Double A he hit .267 with a .399 OBA, 26 homers, and 76 RBI’s. He had one ten-game streak during which he hit nine homers. That got him promoted to Triple A the next year where Andre continued his improvement with a .290/20/65 season in just 300 at bats for two teams since he was traded mid-year to Atlanta with Joe Hoerner for Jim Nash and Gary Neibauer. He remained at that level to start the ’73 season but after a poor start he was sent to the Cubs for Joe Pepitone where he would have a huge slugging binge the next two months, putting up a .289/17/45 run with a .484 OBA in just 135 at bats. That prompted his late July call-up to Chicago where he hit .200 in the few games in which he saw action the rest of the way. In ’74 he split time at first base while putting up a .261 average with ten homers, 46 RBI’s, and a .368 OBA. The next year he got more starts there and responded with a .293/18/60/.428 year that seemed to solidify his hold on the spot after he missed the first month-plus with a broken wrist. But a poor start in the ’76 season got him benched and then traded to Montreal for Larry Biitner and Steve Renko where his slump continued. After that season he was sent to Cleveland for pitcher Jackie Brown. A famously slow starter Andre was hitting only .150 and had been benched in favor of Bill Melton at first when he got back in the line-up and went on a tear, putting up a .286/25/65/.400 stat line in the last 100 games. From there he didn’t look back and over the next two seasons he would average .248 with 30 homers and 99 RBI’s as the club’s leading slugger while providing excellent defense at first. Amazingly those seasons came after a horrible accident in the ’77 off-season in which his wife and daughter were killed and Andre and his son badly injured. In spring training of ’80 he suffered a knee injury which required two operations and caused him to miss the whole year. Then, between the strike and a broken hand, ’81 was pretty much a hot mess. But in ’82 Andre recorded probably his best season, putting up a .273/32/116/.386 stat line while winning the AL Comeback Player of the Year award. By now mostly a DH, Andre would record four more pretty good power years  - in ’84 he won a Silver Slugger - before retiring during the ’87 season. He finished with a .254 average with 253 homers, 895 RBI’s, and a .360 OBA and was twice an All-Star. By that time he was in wide demand as a speaker and he also owned a string of Applebees restaurants for a time after playing. After he sold his chain to the parent company he founded GCI, a logistics company. That firm merged with ASW, a supply chain management company, in 2007 and since then Andre has been the firm’s CEO. He has a SABR bio and a whole chapter devoted to him in Terry Pluto’s “The Curse of...”

When Ewing Kauffman founded the Royals in the late Sixties, one of the first things he did was establish the Royals Baseball Academy, a team-run institution that took select local kids to Florida each year and would teach them a higher level baseball they would otherwise have not been able to access. In the first class of ’70 Frank White was a member, having played ball in high school and even a bit at a local JUCO before the family ran out of money. After a year in the Academy he went to Rookie ball as a shortstop in ’71 where he hit .247 and then moved fast. He split ’72 between A and Double A, hitting .267 with 12 homers and 24 stolen bases. In ’73 he moved up to Triple A, began putting in most of his time at second base, and hit .264 around two stints up in KC where he did support work at short and second and hit .223. Technically he wasn’t a rookie in ’74 because he got into too many games in ’73 and his second year he also put in some time at third, producing roughly the same numbers. He did one more year of reserve work in ’75 when his average took off to .290 and early the next season established himself as the regular second baseman, a position he would then hold for 14 years. He would be middling on offense for a bunch of years and his OBA was never very high, but he didn’t strike out too much, and he would occasionally do pretty well, hitting .275 in ’78, stealing 28 bases in ’79, and hitting .298 in ’82. Frank’s forte was his defense and beginning in ’77 he would win six consecutive Gold Gloves and during that time make four All-Star teams. In ’83 he was moved up in the line-up and that year he had 77 RBI’s. In ’84 he hit 17 out and he then became an outright slugger, the next three years averaging 20 homers and 77 RBI’s. In the ’85 Series he batted in the clean-up spot and in ’86 and ’87 won two more Gold Gloves while also returning to the All-Star game and winning a Silver Slugger the first season. He remained with KC through the ’90 season, finishing with a .255 average, 160 homers, 886 RBI’s, over 2,000 hits, and 178 stolen bases. Defensively he is 12^th all-time in assists and putouts at second base and ninth in double plays. In the post-season he hit .213 with 16 RBI’s in 42 games. After a year off in ’91 he became the first black manager in the Boston chain when he manged the Rookie franchise in ’92. He then coached a year in the minors before moving up to Boston from ’94 to ’96. From there he returned to KC as a coach (’97-2001); assistant to the GM (2002-’03); manager of the team’s Double A franchise (’04-’06); and director of player development and community relations (’07-’10). That last year the Royals got real miserly with his salary and he quit the community relations role and after the 2011 season he was fired from his part-time announcing role because the team claimed he was too critical. Since 2012 he has been a coach for the independent Kansas City T-Bones and a sales representative for a roofing company.

