#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.

#647 - Juan Beniquez

Yes, this guy used to be a shortstop. And on his rookie card he strikes a very shortstop-y pose in front of some spring training batting practice. Back then Juan Beniquez was being groomed as the heir apparent to Luis Aparicio, but by the time of this card’s arrival the switch had been made to the outfield. Seeds of that change had already been sown in a ’73 spent exclusively in Triple A where Juan had a nice season offensively, leading his league in hitting and recording 25 stolen bases. Defensively most of his time was spent in center field after some rough recent numbers at his listed position – see cartoon – as well as short runs at second and third. The shift worked and would help contribute to a nice long career for Juan, though position-wise his timing wasn’t too hot and most of that time would be spent elsewhere.

Juan Beniquez was signed by Boston out of a local Puerto Rican team in ’68, when he was 18. In A ball his first season he put up some good offensive and defensive numbers while playing exclusively at short, which would be his position the next few years as well. He then split ’70 between that level and Double A, topping out with a combined 43 stolen bases in the minors. In ’71 he kept his offense rocking with a big triples number and 30 steals in Triple A before his successful debut in Boston late that season. In ’72 he began the season in Triple A and after hitting nearly .300 with 20 steals in half a season he was pulled up to the Sox where he did some light duty while spelling Little Looie at short. After moving to the outfield in ’73 Juan returned to Boston full-time in ’74 where he hit .267 with 19 stolen bases while sharing time in center with Rick Miller. While he did well in that role and would seem to have had a future there, he was quickly trumped the next season when the arrival of all-everything rookie Fred Lynn pushed Juan into a reserve role that included time at the outfield corners, DH, and even third base. He hit .291 in that role and then worked regularly in the post-season after an injury laid other rookie phenom Jim Rice incapacitated. But the presence of those two plus other young outfielders Dwight Evans, Miller, and Bernie Carbo meant that playing time would be scarce for Juan, so following the season he went to Texas in the deal that made Fergie Jenkins a Red Sox.

With the Rangers the next three seasons Beniquez became the regular guy in center where he would supply very capable defense and won a Gold Glove in ’77. But his offense was sort of unspectacular with a .261 average, a high of 50 RBI’s, and middling stolen base numbers. After the ’78 season he was involved in another trade with a (future) big deal pitcher, this time joining Dave Righetti in going to the Yankees in a populated swap. With NY Juan suffered through a season of back-up work in which he hit .254 in only 142 at bats. Then it was on the road again, this time to Seattle in the deal that brought another soon-to-be disappointed Yankee outfielder to NY in Ruppert Jones. Juan’s numbers weren’t any better with the Mariners - .228 in 237 at bats – in another short stay. After the season he departed for California as a free agent.

Beniquez would enjoy his most successful MLB time with the Angels, though it sure didn’t start off that way. In the strike year of ’81 he bottomed out offensively with a .181 average in just 166 at bats. He was then moved to the outfield corners which seemed to contribute to an offensive revival as his average jumped to .265, his highest since ’77. Then in ’83 he surprised probably everyone by starting a three-year run of hitting over .300 while getting plenty of work as the California fourth outfielder. He topped out with a .336 in ’84 which got him some MVP votes, and in ’85 expanded his field work to first base. Then, in another example of bad timing, he left Anaheim for Baltimore as a free agent where in his one season he reprised his role as a fourth outfielder while hitting an even .300. He then went to Kansas City for a couple minor leaguers after that season and finished things up as a reserve outfielder and pinch hitter in ’88 with Toronto, hitting .293. So 17 years in, Juan finished with a .274 average with 79 homers, 476 RBI’s, and over 100 stolen bases. In the post-season he hit .200 with a couple RBI’s in his eight games.

Beniquez had played winter ball back in his native PR during his whole stateside career and for a bit thereafter, where he also did some coaching and managing. Outside of an ’89 spent in the Senior League, though, there is no specific information out there regarding what he did professionally after baseball. That’s almost always the case with the Latin guys.

Juan gets some star bullet props for his glove and hitting work, but that cartoon is a killer. Those couple games were instrumental in that shift to the outfield.

So these two faced each other in that immortal ’75 Series:

1. Beniquez and Ellis Valentine ’83 Angels;

2. Valentine and George Foster ’82 Mets.  

#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.

#633 - Dave Hamilton

I know Dave Hamilton is only chewing on a wad of chaw in this photo but from that expression on his face it appears he may have also been recently engaging another substance. That may explain why he appears to be at about a 45 degree angle with the field behind him. On the plus side Dave breaks a recent string of final cards with his second one for Topps. Dave was in the midst of his first run in Oakland during which he was generally the fifth/spot starter in a pretty loaded rotation. It was a good time to be in that position since in each of his first three seasons Dave’s team won the Series. ‘73 was a bit of a streaky season for Dave. He began the year back in Triple A and had a nice enough run in the rotation to return to Oakland in early June. After a couple sloppy early starts he went on a nice run and by the end of the month was 5-1 with a 2.85 ERA. But July brought three straight bad starts and by mid-August, after being moved to the pen, he was back in the minors. He returned for a couple late games in September but then got shut out of any Series action. Dave tended to be a streaky guy which was part of what delayed his ascension to the MLB level. Here he looks like he needs to get out of the sun in Oakland.

