#644 - Wayne Granger

I’d always thought this was a legit shot of Wayne in his new uniform. Those pinstripes are sure real but on closer inspection that “NY” on the cap is not and the setting sure isn’t Yankee Stadium. This, I think, is a spring training shot in one of the old Minnesota pinstriped shirts. That means that might be Joe Decker in the background if that’s a 23 on that uniform. All conjecture of course but if correct this puts him back in ’72, which would represent pretty much the last year of the first good part of his MLB career. ’73 began with his trade back to St. Louis for an outfielder who seemed mired in the minors but would strike gold in Minnesota, Larry Hisle. Oops. Then he and the Cards got off to a horrid start, the team opening the season 3-22 and Wayne going a month-plus before pitching in a game the team won. While he would finish May strongly he threw uneven ball the rest of the way, recording only five saves through early August. By then it was apparent he was no longer the stopper he had been and he was sent to the Yankees for minor league pitcher Ken Crosby. He would pitch better the rest of the way for NY but suffered some porous defense behind him – twice as many runs as earned ones – and by the time this card came out he was released. Just before the ’74 season tipped off he was signed by the White Sox so he would remain in a version of pinstripes but by then arm pain would dictate his career path and he wouldn’t get another card until ’76 when he popped back in the NL with a perm and a new team. But with his serious mien Wayne seemed ready for anything.

Wayne Granger grew up in Huntington, Massachusetts, where he was apparently always skinny but played hoops and baseball before going to nearby Springfield College after graduating in ’63. After a year of ball there he signed with St. Louis as a free agent early in ’65 and after a rough start in Double A got things going in A ball, going a combined 11-12 with a 3.10 ERA in the rotation. Wayne could throw heat but he also had a pretty wicked sinker that he could throw anywhere from full overhand to sidearm. Those pitches would become his out pitches from then on. In ’66 he moved back to Double A and the pen and had a big season, going 11-2 with a 1.80 ERA while helping his club to the league title. In ’67 he moved to a spot role in Triple A with an 8-7/3.03 line and then the next year returned exclusively to the pen where a 4-3/2.16 start to the season had him in St. Louis by early summer.

Granger got called up in June of ’68 right into a pennant race in the wake of injuries to reliever Ron Willis and some ineffective pitching by starter Dick Hughes, two guys who were big contributors to the ’67 title. Wayne responded well with a nice record and four saves as he gradually moved into a closer role before throwing a couple of Series innings. But after the season the Cards needed to fill a hole with Roger Maris’ retirement so Wayne and outfielder Bobby Tolan were sent to Cincinnati for Vada Pinson. It was a very good trade for the Reds as Wayne pretty much immediately took over the closer role, setting a record with his 90 games and recording 27 saves to win TSN’s Fireman of the Year award. He kept things going in ’70 when he set another record with his 35 saves to win his second straight FOY and help take Cincy to the post-season for the first time in a decade. Things got a bit sloppy there, though, when he gave up a grand slam to Baltimore pitcher Dave McNally. Still, Wayne returned in ’71 to a team that would be greatly diminished by injuries, though he was able to again lead the NL in games pitched with 70. But the saves were harder to come by and late in the season his ERA got elevated a bit as he lost closing time to Pedro Borbon. Wayne finished with eleven saves and after the season he was sent to Minnesota for another slight reliever – though leftie – Tom Hall.