This group raises the bar pretty high with 34 MLB seasons between them, as well as seven All-Star games, eight Gold Gloves, two Silver Sluggers, and a Comeback Player award. Reading their last names in succession sounds like an amusing headline: “Hughes Knox (Knocks) Thornton White.” I guess it would have worked if Andre was a pitcher.

Pitchers come in handy getting from the last card to this one:

1. Sergio Robles and Jim Palmer ’72 to ’73 Orioles;

2. Palmer and Dick Drago ’77 Orioles;

3. Drago and Terry Hughes ’74 Red Sox;

Then we get a pretty efficient ‘round the card:

1. Terry Hughes and Dick McAuliffe ’74 Red Sox;

2. McAuliffe and Willie Horton (watch this guy) ’64 to ’73 Tigers;

3. Horton and John Knox ’72 to ’75 Tigers; Horton and Andre Thornton ’78 Indians;

4. Thornton and Pete LaCock ’73 to ’76 Cubs;

5. LaCock and Frank White ’77 to ’80 Royals.

#601 - '74 Rookie Outfielders

On this card we get two decently-long careers and a guy who probably still causes hand-wringing in Boston. One guy is a bit out of position on this card, at least for this part of his career, and not one of them looks terribly happy. This card kicks off the final eleventh of the set so let’s get to know these guys. The long delay on this one is partly because the text got lost. Now I have to publish this post in two parts because Blogger won't let me publish it in one. That always sucks.

Ed Armbrister was a happy guy pretty much all the time, despite his look here. Born and raised in the Bahamas as a kid he took advantage of the relative baseball craze that swept his nation when its first native came stateside to play MLB ball. Ed was spotted by a Houston scout in ’67 and signed in time to get in a full season in A ball, where he hit .211. He upped that by 50 points the next year and then in ’69 showed off his speed by stealing 26 bases while hitting .271. He then spent the next two years in Double A, hitting .238 in ’70 – while apparently not walking once in 442 plate appearances! – and upping it to .298 with 16 stolen bases in ’71. Following that season he was included in the big deal to the Reds and would then spend the bulk of the next three years in Triple A. He got his first rookie card that first year (and would have another one in ’75) and over that time would average .300 with nine triples, 16 stolen bases, and 63 RBI’s per year. He made his debut in late August of ’73 and worked the balance of the year in some occasional starts in center as well as pinch running and late inning work, hitting .216 before getting some playoff action. ’74 was nearly all in the minors and he would then spend the next three years strictly up top as the late-inning back-up guy. In ’75 he raised his profile huge when in the Series he put down the bunt that Carlton Fisk threw into center field after he got tangled up with Ed in front of the plate. He would hit .295 in ’76 and .256 in ’77 but the most at bats he got any of those three years up was 78. In ’78 he returned to Triple A for a year, hitting .276 with 32 steals his final stateside season. He then played in Mexico the next couple years, putting up a .291/13/62 line in ’79 but fading to .135 the next year, his final one as a player. For his career Ed hit .245 and .143 in his ten post-season games during which he garnered two rings and in the minors .273 with over 150 stolen bases. After playing he returned to the Bahamas where for years he was a croupier at local casinos and then worked in various local government roles. He has recently started an eponymous baseball league there and was donated a bunch of equipment by the Reds. He has a SABR bio.

Rick – or Rich, as Topps likes to designate him – Bladt was a Cali kid signed out of Foothill College (where he may or may not have played ball) by the Cubs in ’66. A speedy outfielder, he hit .294 in Rookie ball that year and .267 in A ball in ’67. In ’68 he improved to .293 at that level and then in ’69 he wrapped a .312 season in Triple A with 18 stolen bases around a few games in the summer in Chicago when Ron Santo was injured. After that year he and another minor leaguer went to the Yankees for outfielder Jimmie Hall and Rick would then spend the next five seasons as an outfield regular at Syracuse, the NY Triple A franchise, during which he averaged a stat line of .256/9/47 with 70 runs and 12 steals a year. His highs during that span were a .276 average with 12 homers in ’72, and 97 runs and ten triples and 19 stolen bases in ’73. In ’74 he bottomed out with a .226 average. But in ’75 he’d raised his average 40 points when Elliott Maddox tore up his knee at Shea and NY pulled up Rick that August to replace him. After a couple scattered starts he would become the everyday center fielder from early September on and hit .222 during that time. In ’76 NY picked up Mickey Rivers and Rick returned to Syracuse where he had his best year with a .285/9/60 line with 81 runs and a .385 OBA. That year he was also famously involved in a situation in which the ball from a hit he was chasing was lost in the outfield grass and had to be ruled a double. After that season he and Maddox were sent to Baltimore for Paul Blair and Rick spent his final year hitting .226 in Triple A. He finished with a .215 average in 62 MLB games and a .268 average with over 100 steals and a .350 OBA in the minors. After playing he moved to Oregon where he had a long career in construction as a carpenter and continues to reside.