Dave Hamilton grew up in Edmonds, Washington, where he played hoops and baseball. In the latter sport his senior year in high school he went 8-0 with a 1.19 ERA and fanned 114 batters in his 59 innings. Those stats helped make him a fifth-round choice by Kansas City in the ’66 draft. That year in A ball his ERA was a bit high but he got lots of strikeouts. The next year he began his military reserve work, missing a bunch of games, but got his ERA down a bit when he was able to play, keeping the K’s above one an inning. He then split ’68 between two teams at that level, again in the rotation, where he had odd experiences. At his first stop he went 3-5 as his ERA climbed again; at his second he pitched much better ball, lowering his ERA by nearly two runs, but somehow went 0-7. Things got a bit better at that level in ’69 and then more-so in his few starts in Double A so in ‘70 he finally stuck at a higher level as he spent that whole season in Double A. Then in ’71 he put together a nice season as a swing guy in Triple A before kicking off the ’72 season with another excellent record in his eight starts at that level. Late that May he was promoted to Oakland.

In ’72 upon being called up, Hamilton walked smack into a division run and put up a win in his first start. By the end of June he was 5-1 with a 1.30 ERA and got everyone thinking of Vida Blue’s run when he first came up a couple years earlier. July and early August were a bit tougher though and by the middle of the latter month he was in the pen where his numbers got a bit better and he added a save. His post-season numbers weren’t too hot though and in ’73 he pretty much ran the same way, though the ERA was considerably higher. In ’74 he got a few spare innings in the pen until he returned to the rotation in mid-May and went on another of his runs, closing June with a 5-1 record and 2.82 ERA. So far his MLB records through June were 15-3. He then followed suit, cooling off a bit and working out of both the rotation and the pen. In neither that nor the former season did he see any post-season action. In ’75 the A’s weren’t as flexible and while Dave pitched well enough in his first three starts, a couple mediocre ones moved him to the pen by May and in June he was sent to the White Sox with outfielder Chet Lemon for pitchers Stan Bahnsen and Skip Pitlock. There Dave started his first game but then was exclusively a reliever and finished the year 7-7 with a 3.25 ERA and six saves.

With Chicago Hamilton was a reliever nearly all the time and his first full season of ’76 closed most of his games, recording a record of 6-6 with a 3.59 ERA and ten saves. In ’77 he moved to more of a set-up role though his numbers stayed pretty much the same as he went 4-5 with a 3.61 ERA and nine saves. Following that season he and pitcher Silvio Martinez went to St. Louis for reliever Clay Carroll. Things didn’t go too well for Dave in that other league as he went a combined 0-2 with one save and a 4.46 ERA in only 40 innings of work. Following that season he returned to the AL and Oakland as a free agent and in ’79 was a spot guy and reliever as he went 3-4 with a 3.70 ERA and five saves for a pretty poor team. In ’80 some tough times up top got him moved to Triple A for most of the season where he did some OK work out of the pen. After putting in a few innings at that level in ’81 Dave was done. He finished with an MLB record of 39-41 with a 3.85 ERA, four complete games, a shutout, and 31 saves. In the post-season he put up a 27.00 ERA in his three games and was 53-48 in the minors.

Hamilton would settle full-time in the San Ramon area of California where he became a foreman for a roofing contractor company and beginning in ’96 the head baseball coach at that town’s California High School. He was still at that second role through at least 2007 and looks like he put up some pretty good records there.

That is the second or third “most inspirational player” award I have seen on the backs of these cards. My school didn’t have those back then. Maybe it was a more benign title for team mvp? I assume Dave was a guard.

11/17/73 – President Nixon, in a televised meeting with a bunch of Associated Press newspaper editors, discusses Watergate a bit among other subjects. During the speech he utters his famous “I am not a crook” line as he defends his record while in public service.

11/21/73 – By this time the process had begun in summarizing the White House tapes according to the original deal between the Senate Committee and the White House. In the meantime the Supreme Court was still reviewing whether or not to demand a full release of the tapes. On this date the White House reported that two of the specifically-requested tapes were missing. One of the tapes would turn out to be the one in which over 18 minutes of conversation between President Nixon and former White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman was blank. That tape was made three days after the Watergate break-in so it was widely believed that the deleted conversation must have included the break-in as a topic. It was this tape that Nixon’s personal secretary Rose Mary Woods said she must have inadvertently erased as she was transcribing the tapes.

Normally these cross-league hook-ups are tough but one guy helps out huge here:

1. Hamilton and Jesus Alou ’73 to ’74 A’s;

2. Alou and George Culver ’70 to ’72 Astros.

#621 - Bernie Carbo

I want to start this post with a few words about Baseball-Reference since it has been pivotal in making it difficult for me to post. BR was always a great site and obviously an excellent source of data for lots of people, including me. But I cannot go on that site any more without their damn advertising search engines doing a “Big Brother” on me so it can put up ads on the site as I peruse it that are apparently tailor made for me. If I am on the site I have to shut down my browser after about five minutes because all the searches chew up all my memory and make it nearly impossible to do anything. I don’t know when those guys got so greedy but it really is a pain in the butt and makes me want to go elsewhere to look up stats. If anyone else out there regularly uses the site and has the same issues you have my sympathy. I’d recommend getting AdBlock or a similar program which seems to help a bit. And to anyone just doing random fly byes of it you’ve been warned. Now back to real baseball.