With the Twins in ’72 Granger put together a pretty good season, lowering his ERA a bit and nearly doubling his saves total to 19. But a lot of that good work was front-loaded – by late June he had a 0.70 ERA and 13 saves - and some tough summer outings led to losing lots of late closing time to Dave LaRoche. After the series of moves he landed in Chicago early in ’74 and spent nearly all of that season in Triple A where he went 10-3 as a spot guy with a 3.24 ERA and five saves. He then signed as a free agent with Houston for whom he returned to the MLB level, doing mostly set-up work while going 2-5/3.65 with five saves. After being released following the season he signed with Montreal and split ’76 between Jarry Park – 1-0/3.66 with two saves in 27 games – and Triple A where he went 3-1/2.45 with six saves in 26 games. After then signing with and being released by the Braves Wayne relocated to Mexico where he pitched the next two seasons, primarily for Durango. In ’79 he threw for three leagues – Inter-American; Mexican; and in Triple A – in what would be his final season. He finished with an MLB mark of 35-35 with nary a start, a 3.14 ERA and 108 saves. In the post-season that grand slam killed him as he had an 11.25 ERA in his four games. In the minors he was 49-32 with a 3.01 ERA.

After his playing career ended Granger made his home in Florida, where he worked in sporting goods, at a boat dealership, and then for 15 years ran his own billiards business. In ’82 he was inducted into the Cincinnati hall of fame. After selling the billiards shop he returned to Massachusetts where he is retired.

There is no shortage of star bullets for Wayne here with his two big seasons in Cincinnati. On the back of his ’69 card Topps made a big typo, indicating that he helped his Reds team to the Series when it was actually St. Louis.

I sure didn’t see this hook-up coming but here goes:

1. Granger and Dave LaRoche ’72 Twins;

2. LaRoche and Ken Landreaux ’77 to ’78 Angels;

3. Landreaux and Steve Garvey – or a few other guys – ’81 to ’82 Dodgers;

4. Garvey was on the ’73 Dodgers.

When Ken Landreaux went to the Twins as part of the deal for Rod Carew he said it should have been even up and that he’d make the Minnesota fans forget Carew. That guy had balls.

#638 - Ken Sanders

This is one of the rare cards photographed at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium and boy, does it make that place look huge. And dreary. Ken Sanders seems to be channeling the weather with an expression that lives up to his “Bulldog” nickname. 1973 was about as bi-polar a season as Ken had experienced. It began in Minnesota and his first four games he got three saves and a win, though his ERA was around 6.00. By the end of May he had eight saves though his ERA didn’t move too much. By the end of July his record sort of stalled and he wasn’t getting used too much and after a couple painful outings – ironically against Cleveland - the Twins placed him on waivers. Then the Tribe grabbed him and in his 15 games the rest of the way Ken pitched awfully well, adding five more saves to his record. So though he looks pretty lonely here in stormy weather he probably didn’t feel that way on the mound.

Ken Sanders graduated St. Louis University High School in that city in ’59 after a pretty robust athletic career in soccer, football, and baseball. He then gave the university itself a shot but was signed by Kansas City the next spring before he got to play an inning. He went 19-10 with a 3.21 ERA in D ball and the next year 13-8 in A ball with a similar ERA. But ’62 was tough as he went a combined 3-18/5.26 between three levels, at none of which he pitched terribly well. In ’63 he moved to more of a spot role and improved a bunch in A and Double A, going a combined 6-7/3.65. In ’64 he moved to the bullpen pretty much exclusively and there he posted some nice numbers at the higher level, going 9-1 with a 2.28 ERA and nearly a K an inning before getting called up to KC in August where he threw pretty well from the pen, adding a save to his stats. But ’65 was all Triple A where Ken put together another good season, going 8-6 with a 2.74 ERA in 57 games of relief. After that season he was selected by Boston in the Rule 5 draft.

In ’66 Sanders made the cut out of training camp and got his first Topps card. With the Sox all that year he again threw pretty well in middle relief and put up a couple saves before a mid-June trade back to KC in which the Sox picked up Jose Tartabull – Danny’s dad – and John Wyatt, two guys who would be instrumental in the ’67 pennant run. With the A’s Ken continued to throw pretty well in the same role, adding another save. But he would get scarce work up top the next few seasons and wouldn’t see another Topps card until ’71. He spent nearly that whole time in Triple A. In ’67 he was 9-6/2.04 in 50 games and in ’68 2-4/3.41 in 35 games as he spent some time in Oakland but was rarely used. In ’69 he moved back to a swing role, going 6-7 with a 3.39 ERA in ten starts among his 29 games. Following that season he was involved in another big trade, going to the Seattle Pilots with Mike Hershberger, Lew Krausse, and Phil Roof for Ron Clark and Don Mincher.