By the time this card came out Brian Downing had just obtained his driver’s license which he needed to go on his first-ever date. A very shy guy who was obviously a late-bloomer, Brian’s baseball story is a great rags-to-riches one. He didn’t make his high school team in Anaheim until his senior year and then he never played. He then went to Cypress College, a local JUCO school, where he played a semester and happened to be seen by a White Sox scout in a game in which he lined a shot off future MLB reliever Al Hrabosky. When the scout heard Brian was hitting .333 he signed him up for a tryout not knowing that was his only hit of the season. Brian did well at the tryout and was signed that May. He kicked off that summer of ’70 in Rookie ball, where he hit .219 while catching. He then moved up a rung each year, hitting .246 in A ball as a catcher/third baseman in ’71 and .278 with 15 homers in Double A in ’72 when he added outfielder to his positions. He got on base at a pretty good clip - .370 in the minors – and in ’73 after hitting .246 in Triple A he was moved up to Chicago at the end of May. On his first play at third he caught a pop-up before falling down the dugout steps and dislocating his knee, missing the next two months. He returned to hit .178 while splitting time between his three positions. In ’74 he backed up Ed Hermann while hitting .225 and then Brian was the starting catcher the next two years, hitting .240 and .256. But he missed significant time both years – to an elbow injury in ’75 and a broken hand in ’76 – and in ’77 lost the starting catching gig to Jim Essian, though his numbers when he did play - .284 with 25 RBI’s and a .402 OBA in 169 at bats – were his best in Chicago. They would remain that as after the season ended he and pitchers Chris Knapp and Dave Frost went to California for Bobby Bonds, Thad Bosley, and Richard Dotson. His first season in ’78 he became the Angels’ starting catcher, hitting .255. Then in the off-season he worked on two things: weight training and opening his stance. They both worked huge and in ’79 he put up a .326/12/75 stat line with a .418 OBA and made the All-Star team. He was rolling in ’80 in the same role - .290 with 25 RBI’s his first 93 at bats – when he broke his ankle and missed the rest of the year. California then decided they liked his bat enough to put him in a safer place – he still had nagging shoulder and elbow pain – and opted for left field. Over the next ten years he would average a .267/20/70 stat line which included missed time in ’81 for the strike and in ’83, ’88, and ’90 for injuries. In his healthy seasons he averaged .275 with 25 homers and 85 RBI’s. He also put up a .370 OBA during that span and helped California reach the post-season two more times. After the ’90 season he was not re-signed and he went to Texas as a free agent where he DH’d – a role he performed primarily since ’87 – the next two years, averaging .278 with a .390 OBA. Brian finished playing at 41 with a .267 average, 275 homers, 1,073 RBI’s, and a .370 OBA. In the post-season he hit .197 with eight RBI’s in 16 games. He remained in Texas after his baseball career was over on a working farm in the small town of Celina. He was very bitter toward the Angels about his release from the team and would not show up for invitations to team events until 2000 when he was included on the franchise’s all-time team. He was inducted into the team’s hall of fame in 2009. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t make the cut in high school.

Bake McBride’s dad was a Negro League pitcher and Bake played baseball, basketball, and ran track in high school in Missouri before doing the same thing at Westminster College. Hoops was his first love, followed by track – he still holds his school’s record in the 200 – but after a shoulder injury pretty much killed his basketball ambitions he tried out for the Cardinals during his junior year and was then selected in the 37^th round (!!!) of the ’70 draft. After hitting .423 in Rookie ball that summer, he hit .294 with nine steals in only 85 at bats in A ball. In ’71 at the higher level he hit .303 with 40 steals while scoring 85 runs and in ’72 hit a combined .322 with 42 stolen bases and 92 runs scored in a season split between Double A and Triple A. After beginning the ’73 season hitting .289 with 23 stolen bases by July he was called up to St. Louis. He would spend the rest of the year getting a few outfield starts and pinch hitting and put up a .302 average. In ’74 he was named starting center fielder and he then put together an NL ROY year with his .309 average, 81 runs, and 30 stolen bases. Late that season he and Lou Brock – going for the teammate record for steals – were mailed death threats on a regular basis and required police protection. In ’75 Bake hit .300 and stole 26 bases, though he missed his first significant time to injury, this one a shoulder impairment. In ’76 he was gunning along with a .335 and an All-Star selection when his season was ended in July by knee surgery. That year he finished his degree at Westminster (he would be inducted into the school’s hall of fame). A somewhat slow comeback in ’77 and an issue with new manager Vern Rapp – Rapp wanted Bake to lose his afro - pulled down his average to .262 and restricted his playing time a bit and wound up partly forcing the deadline trade of Bake and Steve Waterbury to the Phillies for Tom Underwood, Rick Bosetti, and Dane Iorg. Bake turned it up the rest of the way, hitting .339 with 27 steals down the stretch. Bake would move to right in the Philly outfield and in ’78 he hurt his wrist which resulted in his average slipping a bunch to .269 and his being platooned with Jerry Martin. But he bounced when given the everyday gig in ’79, hitting .280 with twelve triples and in ’80 he turned on the power a bit with 33 doubles and 87 RBI’s as he spent a bunch of time in the fourth spot and hit .309 and got some significant MVP votes. In ’81 more knee injuries pulled his numbers down and after the season he was traded to Cleveland for reliever Sid Monge. In ’82 he was off to another excellent start - .365 in his first 27 games – when the injury bug really nailed him as a bad contact lens solution gave him conjunctivitis and he pretty much couldn’t see from that point on. He returned in ’83 for another injury-plagued season during which he hit .291 in 70 games. After he wasn’t signed he hooked up with Texas for whom in ’84 he hit .296 in Triple A. But at 35 his knees were toast and he retired after that seaon. He finished his MLB career with a .299 average with 548 runs and 183 stolen bases. In the post-season he hit .244 in 22 games. He returned to the St. Louis area where he has gone underground professionally but has had some relatives in the media: his son Bake is a personal trainer with a local hospital and has a YouTube video; a nephew Travis McBride was recently a local baseball star; and another nephew Joe McBride is a big deal jazz pianist.