For Round 2 or possible Round 3 of baseball players who look like adult film stars, we have Bernie Carbo and his mustache which I think ranks behind only Dal Maxvill’s combo. Bernie is a lot more serious than Dal was as he gazes skyward at what appears to be San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium. Topps got him in one of those “looking up” poses and we know what that means: yup, Bernie was traded. That’s why he’s on an AL card in an NL stadium. Bernie and pitcher Rick Wise had been sent to Boston from St. Louis for outfielder Reggie Smith and reliever Ken Tatum and all those guys except for Tatum would have air-brushed cards in this set but not Traded ones. Bernie probably had mixed feelings about going to the Sox. A mid-western kid, after a rough start to the ’73 season he was hitting only .180 halfway through the year, he had a nice bounce beginning July 4, going .329 with a .433 OBA the rest of the way. So things were working out pretty well with the Cards as he seemed to recover fully from his nasty sophomore season. But Boston gave up one of its stars – albeit an unhappy one who wanted out – to get Bernie so he probably figured he was in for a bunch of starting time at Fenway. He was right about that and it would also be where he’d have the game of his career.

Bernie Carbo was a big sports star in Livonia, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, while growing up and as a senior in high school hit 13 homers while playing a mean third base. But Bernie had an unhappy home life with a disapproving abusive dad and by the time he was 16 was already an alcoholic. Still, the Reds made him a first rounder in the first ever draft of ’65 and that summer, while Bernie turned in an excellent year at third in A ball, he only hit .219 with no homers. He improved substantially at that level in ’66 with a .269/15/57 line but then fell to a .201/2/27 stat line in ’67 in Double A, a year he missed a bunch of time to military duty. Meanwhile a guy drafted behind him named Johnny Bench was going crazy and about to win Rookie of the Year when in ’68 Bernie got a new manager in Double A named Sparky Anderson who rode him pretty hard but also showed him attention and got nice numbers out of the kid. Bernie had a .281/20/66 season with 16 stolen bases and a .411 OBA in a year in which he re-established himself as a prospect. In doing that he also began spending significant time in the outfield since Tony Perez was blocking him at third base. Bernie had a monster arm and would generally be among league leaders in assists from his new position. In ’69 he bumped things up a bunch with a .359/21/76 line with a .452 OBA in Triple A. His numbers were still compressed a bit due to his missing games for military work – that would continue through ’72 – but he made his debut late that year and was up for good in ’70.

In 1970 the Reds were on the cusp of some big things. In the late Sixties they built an impressive infield but outside of Pete Rose they hadn’t had too much outfield stability and their pitching was always questionable. Prior to the ’70 season they landed speedster Bobby Tolan and got some good role players to fill some outfield gaps. They also got a new manager in Sparky Anderson and a couple exciting kids in Hal McRae and Bernie Carbo from the minors. Bernie took over left field for Cincinnati and while he continued to miss some time his numbers – which included a monster .454 OBA - got him second place in NL ROY voting and a place on the Topps Rookie team as well as TSN’s Rookie of the Year. But then a post-season in which he went o-fer presaged a bad ’71 in which too much pressure to help fill the gap left by the injured Tolan contributed to a definitive sophomore jinx year. By ’72 Bernie was reduced to a pinch hitting role and had minimal plate appearances before a May trade sent him to St. Louis for first baseman/outfielder Joe Hague. In St. Louis Bernie moved across to right field where he got starts after Matty Alou had to move to first to replace Hague and Donn Clendenon, who was in retirement mode. His average got a nice boost but his power numbers stayed low and he became more of a contact guy while with the Cards. In ’73 he split time in right with Luis Melendez and Jose Cruz, who did a mid-year swap between right and left. After the ’73 revival Bernie moved to Boston.

In ’74 Carbo stepped into the mix of young Boston outfielders Rick Miller, Dwight Evans, and Juan Beniquez and put in corner outfield time with the above and veteran Tommy Harper. His K totals were a bit high and his average slipped to .249 his first year in the AL but in only 338 at bats he put up twelve homers and 61 RBI’s. In ’75 Bernie realigned his K’s and walks, moved up in the order, and had a hot start to the season, still hitting around the .300 level in early July. But then he went into a slump and the Sox now had two new full-timers in rookies Fred Lynn and Jim Rice so playing time was whittled down over the course of the year. In September he mostly pinch hit. Still he put up another pretty solid year with a .259/15/50 line with 64 runs and an OBA that again reached the far side of .400 in only 319 at bats. He got shut out of any playoff time and then only got pinch hit roles in the Series. But he maxed those out big time. In Game 2 he hit one to deep left that got caught on the track. In Game 3 he homered off Clay Carroll in the seventh inning. In Game 6 he launched the homer that tied the game Carlton Fisk would win innings later. In Game 7 he hit a double and overall he put up ten total bases and a walk in his eight plate appearances. Good stuff but in ’76 he was on the bench nearly the whole first half and got only 55 at bats before a June trade to Milwaukee for outfielder Bobby Darwin and pitcher Tom Murphy. Bernie split the rest of the year as a right fielder/DH for the Brewers but it wasn’t a pretty season. After that year he was involved in a big trade when he and George Scott returned to the Sox for Cecil Cooper. Bernie got some stepped up outfield time that season and in his 228 at bats put up a .289/15/34 line with a .409 OBA. But he also had 72 K’s and he was now permanently enmeshed on the wrong side of his BB/K ratio. ‘78 then resembled ’76 in that he moved to another team in June, this time Cleveland, though his numbers were considerably better with a .282 average in his 220 at bats. For ’79 he signed with St. Louis as a free agent and was primarily a pinch guy, with a .281/3/12 line in 64 at bats. He split his final MLB season with the Cards and the Pirates before signing a Triple A contract with Detroit in ’81 and then getting released. In ’82 he played his final season in Mexico. Bernie finished with a .264 average with 96 homers, 358 RBI’s, and a .387 OBA for his MLB numbers. In the post-season he hit .143 with two homers and four RBI’s in his ten games.

