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.
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