#593 - Steve Yeager

This photo finds Steve Yeager in the midst of his second season of catching in LA. After being called up in ’72 to be part of the milieu behind the plate in the wake of Tom Haller’s departure he stayed up all of ’73 to play behind Joe Ferguson and his 25 homers. It had taken Steve a while for his bat to catch up to his catching prowess and he would never be a super hitter. But he hit pretty solidly in his two seasons in LA and that would help get him into the line-up on a regular basis going forward. But ’73 had some rough spots. On June 20^th Ferguson broke his thumb in a game against Atlanta, providing an opening for Steve, who was hitting .280 at the time in limited at bats. But in the 15 games he started during Joe’s absence he hit only .108. He would then sit for about a month before he returned to add over 50 points to his average down the stretch. For now he looks pretty content on a sunny day at Candlestick.

Steve Yeager grew up in Dayton, Ohio, where in high school he was a star in the big three sports and was a fourth round pick by the Dodgers in ’67. He had to finish a state tournament that summer so started his A season late but barely played because he wasn’t hitting too well. That was the theme in each of the next two seasons as lousy averages kept him on the bench a lot but his ability to call games and his toughness behind the plate kept him on the roster. That was illustrated when he played on a broken leg during ’69 and then also missed a bunch of time on the DL. In ’70 he moved up to Double A, hit much better, and got some starting time. Then in ’71 he maintained his hold on that starting spot at the same level, upping his numbers considerably. After a slightly better start in Triple A in ’72 he got called up to LA that August in the wake of Dick Dietz breaking his hand.

In ’72 the Dodgers catching situation was a bit of a hodgepodge as Chris Cannizzaro, Duke Sims, and Dick Dietz all spent time at the position. But by the end of the year Dietz got his injury, Sims followed Tom Haller to Detroit, and Cannizzaro just didn’t have enough stick so Yeager came up, got himself in a slump, and later pulled his average up to respectable. In ’74 he began the season with a hot bat as Ferguson got hit with a sophomore jinx and by the end of July Steve still had a .300 average and now the starting gig behind the plate since Ferguson could also man the outfield. Steve’s average would fade but not his defensive work as LA went 64-28 during his starts that year. And he bounced at an appropriate time in the post-season as he hit .364 in the loss to Oakland. In ’75 he fractured his knee to start the season but then had his busiest year as Ferguson too was one of many Dodgers to see DL time and though Steve’s average shrunk to .228 he upped his RBI total to 54. In ’76 he went down again after he was speared in the throat by shards off Bill Russell’s broken bat while in the on deck circle. That year Ferguson was traded to St. Louis and the following one Steve had his best offensive year with a .256/16/55 season in 359 at bats as he played ahead of veterans Johnny Oates and Jerry Grote. That was also the year LA returned to the Series and Steve was again a main offensive threat, hitting .316 with five RBI’s in six games. In ’78 a year-long slump and missed time to some cracked ribs had LA bring back Ferguson mid-season as Steve bottomed out with a .193 average in just 228 at bats. In ’79 he put up better power numbers with 13 homers and 41 RBI’s but his average only got to .216 in a big slump year for the Dodgers.

By 1980 Yeager had a nagging elbow injury that would limit his time in the field and with his average pretty much entrenched in Mendoza territory his playing time withered a bit more. That year he split time with Joe Ferguson and rookie Mike Scioscia. In ’81 Scioscia took over as the main guy and Steve barely played, racking up only 86 at bats in the strike year. But in the extended post-season he hit well and in the Series against the Yankees’ lefty-dominated rotation, he played in every game. It turned out to be an excellent fit as he hit .286 with two homers and four RBI’s to share the MVP award. In ’82 he continued in his back-up role and though he missed a month to a broken wrist, he upped his average to .245, his highest in five years. In ’83 he moved to the number one spot as Scioscia missed nearly the whole season to injury and though his average slid to .203 Steve hit 15 homers with 41 RBI’s. The next two seasons he returned to reserve work, in ’84 suffering knee damage in a plate collision. By ’85 he and Bill Russell were the only two left of the young guys who revived the franchise in the mid-Seventies. After that season he was sent to Seattle for Ed Vande Berg. He then finished his playing career in an ’86 with the Mariners in the same role. Steve wrapped things up with a .228 average with 102 homers and 410 RBI’s. In the post-season he hit .252 with five homers and 14 RBI’s in 38 games. In the field he twice led the NL in picking off runners and also led once each in putouts and assists.