Carbo would later reveal that he was pretty much drunk or stoned during just about his whole professional career. Immediately after he completed a degree program in cosmetology and opened his own hairstyling place, which he ran for a number of years. He also did some work at some local baseball schools but his life was in a downward spiral that bottomed out in ’93 after his mom committed suicide and his own family fell apart. Former Sox teammates Bill Lee and Fergie Jenkins turned him on to the Baseball Assistance Team that year and Bernie took control of his substance abuse issues and shortly thereafter started his Diamond Club Ministry which makes presentations about baseball, religion, and substance abuse worldwide. He returned to baseball formally when in 2004 and 2005 he managed the independent Pensacola Pelicans, going a combined 108-80. He has a SABR page and quite a few YouTube appearances.

Topps sticks with the minor league stuff for Bernie’s bullets. Bernie was a colorful guy and was well-liked. Before the ’75 Series a bunch of his former teammates on Cincinnati, including Clay Carroll, sent him a signed team photo wishing him well. But after his first homer off the pitcher Carroll apparently went to Bernie’s locker and tore up the photo. When he was on deck for the second homer he was pretty sure Sparky would bring in another reliever to face him and that he’d be pulled for Juan Beniquez, a righty. But that didn’t happen and the results worked out pretty well for Bernie.

Shortly after the resignation and firing of various White House staff members at the end of April, the Senate Watergate Committee was named. Chaired by Sam Ervin, Senator of North Carolina, the committee decided to hold its hearings publicly since there had been so many Grand Jury leaks regarding various testimonies. The hearings would be televised by PBS and a rotation of the national networks ABC, NBC, and CBS.

5/18/73 – A day after the committee officially began its proceedings James McCord, a Watergate burglar, was called to testify. His testimony verified leaks from Grand Jury testimony attributed to him in which he indicated that various White House staff members knew beforehand and in fact helped plan the bugging of the Watergate Democratic Headquarters as well as other establishments. Those named by McCord included John Mitchell, John Dean, E. Howard Hunt, and G. Gordon Liddy

5/19/73 - Archibald Cox, a Harvard law professor, is named Special Prosecutor to oversee the investigation into the Watergate affair. Cox, a Democrat, was Solicitor General under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations before leaving to teach. He was named by newly-appointed Attorney General Elliott Richardson as his appointee after Richardson interviewed several candidates for the position including Warren Christopher, who would be a Secretary of State in the Clinton administration.

These two guys played for Milwaukee, but years apart:

1. Carbo and Tommy Harper ’74 Red Sox;

2. Harper and Al Downing ’70 Brewers.

#609 - Rico Petrocelli

Rico Petrocelli had some pretty good cards over his career, both front and back. In ’75 he had a fat smile on his action card and in ’76 he looked like he was going to spit a huge wad of tobacco juice. In ’67 and ’69 he had the same photo for his two All-Star seasons. This card, though, isn’t one of his best but it does a good job reflecting Rico’s ’73 season. He would play hurt all season, nursing a pretty constant elbow injury that would take him out of the line-up by mid-August and require an operation after the year ended. And he wasn’t crazy happy being with the Sox as he joined Reggie Smith later that month in asking to be traded. Reggie would eventually get his wish but Rico stayed put and a few years down the road would finish his career in Boston which is pretty wiggy considering he grew up a Yankees fan.

Rico Petrocelli grew up in a large family in Brooklyn where in high school he was accomplished in basketball and baseball. In the latter sport he was a pitcher/infielder but the former role ended during some NYC playoffs his senior year of ’61. That was when his elbow snapped and a bunch of scouts lost interest which contributed to a delay in his signing. When that did happen, it was by the same Boston scout who signed Yaz from Long Island a couple years earlier. So Rico didn’t get started professionally until ’62 when he hit .277 with 17 homers and 80 RBI’s in B ball and also led his league in errors at shortstop. The next year he put up a .239/19/78 line in Double A and though his average dropped so did his E totals as Rico was a fast learner. He also made his topside debut that September, doubling off the Green Monster in his first at bat. In ’64 it was back to the minors and that year in Triple A he recorded a .231/10/48 line that got him so frustrated he decided to become a switch-hitter and was noted as one on his ’65 rookie card. But his defense continued to improve and that next year he would be called up for good.