The Pilots were in the midst of some financial difficulties when Sanders got there early in ’70 and would relocate to Milwaukee before the season started. Ken relocated as well, back to Triple A, and put on a nice show, going 4-1 with a 1.06 ERA and a couple saves in the pen before being recalled in late May. Finally allowed to get some regular work he continued his excellent Triple A run, adding twelve saves as he moved to a closer role from a setup guy as the season progressed. Ken didn’t really have a curve and his two out pitches were a cut fastball and a slider. In ’71 he occupied the stopper role all season and delivered, putting up seven wins and 31 saves as he won the AL Fireman of the Year award. After the strike ’72 started off pretty well for Ken and he didn’t give up an earned run until May. But he went into a bit of a cold streak just when the Milwaukee batters stopped hitting and the poor run support and higher ERA pulled down his record, though he did record 17 saves and so still had a hand in nearly a third of the team’s wins. But his relationship with new manager Del Crandall wasn’t great and after the season Ken went to Philadelphia with Ken Brett, Jim Lonborg, and Earl Stephenson for Don Money, Billy Champion, and John Vukovich. His ’73 Topps card would have him in an air-brushed Phillies cap even though a month after that trade he was off again to the Twins with Joe Lis and Ken Reynolds for Cesar Tovar.

Sanders remained with Cleveland to start the ’74 season but once again got off to a poor start in very little use and after going 0-1 with a couple saves in just 14 games he was released that June. He was picked up nearly immediately by California and the Angels sent him to Triple A where Ken went 3-1/3.44 with a couple saves in 19 games, including a couple starts. By mid-August he was up in Anaheim where he again pitched sparingly but well, putting up a 2.79 ERA with a save in his nine games. The next March he was on the move again, going to the Mets for catcher Ike Hampton. Ken again returned to Triple A and dazzled there, going 6-1 with a 1.34 ERA and nine saves before coming up to NY in late June. With the Mets he continued his good work as part of a trio of stoppers with Bob Apodaca and Skip Lockwood, a former teammate with the Brewers. Ken went 1-1 with a 2.30 ERA and five saves in his 29 games and then in ’76 was 1-2 with a 2.87 ERA and a save before a late sale to Kansas City for the Royals stretch run during which he threw three shutout innings. In ’77 he signed back with Milwaukee as a free agent and spent his final season in Triple A. Ken finished with an MLB record of 29-45 with a 2.97 ERA and 86 saves. In the minors he was 90-76 with a 3.39 ERA.

By the time Sanders was done with baseball he’d established himself as a real estate agent in the Midwest with his home base in the Milwaukee area. He was an executive VP for a long time for Coldwell Banker and GMAC and was the selling representative for the “Field of Dreams” property a few years back. In the Nineties he ran his own fantasy camp on that farm for a few years and he has been actively involved in fund raising for the Baseball Assistance team and other charities.

Ken’s big ’71 season absorbs all the star bullets and that year he led the AL in games as well. One winter while pitching in Venezuela he handled 13 chances in one game. There is a pretty good “Where are they now” type interview with Ken that I have linked to here.

Sanders seems to be a guy interested in a good fight so lets get to that with the Watergate standoff:

4/30/74 – A day after his televised speech President Nixon formally releases 1,200 pages of transcripts to the Special Prosecutor and the House Judiciary Committee. He also released transcripts he’d made available to those recipients earlier to the public. Ironically most people were more concerned with the amounts of “expletive deleted”’s in those transcripts than with anything concerning Watergate. Still, neither release did much to assuage anyone’s desire to see unfiltered documentation of the White House tapes and both the Prosecutor and the Committee demanded the actual – by now – 64 tapes originally requested instead of the redacted transcripts. The President continued to refuse.