Yeager did some community work with the Dodgers after his playing career ended, but his main professional work was elsewhere in the LA area: as an adviser, trainer, and actor in the Major Leagues movies. He did consulting work on other sports movies as well. He also hooked up with a company called Collectibles International, for which he was a spokesperson. The company purported to be a seller of franchises by which to make money in sports collectibles, but it turned out to be a sham shop. By ’99 Steve was back with the Dodgers full-time as a coach in their system. He coached there as well from 2004-’07. From 2000-’01 he managed the independent Long Beach Breakers and then in ’08 managed the city’s new independent franchise. Beginning in 2010 he became a spring training and roving minor league catching coach for the Dodgers and this year he has had that role in LA.

These two star bullets are worth investigating. The game was only Steve’s sixth MLB one and it occurred at Riverfront. That is a ton of chances for a game, seemingly, but this one ran 19 innings and Steve was behind the plate for all of them. That’s pretty amazing. All the putouts were strikeouts: Tommy John K’d 13 guys in his nine innings; Jim Brewer six in his three; Pete Richert one in two; and Ron Perranoski two in three innings. LA gave up only eight hits and two runs and still lost the game. He also got two assists for gunning down Tony Perez (fifth inning) and Joe Morgan (ninth) when they attempted to steal second. He missed nailing Bobby Tolan on another steal later and dropped a pop fly foul by Darrell Chaney, who flied out in that at bat. I guess that makes 24 chances though I’d count the assists also. Steve was related to fighter pilot and “The Right Stuff” profilee Chuck Yeager, who famously broke the sound barrier for the first time. He was on Family Feud, danced on Solid Gold, and posed for Playgirl. Sounds like he belonged in LA.

The link here was a big free agent signee for LA but nobody likes to remember that:

1. Yeager and Dave Goltz ’80 to ’82 Dodgers;

2. Goltz and Ed Bane ’73 and ’75 to ’76 Twins.  

#587 - Larry Christenson

The latest big deal rookie of the ’74 set is Larry Christenson and this is his rookie card since at this time the prior year Larry was still playing high school ball. Larry had a pretty good debut in ’73, sticking with the MLB roster out of camp when he was just 19. He threw a five-hit complete-game win at the Mets in his first start ever, giving up only one run. Tellingly, he also walked six in that game and a little wildness and too many big hits given up would have him back in Triple A by early June. There he didn’t throw much better though his control got more balanced and his record moved back to the winning side. Larry would be a Phillie his whole career and would battle through lots of injuries to do pretty well. Here he casts a glaze in Candlestick probably not too soon before he was sent down. But he’d be back pretty soon.

Larry Christenson grew up in Washington State where he played nearly everything, including in high school tennis, cross country, baseball, and basketball. That last one was his biggest sport and during his senior year in which he averaged 21 PPG as a forward he was recruited by all the Pac-Ten schools. He was headed in that direction when he sort of exploded in baseball that spring, going 7-2 with a 0.28 ERA and 143 strikeouts in his 72 innings. He also hit .406 and stole eleven bases. That June of ’72 the Phillies made Larry the third pick of the draft and after a very good start in Rookie ball that summer he joined the Phillies out of the gate in ’73.

In ’74 Christenson went 11-9 with a 3.30 ERA and much better control in Triple A before returning to Philadelphia late that August to go 1-1 in some relief work with a 4.30 ERA and a couple saves. He again began the next year in Triple A but after 12 shutout innings in his two starts he was back in the pen by mid-May. By mid-June he was in the rotation and he finished the year 11-6 with a 3.67 ERA and only 45 walks in over 170 innings. In ’76 he upped his win total to 13 with the same ERA but missed some time due to injury. He had a chronic bad back since high school and as a result would suffer occasional groin pulls. A good hitter, that year he teed off a couple solo homers in a game against the Mets. In ’77 Larry had his big year, going 19-6 with a 4.06 ERA and doubling his strikeout totals from the prior year. He also had his first playoff action. Then in ’78 his record was a disappointing 13-14 but he lowered his ERA nearly a run and topped out his complete game (9) and shutout (3) totals. Then in ’79 the injury bug bit him hard and before the season even began. He’d signed up to do an 1,800 mile bike ride – that’s pretty impressive – for charity back on the left coast and was going at a pretty good clip on the tour in February when he fell off the bike and broke his collarbone. While the initial injury was bad enough, it got worse when after the season started the collarbone developed a spur that required surgery. He missed a ton of time and for the year went 5-10 as his ERA flew up to 4.50. It would be more of the same the next two seasons as he lost time to elbow injuries, more groin pulls, and a smash to the knee on a comebacker. In ’80 he went 5-1 in his 14 starts and in ’81 4-7 around the injuries and the strike. In ’82 he had a relatively healthy year, going 9-10 with a 3.47 ERA in his first season of over 200 innings since ’78. But the rebound was short-lived as in ’83 after a not bad start – 2-4 but with great control and a 3.91 ERA – he hurt his elbow again and required two more surgeries. The Phillies released him after the season – on his birthday! – and Larry was done with a record of 83-71, 27 complete games, six shutouts, four saves, and a 3.79 ERA. In the post-season he was 1-2 with a 7.40 ERA in six games. He hit .150 for his career but with eleven homers and 46 RBI’s in 427 at bats.