Eddie Bressoud had been the Boston shortstop for a few years by 1965. Eddie could hit – in ’64 his average was .293 with 15 homers – but his range was declining and the Sox were afraid his average would soon follow. So Petrocelli won the starting shortstop gig in camp that year, as a switch-hitting rookie. But some early-season Mendoza-level offensive numbers ended the two-sided experiment and over the course of the year Rico added some points to his average. His final line and some uneven fielding numbers – both in part courtesy of his still ailing elbow – weren’t over the top but were good enough to get a spot on that year’s Topps Rookie team. In ’66 he continued to be bedeviled by the elbow and even had some DL time in August, but he became the starter outright, nearly doubled his RBI totals, and improved defensively. Prior to the ’67 season two good things happened for Rico – he had an operation on his problem elbow; and his former manager Eddie Popowski got promoted to be his infield coach, among other roles. Topps embraced the news giving Rico an exclamation point on his card back in that set and it all seemed to gel pretty well as he was an important cog for the pennant winner, improved markedly on defense, upped his average over 20 points, and was named an All-Star. He also won that year’s Game 6 of the Series with two big homers. Rico began accumulating bone chips in his elbow post-operation and in ’68 he missed a bunch of time and saw his offense come down hard. But in ’69 he cut down on his calcium and went on an offensive tear, winning another All-Star nod, and setting an AL record for homers by a shortstop. Defensively he was popping as well as he set another AL record for consecutive error-less games at shortstop with 44 and put up his league’s best fielding percentage for the second straight season.

In ’69 the third base situation in Boston was pretty messy in the wake of Joe Foy’s departure. It was pretty much the same in ’70 but was a bit better in Petrocelli’s few games at the position. He also continued his offensive burst with his lifetime high in RBI’s. Those games at third would be a good prelude to the rest of his time in Boston as that winter the Sox picked up Little Looie Aparicio from Chicago to play shortstop and third became Rico’s permanent home. Over the next couple seasons his average fell a few points but he kept his RBI totals pretty high and continued his excellent defensive work. After his problematic ’73 he got his second elbow operation and returned to offensive form the next year, with a .267/15/76 line. But a beaning by Jim Slaton in September ended Rico’s season and caused him balance problems the rest of his career. In ’75 his power took a dip - .239/7/59 - but he bounced in the Series to put up good numbers against Cincinnati. In ’76 his offense continued its decline in a year he split third with rookie Butch Hobson. Rico was released at the end of spring training of ’77 and ended his career with a .251 average with 210 homers and 773 RBI’s. In the post-season he hit .241 with three homers and nine RBI’s in 17 games. Defensively he is in the top 100 shortstops in career fielding percentage.

After Petrocelli finished playing he remained in the Boston area and remained close to baseball by writing a newspaper column and through radio broadcasting, both as a color guy and a talk radio savant, which he did through the ’80 season. He then returned to the business side full-time – see below – until ’86 when he began a three year management stint in the White Sox chain. In ’89 he returned to Boston full-time to manage the sports operation side of The Jimmy Fund and would manage one more year at nearby Pawtucket, RI, in the Boston chain in ’92. His record as a manager was 257-312. He then remained with the organization through ’98 as a roving instructor and was inducted into the team’s hall of fame in ’97. Following that run he moved to New Hampshire where he established his own company with his son Mike, the Petrocelli Marketing Group. He has a SABR bio.

The star bullets are back and these ones feature some stuff covered above. The cartoon refers to Rico’s PR work for both Tulsa Oil and Gibbs Oil, distribution companies. He would do more marketing work in that field after his playing time. In a couple sequential cartoons in the Sixties Topps indicated that Rico played drums to help develop his wrists and keep his elbows loose. No idea as to whether that helped or hurt the bone chips situation.

Someone from Rico’s old stomping ground seems the best route here:

1. Petrocelli and Danny Cater ’72 to ’75 Red Sox;

2. Cater and Bobby Murcer ’70 to ’71 Yankees;

3. Murcer and Mike Wallace ’74 Yankees.

#607 - '74 Rookie Shortstops

This card gives us another bunch of young unhappy faces. Given that two of them are standing under a doom-filled sky and that one – Dave Rosello – appears to be standing in front of an oil pump, I sort of get why. But why Leo Foster? Perhaps he is rehashing his MLB debut from a couple years earlier. It was no fun at all.

According to a Mets site, Leo Foster was a high school star in Kentucky in the  big three sports as well as track and that certainly seemed to be seconded by the Braves, who made Leo a second-round pick in the ’69 draft. That summer he hit .229 in A ball before having a bang-up fall in the Instructional League, hitting .321 with a .397 OBA and ten stolen bases. He would then begin his military service, missing some time each of the next few years. When he showed up to training camp in West Palm in ’70, he and Dusty Baker were kicked out of a pool hall because of their color. Nice start and Leo would get a few of those. But he hit .263 with 16 stolen bases that year in Double A and the next year upped his average at that level to .296 before a July call-up to Atlanta where regular shortstop Sonny Jackson had to play the outfield due to Rico Carty’s injury. Leo’s debut was memorable, but not in a good way. On his first play at short he made an error on a Dave Cash hit, and Cash would later score. He then flew out his first at bat, hit into a double play his second, and a triple play his third for the wrong kind of cycle. He went hitless in his ten at bats and then returned to the minors, hitting .180 the rest of the way in Triple A. In ’72 he hit .233 at that level and in ’73 .210 before another few MLB at bats late in the season. In ’74 he spent the full year on the Atlanta roster, backing up Craig Robinson at short while hitting .196. After that season he was traded to the Mets for catcher Joe Nolan and for NY he would hit substantially better at the Triple A level while also branching out to play second and third. In ’75 he hit .247 with a .354 OBA, his best by far since his first year. In ’76 he hit .287 with 39 RBI’s in a bit under half a season and in ’77 .274 in his couple months at that level. He also did better up top, in ’76 hitting .203 with 15 RBI’s in just 59 at bats deep on the depth chart and in ’77 hitting .227 while again playing behind Bud Harrelson and Mike Phillips. That was his final MLB time and Leo finished at that level with a .198 average. After the ’77 season he was traded to Boston for pitcher Jim Burton. After hitting .239 for the Sox Triple A club in a reserve role he finished things up the following year in the short-lived Inter-American League, leaving behind a .248 average for his minor league time. What Leo has done since is a big mystery.