5/9/74 – the House Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings in the wake of President Nixon’s continued refusal to submit tapes for which he’d been subpoenaed. It is only the second time in history – the first being for Andrew Johnson – in which impeachment proceedings against a sitting President had been initiated.

Skipping the checklist card, Ken needs to get hooked up with fellow pitched Dave Goltz. This one’s easy:

1. Sanders and Dave Goltz ’73 Twins.

#562 - Jack Aker

Jack Aker gets his final card in a Cubs uniform at Candlestick even though well before this card came out he’d moved on to Atlanta. Jack looks pretty stoic even though his ’73 numbers represented a discount to his ’72 ones, which were quite good. ’73 started equally as well and by early June Jack was 2-4 with ten saves and a 2.16 ERA. But the rest of the way as Chicago’s fortunes faded he was 2-1 with only two saves and a 6.23 ERA. In those 28 games of his the Cubbies were 5-23 so it is pretty understandable that the team placed him on waivers after the season. Jack had been toting around a bad back for a few years by then and it was supposedly aggravated in a May fight with Bobby Bonds of the Giants. Jack looks like good manager material in this shot and that is exactly what he would be in a couple seasons so even though he’s near the end of his pitching career, he still had a lot of baseball left.

Jack Aker’s family had come to California as Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl in the early Thirties. His dad then supported the family as basically a premium migrant worker in cotton fields (which he continued to do through 1990, when he was 85). Jack went to Mount Whitney High in Visalia where he was an all-area halfback and pitcher/outfielder. Graduating in ’58 he then went to nearby College of the Sequoias (James Wohlford from this set went there as well) where he continued his dual role for a year until he was signed by Kansas City for a pretty fat bonus. The A’s were looking for a speedy outfielder and in D ball that summer Jack led his league with 21 stolen bases but after hitting only .208 with zero power it was decided to move him to the mound. He pitched his first season for a C team back home in Visalia and went 8-14 with a 4.47 ERA in the rotation. He improved to 13-12 in B ball the next year and then was 12-14 in Double A in ’62 but he kept the high ERA’s. Jack was a side-armed curveballer who tended to give up a few too many homers. But in ’63 he went a combined 10-4 with a 2.32 ERA after being moved to the pen in a season split between A and Triple A ball (he pitched well at both levels). He then spent nearly all of ’64 in Triple A going 3-4 with a 2.63 ERA, most of that after a May stint in KC that didn’t go too well. Then after a ’65 start in Triple A that produced a 6-3 record and a 1.36 ERA in 35 games he was pulled back to Kansas City in late July for good.

Aker’s late stint for the A’s in ’65 began well enough, then got ugly, and then settled down in September to produce numbers that included three saves and a pretty good ERA. In ’66 Jack ramped things up condiderably when his excellent record and ERA were joined by MLB-leading 57 games finished and 32 saves to win that year’s Fireman of the Year award. He also became the team rep late that season in a role that would haunt his relationship with the team going forward. His pitching didn’t help either. After getting a big bonus for his ’66 season Jack pretty much reversed his numbers in ’67 and got knocked around pretty good in a brawl against Detroit. Player rep-wise he was involved in a couple big incidents. In July after pitcher Lew Krausse was fined by owner Charlie O Finley for “conduct unbecoming to baseball” (the players were told it was because Krausse drank too much on a flight; not until years later was it revealed that he also emptied a six shooter in a hotel across the street after a bad game), the players demanded a meeting with Finley that he agreed to have. It went for over eleven hours in part because Jack didn’t show up for the 7:00 pm meeting until 2:30 am since he was out on the town. Finley claimed that Jack said at the meeting that then-manager Al Dark knew of a letter the players had written calling Finley abusive (Jack pretty quickly denied that). After the meeting Dark was fired; first baseman Ken Harrelson – apparently calling Finley a “menace to baseball” – was cut; and Krausse demanded to be traded. Jack hooked up with Marvin Miller and – pushed by AL president Joe Cronin – they had a meeting with Charley O at which most things were ironed out. That didn’t stop both Jack and ’66 phenom Jim Nash from echoing Krausse’s sentiments in late September to be traded away also. But Jack was back in ’68 for another not-great season – he would get eleven saves that year after his twelve in ’67 – and another brawl with Detroit. It was the team’s first year in Oakland and Jack would be on the move again after the season, going to the new Seattle Pilots in the expansion draft.