Christenson was only 29 when Philadelphia let him go after the ’83 season and he had a deal with the club that if he rehabbed successfully they would take him back. So the next couple years that was what he did, for a while returning to do some kinesiology work with a certain Dr. Mike Marshall, former LA reliever. But the rehab never really worked and by ’86 he had moved on to a new career as a financial advisor, which he began in earnest after moving back to the Philadelphia area – where most of his professional contacts resided – in ’87. He worked on the advisor side through ’94 and then moved to the investment management side that year for the next ten years, part of it with Phoenix Investment Partners, a huge money manager. In 2004 he founded his own business, Larry Christenson Investment Partners, which offers products and services to investment managers. It has been a pretty successful run for him and has allowed him to be very involved in charitable work and occasional appearances on behalf of his old team. He continues to reside in the Philadelphia neck of the woods.

There’s Larry’s high school record as a senior so I didn’t need to plow through those old news articles. Who were the two guys chosen ahead of Larry? We’ve seen one of them already and the other would have his Topps unveiling in the ’76 set: Dave Roberts, third baseman from the University of Oregon was selected first by the Padres; and Rick Manning, then a high school shortstop from the Niagara Falls area in NY, was selected second by Cleveland. I do not know what Larry did for the lumber company in the off-season but given the status of his back, I hope it wasn’t swinging an axe.

These one-team guys can be tough:

1. Christenson and Ed Farmer – what a save! – ’74 and ’82 to ’83 Phillies;

2. Farmer and Jack Brohamer ’72 to ’73 Indians.

#583 - Marty Pattin

In another sort-of nod to Ralph Houk we get the second of two recent air-brushed cards in this photo of Marty Pattin, which I am guessing is of him in a Boston uniform sometime in the spring. Marty had come off a pretty wild ’72 season which ended in a way that should have portended a big year in ’73 but it didn’t start off that way as he went 1-6 with a horrible ERA coming out of the gate, sort of similar to the prior year. Marty specialized in streaks his couple years with the Sox and while his finish to ’73 wasn’t as big as the prior year, he did do a good job in evening out his record in what would be his last season as a solid rotation guy. Marty was a righty with a big overhand fastball and curve as well as a slider he picked up while in Milwaukee and when he got to KC following the trade indicated with the airbrush his assortment of pitches was used in an assortment of roles. That looks like a Boston guy behind him but there’s no way I can tell who it might be.

 

Marty Pattin grew up in Carleston, Illinois, a college town. After a high school career in which he threw three no-hitters he went to Eastern Illinois University in his hometown where he put up some nice numbers on the mound. After going 10-1 with a 1.99 ERA and 118 strikeouts in 86 innings his junior year he was off to a 4-0 start his senior year when a collision with a teammate dislocated his shoulder and ended his collegiate career. He still placed both years on the Little All-American team (Eastern Illinois was an NAIA school) and was drafted and signed by the Angels following the latter season of ’65. His shoulder got better in time for him to throw some Double A games that summer but that didn’t go too well as Marty went 0-6 with a 4.70 ERA in his ten starts. So he began the following year in A ball but dazzled people enough – 4-1 with a 1.26 ERA and 52 K’s in 43 innings – that he got shipped to Triple A Seattle where he would reside for awhile. That year he won his first six starts on his way to a 9-2 record. In ’67 he went 12-11 with a 2.69 ERA and in ’68 he began the season 1-0 with a 2.42 ERA in his first four starts when he got a call-up that May which would put him in the majors for good.

Pattin’s first bit of work in California was quite good as he took on a role of a spot and middle relief guy, recording a nice ERA and adding three saves. The new Seattle Pilots, seeing those stats and remembering his popularity while in Triple A there, took Marty as an expansion draft choice. Between too many homers and the normal expansion early-years performance it wasn’t a great sophomore campaign for Marty but with the team’s move to Milwaukee things improved substantially for him. Not right away though. The ’70 season was looking like an instant replay when he went 0-3 to start the year, he got moved to the pen, and his ERA tried to break 6.00. But by mid-June he was back in the rotation and from July on he went 10-5 with a 2.61 ERA. That roughly coincided with the time he mastered the slider taught to him by pitching coach Wes Stock. That was followed by a ’71 in which there were few hills and valleys, just good consistent pitching the whole season. It was Marty’s All-Star year and could have been a lot bigger than it was as the Brewers averaged less than three runs in his losses. By then Marty was a hotly sought commodity and so when the big trade went up just after the season ended with the Red Sox, he was involved. Marty, Tommy Harper, and Lew Krausse went east for George Scott, Jim Lonborg, Ken Brett, Billy Conigliaro, Joe Lahoud, and Don Pavletich.