When Tom Heintzelman was born his dad had just returned stateside from his WW II duty to return to his pre-war profession as an MLB pitcher. Ken Heintzelman won 77 games, mostly as a reliever for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia from the late Thirties to the early Fifties. Tom was born in Missouri where he played third base and pitched a bit in high school before moving on to Parsons College in Iowa where he continued to play both roles. Parsons was sort of a high-profile school back then, not all for good reasons, and it would shut down in ’73. When Tom finished his four years there he was drafted by the Cards in ’68 and was then able to get a year in of Rookie and A ball, during which he hit .270, before he was drafted again, this time into the military. Unfortunately for Tom he went high and was unable to do reserve duty even though he was married with a daughter, so he did two full years of stateside service, missing all of the ’69 and ’70 seasons. When he returned in ’71 to Double A ball he had an understandably off year, hitting .219 while playing mostly second. In ’72 he improved to hit .263 with 13 stolen bases at that level and then in ’73 in Triple A he hit .284 before debuting in St. Louis in August, hitting .310 the rest of the way and helping fix the middle infield morass that was plagued by a couple burnouts by the shortstops. Tom then got some spring and summer work in St. Louis the following year backing up Ted Sizemore but only got 74 at bats in which he hit .230. Around that time he hit .258 back in Triple A before being traded to San Francisco after the season for pitcher Jim Willoughby. That first year he split time between second and third in Triple A while hitting .245. The next season he became a power guy, hitting .277 with 15 homers and 103 RBI’s and 92 runs. He maintained that pace the next year with a .266/8/85/80 season before he was moved up to San Francisco where he rarely played. He then began the ’78 season with the Giants but with Bill Madlock ahead of him at both his spots he barely played, hitting .229 in a few at bats. He spent most of the rest of that season in Triple A and all of the next, his final year as a player. Overall Tom hit .243 in his 140 MLB at bats and .259 with 57 homers and 67 stolen bases in the minors. He’d ended up putting in most of his time at Phoenix while with the Giants and it appears that is where he remained on a full-time basis after playing, with Mesa listed as his home when his dad passed away in 2000, but I have no idea what he did after playing.

Dave Rosello got signed by the Cubs after playing summer ball in his native Puerto Rico late in ’68. He didn’t hit too well his first summer in the States, hitting .189 in A ball in ’69, but he was never supposed to have a great stick. He did better in ’70 with a .243 split between A and Double A but then sank to .228 at the higher level in ’71. But then came a long residency at Triple A Wichita during which he found some offensive magic. In ’72 he hit .271 while making his league’s all-star team which he would also do two of his next three seasons. He hit .250 during his short look in Chicago during which he played shortstop, his regular position to date. In ’73 it was back to Triple A where he hit .313 with 51 RBI’s in his 367 at bats, by far his best run production. When Dave was up for his late summer time that year he played second, mostly because Glenn Beckert was declining faster than expected. Then in ’74 Dave stayed there after new guy Vic Harris sort of exploded in a not good way where the two split starting time with three other guys. By late summer it was clear that Dave wasn’t much of an improvement over Harris and while Billy Grabarkewitz was getting the most starts there Dave got back to Wichita where the last two months he hit .389. He remained there for pretty much all of ’75 where he also got back to short and put up a .259 average with 29 doubles in his busiest year. The next two years were all Chicago as he hit .242 backing up Mick Kelleher at short in ’76 and .220 while doing the same – but on a much less regular basis – for fellow ’74 rookie Steve Ontiversos at third. That December Dave went to Cleveland for a couple minor leaguers and in ’78 he had one of his best years in Triple A with a .282/9/71 season while putting in most of his time at third. The next three years were spent in Cleveland where Dave did back-up work at second, averaging .244 in just over 300 at bats. In ’82 it was back to third base and to Triple A in his final season as a player. Dave finished with a .236 MLB average and hit .258 in the minors. From what I can tell he returned to PR after he played.