That big trade did not go Boston’s way initially, certainly not by Pattin’s stats. In shades of his ’70 season Marty went 3-8 with a fat ERA to open the season. But then a 5-0 run in July kicked off a 15-4 second half that included a 2.34 ERA and 11 complete games. After the discounted follow-up year he went to the Royals for pitcher Dick Drago. Marty's first year in his new home went not too dissimilar to his first one in his former one, with one big exception: he didn’t have a regular spot in the rotation in which to remedy a bad beginning. Instead Marty lost mound time and went 3-7 with a 3.99 ERA in only 25 games. But things improved after that. In ’75 he began the season in the pen with his normally early high ERA. But he won his first couple decisions anyway and after a couple successful long relief stints in May got into the rotation after Nelson Briles got hurt. Marty had a pretty good run until Briles returned and then finished the season back in the pen, mostly as a long guy. He finished 10-10 with a 3.25 ERA and five saves. ’76 started again in the pen but this time it was a reverse of ’75: a good ERA but a poor record. So when that year Steve Busby went down Marty rejoined the rotation coming in with a 1-7 record and five saves with a 3.30 ERA. He would go 7-7 the rest of the way in that role with an excellent 2.24 ERA and then get his first playoff work. In ’77 he went 10-3 as a spot guy and then the next three years his innings fell as the Royals staff stayed relatively healthy. But Marty pitched well during the time he was used, going a combined 12-5 with eleven saves and a 3.88 ERA. He returned to playoff ball two of those three seasons and had a short highlight that last year when in his one inning of Series work he struck out Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski. After the ’80 season he became a free agent but when interest was limited he decided to retire finishing with a 114-109 record with a 3.62 ERA, 64 complete games, 14 shutouts, and 25 saves. In the post-season he put up a 4.50 ERA in his five games.

After Pattin wasn’t signed in the ’81 free agent market he took a year off and then became the head coach at the University of Kansas from ’82 to ’87. He then returned to pro ball for Toronto where for two years he was a roving pitching coach and then an organizational pitching instructor from mid-’89 to ’93 part of the time during which his son Jon was in the team’s system. For a short time in the early Nineties he coached a minor league team in South Korea. He relocated to Lawrence, Kansas – home of the university – in the mid-Nineties where he has been doing fantasy camps since.

No little print on the card back memorializing the trade though Dick Drago, the other side of the trade, has it on his. Topps was getting lazy at this point in the set. Marty’s win record was broken in ’73 by Jim Colborn’s 20. That big strikeout game appeared on most of his early cards. Like Bucky Dent Marty had an interesting personal life, initially outlined in “Ball Four.” He was given to his grandparents to raise shortly after he was born when his parents divorced. From a young age he was doing early morning chores like picking up kerosene for the family stove and delivering newspapers to make household ends meet. He taught himself to pitch by throwing apples and later emulated a baseball-playing cousin who was a local star and passed away in a car accident in his teens by adopting his cousin’s Donald Duck voice (it can be heard on YouTube). When his grandfather died in his early teens Marty was placed in a sort of institutional rooming house where he may or may not have remained through high school. His high school baseball coach sort of took him under his wing and introduced Marty to a local businessman, Walt Warmouth, who gave Marty work and then financed his college career. Marty ended up getting a bachelors in PE from the school and then a Masters in Industrial Arts, both of which he had by his Pilots days.

Marty and Bucky faced each other plenty. Let’s use Lou even though Marty missed him by a year:

1. Pattin and Cookie Rojas ’74 to ’77 Royals;

2. Rojas and Lou Piniella ’70 to ’73 Royals;

3. Piniella and Bucky Dent ’77 to ’82 Yankees.

Speaking of Bucky Dent, I messed up his hook-up on the former post. Here is his real one to Fred Norman:

1. Dent and Don Gullett ’77 to ’78 Yankees;

2. Gullett and Fred Norman ’73 to ’76 Reds.

#582 - Bucky Dent

A few posts ago we had a one-off card of Ralph Houk, the only manager solo card in the set. This card is another one-off and completely outdoes the Houk one. It is Bucky Dent’s rookie card, an action shot at Comiskey, a full year before Bucky was actually a rookie, and therefore the first card of a member of the Topps Rookie All-Star Team of 1974. So in this instance Topps, by either plan or happenstance, did an awfully good job of predicting a player’s immediate value, at least in terms of its own reward system and that of others (Bucky would come in second place in ’74 AL ROY voting). After a nice start in Triple A Bucky made his debut in June when he got three weeks in Chicago replacing the injured Ken Henderson on the roster. Most of his work was late inning stuff but he did well enough and when he returned in August he got into the line-up as a nearly everyday shortstop, toting a .300-plus average into early September. The average tailed off but not the expectations. After a few post-Aparicio years of not great results Chicago was ready to offer the baseball world another premier shortstop.

Bucky Dent spent his youth in Georgia and Hialeah, Florida, where in high school he was a big deal fullback and shortstop. He signed a letter of intent to play football at Tennessee. That was in December of ’68 and between that time and the next summer he eschewed both the letter and the Cardinals, who drafted him that June. Instead he went to Miami Dade North where he played a season after again rejecting the Cards in January. He finally signed with the White Sox in June of ’70 - he was a first rounder both times that year – and then hit super in Rookie ball before cooling off a bit in A ball that summer. In ’71 an injury both shortened his season and reduced his offense numbers further but ’72 saw a nice bounce in Double A. He then managed to put up nearly similar numbers in his ’73 Triple A season around his two call-ups.

In ’74 Dent cranked up his MLB career as he hit .274 his rookie year as the everyday Chicago shortstop, really the first one since Luis Aparicio left following the ’70 season. He got the rookie trophy on his ’75 Topps card and that year also went to his first All-Star game as the back-up to Bert Campaneris mostly by toting a .300 average through mid-season. By the end of the year his average had fallen to .264 and in ’76 when the Sox pretty much bottomed out in their post-Dick Allen swoon he hit .246. Defensively, despite pretty much a new DP partner each year, he was doing just fine, regularly finishing in the top three in major fielding categories each year and in ’75 leading AL shortstops in assists, putouts, double plays, and fielding percentage.

In 1977 the Yankees returned to spring training after a ’76 in which they played excellent regular season ball to get to the post-season before they were devoured by Cincinnati in the Series. So the impetuous George Steinbrenner knew things had to be tweaked. He fixed the outfield by signing Reggie Jackson. And all pre-season he expressed his desire for an All-Star infield. He was covered everywhere in that respect except shortstop and after chasing the Sox for Dent George finally got him right before the season began for Oscar Gamble and two young pitchers, Lamarr Hoyt and Bob Polinski. Bucky stepped right into the lion’s den, carving out his own niche as a literal poster boy for the teenage girl set. His offense wasn’t anything special but the team had plenty of that and his defense continued along the same tract it had been. After going to the post-season for the first time in ’77 he had a tough time in ’78. A hamstring injury he incurred in spring training dogged him all year and caused him to miss about four weeks in the summer and contributed to lowering his average to .240. But by playoff time he was relatively healthy and in the one-game playoff against Boston for the division title he got things going for NY with his clutch homer. Then in the Series he hit .417 with seven RBI’s to win the MVP. In ’79 he suffered the general malaise that affected the team as a whole and then bounced the next two years with two All-Star selections. In ’80 he had his best offensive season since ’75, hitting .262 with 52 RBI’s and in ’81 his season ended early when he broke a hand sliding, also missing the playoffs. In ’82 the Yankees picked up Roy Smalley, a better hitter than Bucky, and after a couple months Dent, having been replaced by Smalley, was sent to Texas for another former NY heartthrob, Lee Mazzilli. Bucky split shortstop time the rest of the way with Mark Wagner and Doug Flynn and then took over the starting role in ’83, when he hit .237 in his last year as a regular. Texas released him just before the ’84 season began and Bucky re-signed with the Yankees, where for a month he played Triple A ball, hitting .250. The Yankees released him and he signed with Kansas City for whom he got some token at bats the rest of the way. The leg problems that had hampered him the last couple years did him in and after the ’84 season he retired with a .247 average with 40 homers and 423 RBI’s. In the post-season he hit .277 with 15 RBI’s in 24 games. Defensively he ranks in the top 100 all-time in putouts, assists, and double plays for shortstops.

 

Like a few guys in this set, Dent went right into coaching after his playing career ended. He returned to the NY fold and from '85 through '89 worked his way from A ball to Triple A, recording a winning season every year but one. That last year he took over the Yankees at the end of the '89 season from Dallas Green. He then started the '90 season with a not great record and was let go not even fifty games in. He sat out the rest of that season and then coached up top for St. Louis ('91 - '94 under Joe Torre) and Texas ('95 - 2001). In '02 he returned to the KC system and the minors where he managed and then moved back to the Yankees system in the same role from '02 through '05. He coached for Cincinnati in '06 and '07, which was his last pro gig to date. Since '86 he has also co-owned a baseball school back in Florida which was sold a few years ago but where he continued to work through late 2011. As a manager he has gone 36-53 up top and 685-598 in the minors.  

I’ll dispense with the star bullets and go straight to the cartoon, since it’s the most interesting feature on the card back. The grandmother mentioned was Bucky’s maternal one and she was a full-blooded Cherokee. Bucky had an interesting upbringing. After he was born he was given by his mom to her sister and brother-in-law to raise. His original surname was O’Dey and he thought of his aunt and uncle as his parents until he discovered they were not shortly before high school. He later developed a relationship with his birth dad and he was always close with his mom’s mom. On his high school team he played with a back-up catcher named John Teixeira, whose son Mark would later play for the Yankees. There is also some good dirt on Bucky in “The Bronx Zoo.” Early in the ’77 season before he got rolling, George Steinbrenner tried to trade Ron Guidry to the Sox for Dent. Good miss. When Bucky hit that three-run shot off Mike Torrez in the playoff game it was the second big shot hit off Torrez by a Yankee shortstop. Earlier in the season Fred Stanley grand slammed him.

This gets pretty easy since these guys played together:

1. Dent and Jim Spencer ’78 to ’81 Yankees.