Like Dave Rosello, Frank Taveras was signed as a free agent from his island home in ’68, except that Frank was Dominican, was signed by Pittsburgh, and was signed early enough to get in some games that summer. He had a bipolar first year, hitting .340 in Rookie ball, but only about .200 in A ball. In ’69 he hit .222 in A ball and then in ’70 got up to .260 with 35 stolen bases, his first season in which he concentrated on shortstop after playing mostly second until then. He split '71 between Double A and Triple A, hitting .226 with 30 steals and then spent nearly all the next two years at the higher level, averaging .244 with 29 stolen bases a season. After some short MLB looks those years he got pulled up in ’74 after Gene Alley was officially done and he and fellow rookie Mario Mendoza took over shortstop. For the next two seasons Frank got the most work of the two. His offense was a bit light but the Pirates had plenty of that and he hit better than Mendoza. In ’76 he won the position outright and both his average and his stolen base totals moved up significantly: in ’76 he hit .258 with 58 steals; in ’77 .252 with 70; and in ’78 .278 with 46. He led the NL that middle year. In ’79 he would prove that timing is everything – in a bad way for him – when early in the season he was traded to the Mets for Tim Foli. Foli went on to win a Series ring and poor Frank got to hang out with one of the NL’s sorriest teams. He hit .263 and .279 for NY the next two years as its regular shortstop and then fell to .230 in ’81 as he split time with Bob Bailor. After that year he went to Montreal where he occupied a reserve role in his final season, finishing with a .255 average and 300 stolen bases for his career. In the post-season he hit .111 in five games. Like the rest of these guys he pretty much disappeared profile-wise after he played.

Outside of Tom Heintzelman, these guys were all pretty small, no surprise given their positions. They totaled 17 MLB seasons with a stolen base title.

Some NY guys help getting from the last card:

1. Otto Velez and Mickey Rivers ’76 Yankees;

2. Rivers and Bud Harrelson ’80 Rangers;

3. Harrelson and Leo Foster ’76 to ’77 Mets.

More of the same for around the card:

1. Leo Foster and Joe Torre ’76 to ’77 Mets;

2. Torre and Ken Heintzelman ’73 to ’74 Cardinals;

3. Heintzelman and Reggie Smith ’74 Cardinals;

4. Smith and Rick Monday ’77 to ’81 Dodgers;

5. Monday and Dave Rosello ’72 to ’76 Cubs;

6. Rosello and Bill Madlock ’74 to ’76 Cubs;

7. Madlock and Willie Stargell ’79 to ’82 Pirates;

8. Stargell and Frank Taveras ’74 to ’79 Pirates.

Madlock had the good timing for that ’79 Pirates team; Taveras didn’t.  

#602 - 1974 Rookie Pitchers

Back to the pitchers, we get a couple guys who had decent careers and a couple we’d never hear from again, at least in Topps world. They all get sunny skies though.

Glenn Abbott was a big boy from Arkansas who was drafted by Oakland his first year at the University of Central Arkansas in ’69, but then missed playing that summer for military time. He returned early enough the following summer to go 8-3 with a 3.83 ERA in A ball and followed that up with an 11-10/2.72 season at that level in ’71. In ’72 he went a combined 9-16 in Double A and Triple A but with 13 complete games and a 2.96 ERA. In ’73 he led the PCL in wins as he went 18-8 with a 3.50 ERA and got a save in his only non-start. He made his debut that year in a July start, returned to Triple A, and then finished the year in Oakland with a win in a five-hitter against Kansas City and a 3.86 ERA for the year. He then began ’74 back in the minors, going 6-2 in eleven starts, before he returned to Oakland in June to finish the season as the A’s fifth starter, going 5-7 with a 3.00 ERA. In ’75 he moved to more of a swing role, going 5-5 with a 4.25 ERA and spending a few mid-summer weeks back in Triple A (2-2 in four starts with a 3.60 ERA) before in his final game of the regular season combining with Vida Blue, Paul Lindblad, and Rollie Fingers to throw a no-hitter. In ’76 his numbers continued to slide as he went 2-4/5.49 in just 19 games. After the season he was selected by Seattle in the expansion draft and in ’77 he led the Mariners in victories while going 12-13 with a 4.45 ERA. The next two years were pretty miserable for Glenn stats-wise as he went a combined 11-26/5.23 before he had a pretty good bounce in ’80 going 12-12 with a 4.10 ERA. In ’81 he lost a bunch of time to an elbow ailment and his record slid to 4-9 as his ERA improved to 3.94. That off-season he had surgery to remove bone chips in his elbow but while recovering came down with viral meningitis, lost 30 pounds and some of his hearing, and missed the whole season. While recovering early in ’83 he got tendinitis in his pitching shoulder which contributed to not great rehab numbers in Triple A (0-2/6.08). But he was called up anyway and in his first start in June threw a five-hit one run complete game against the Royals. By mid-August he was 5-3 though his ERA had fattened to nearly 5.00 and he was sold to Detroit for whom he would have a nice stretch run, going 2-1 with a 1.93 ERA in seven starts. But his follow-up in ’84 wasn’t so great and after some time back in Triple A he was released, missing the big Series run. Glenn finished with a record of 62-83 with a 4.39 ERA, 37 complete games, and five shutouts. He threw a hitless inning in the post-season and was 55-48 with a 3.45 ERA in the minors. After playing he immediately went into minor league coaching: for the Mets (’85-’89); Oakland (’90-2002); Texas (2003-’05); San Diego (’06-’10); and back with the Mets (’11- present). He has been in professional ball non-stop for the past 44 years.

Rick Henninger is another big boy from not too far away in Nebraska. After being drafted by Cincinnati and passing in ’66, Rick went to the University of Missouri from where he was drafted his sophomore year in the first round by the Senators. Rick had a big curve and would later add a palmball and a screwball and began things the following summer by going 4-6 with a 3.22 ERA in Double A. A big target, Rick was a horrible hitter – he would go 2 for 120 in the minors – but he moved quickly on the mound. In ’70 he went a combined 12-10 with a 3.28 ERA in Double A and Triple A but he was then beset by injuries which pretty much killed his numbers the next year, going a combined 4-7/5.97 at the same levels. In ’72 he bounced at the higher level, going 9-8 with a 2.87 ERA, and in ’73 he was 12-5 with a 3.81 ERA when he was called up to Arlington. He would get in six games in September, going 1-0 with a 2.74 ERA in his only MLB action. In ’74 his record fell to 7-9/ 4.99 in Triple A and in ’75 he moved to the Cleveland franchise where he went 3-7 with a 5.64 ERA before being released. After a season in Mexico in ’76 Rick’s pitching career was done. In the minors he went a combined 51-52 with a 4.00 ERA. After playing he remained in Texas where he has since had a long career in the oil exploration field.

Craig Swan went to Arizona State after a standout baseball career in Long Beach, California. While there he went 47-9 with a 2.25 ERA and 459 strikeouts and in ’72 was on the CWS all-star team. That same year he was drafted as a third-rounder by the Mets and he then matched his ASU ERA while going 7-3 in Double A. He then spent most of the next three years at Triple A where, while he was healthy, he threw excellent ball and went a combined 22-15 with a 2.66 ERA. In ’74 he lost a bunch of time to tendinitis but he bounced in ’75 to win his league’s pitcher of the year award.During that time he also pitched a bit in NY But that didn’t go so well as over those three seasons he went 2-7 with a 5.81 ERA as a spot guy. He got untracked in ’76 when he went 6-9 with a 3.54 ERA in the rotation for a pretty good team. In ’77 the team got bad fast and Craig went 9-10 with a 4.23 ERA as he worked to resolve some control issues. That he did, and after an excellent spring training in ’78 he went 9-6 in 28 starts while leading the NL with a 2.43 ERA. Despite his achievements on the mound it was a frustrating season: he was 1-5 to start even though his ERA was 2.67; in nine games in which he got a no-decision he went at least seven innings and only gave up 14 earned runs (his ERA in those games was 2.17). Then in ’79 he went 14-13 with a 3.29 ERA for another horrible team. Then in ’80 he began the season 5-4 with a 2.21 ERA when the tendinitis returned in his shoulder. That was followed by a lower back ailment and finally a small rotator cuff tear that ended his season in August at 5-9 with a 3.58 ERA. He rested and stretched the shoulder and after a pretty optimistic training camp returned to the mound. In his second start he was nailed in the back by a Ron Hodges throw trying to nail a runner going to second. Craig missed the rest of the pre-strike season and then all the post-strike one when the shoulder pain returned. In ’82 he had a nice bounce when he went 11-7 with a 3.35 ERA and came in second to Joe Morgan for the NL Comeback Player award. But by ’83 the rotator cuff issue was back and a downward spiral never abated as Craig went a combined 3-9 with a 6.15 ERA which included some brief ’84 time with California. That was his final season and he finished with a record of 59-72 with a 3.74 ERA, 25 complete games, and seven shutouts. At the tail-end of his career, some of his therapy was the Rolfing technique and Craig really took to it, so much that he became a practitioner, opening his own shop in CT where he is still going strong.

Dan Vossler played at least basketball and baseball while growing up in Portersville, California. In the former sport he appears to have put up a record 39 points in a game and in the latter he was good enough to be drafted by the Twins coming out of high school in ’66. Instead he opted to play ball at USC- Riverside where he set a record one year with a 1.80 ERA though his other stats are elusive. His junior year of ’69 he was drafted again by Minnesota and this time he signed, beginning his career the next summer by going 5-3 with three saves and a 2.83 ERA in A ball. He went 10-10/3.04 at that level in ’71 and then was a league all-star at Double A in ’72, going 10-8 with a 2.11 ERA and five saves. He then spent the next two years in Triple A but a combined 10-21 record and 4.97 ERA over that time got him away from the game following the ’74 season. He never made it to the Major Leagues and finished his career with a 35-42 record, a 3.52 ERA, and ten saves. And that’s it. For a big guy he has been impossible to find.

Look at how big these guys were! These personal dimensions would have been as fitting on NBA rookie cards as they are here. We get 18 seasons and that ERA title out of these guys which doesn’t work out to that much per inch.

I guess for the hook-up we bypass Vossler. To keep it fair, let’s just get to the ’74 Twins. From the last card we get:

1. Glenn Abbott and Sonny Siebert ’75 A’s;

2. Siebert and Bake McBride ’74 Cardinals.

For the round the card trip we get:

1. Glenn Abbott and Paul Lindblad ’73 to ’76 A’s;

2. Lindblad and Dick Billings ’71 to ’72 Senators/Rangers;

3. Billings and Rick Henninger ’73 Rangers;

4. Henninger and Elliott Maddox ’73 Rangers;

5. Maddox and Craig Swan ’78 to ’80 Mets;

6. Swan and Jerry Koosman ’73 to ’78 Mets;

7. Koosman and Bob Randall ’79 to ’80 Twins;

8. Randall and Steve Braun ’76 Twins;

9. Braun was on the ’74 Twins.

#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.