Aker got the first-ever save in Pilots history in ’69 but not too much else went right in Seattle or that season until a May trade for pitcher Fred Talbot took him to the Yankees. For NY Jack’s season turned completely around as he put up numbers reminiscent of his big ’66 season, including eleven saves (he had 14 total that year). He then matched his NY ERA in ’70 with another great record and 16 saves. In ’71 he posted another excellent ERA though his innings came in as he shared closer time with Lindy McDaniel, recording only four saves. Then in ’72 after his innings continued to decline – only four games through mid-May – he was sent to the Cubs as the player to be named later in the deal that got the Yankees Johnny Callison. As with NY in ’69 Jack had a big revival in Chicago, taking over as closer, and recording 17 saves the rest of the way. After his poor finish to the ’73 season he was placed on waivers and immediately claimed by Atlanta. His stay there was sort of inconclusive – 0-1 with zero saves in 17 games and a 3.78 ERA – and in June he was sold to the Mets to replace Craig Swan, a rookie who was injured. Jack threw pretty well for the Mets the rest of the way, posting a 2-1 record with a 3.48 ERA and two saves in 24 games. But his back was a mess and he spent two weeks on the DL toward the end of the season. He was released as a player that winter and finished his career with a 47-45 record, 3.28 ERA, and 123 saves in his 495 games. He wasn’t much of a hitter so good call those years back by Kansas City.

Despite the late ’74 release, the Mets were big fans of Aker and beginning in ’75 - of course in Visalia - he spent the next eight seasons as a manager in the NY system, twice winning his league’s manager of the year award. He moved to the Cleveland system as a coach in ’83 and then resumed managing in ’84 and ’85. That second season he was called up to Cleveland to be its pitching coach after the staff was pretty much overhauled that summer. He stuck with the Tribe through part of the ’87 season when another overhaul cleared the deck and Jack was reassigned as a director of player development and scout. He did that through ’88 and then founded his own baseball academy in Arizona, which he ran for about twenty years. About a third of the way through that run he also began going to various Native American reservations in the area and the Northwest where he volunteered to teach the kids ball which he continued doing until pretty recently. He is now mostly retired and apparently living in New Jersey. His record as manager was quite good at 706-674.

Jack’s second star bullet is more qualitative than quantitative. He and McDaniel both had four saves to lead the team – scary – but Lindy closed more games. Jack did  have a better ERA by about two-and-a-half runs. That cartoon would be pretty sensitive these days; Jack was mostly Native American himself, hence the nickname. Looking through his cards there is not one on which he has even the hint of a smile though the couple comments on the Ultimate Mets Database site by his former players indicate he was a great manager. In “Ball Four” the most high-profile mention of Jack by Jim Bouton is that Jack had taken to using chewing tobacco shortly before his Pilots season but was so unschooled in managing it that he always had brown stains on his uniform.

These guys played together and I am going to go out on a limb and say Jack’s half season was enough:

1. Aker and Ed Kranepool ’74 Mets.

#542 - Rich Gossage

Topps brings us back to the regular cards with an action shot of a young guy who would become a Hall of Famer. Very prescient of them as there was not terribly much about Goose Gossage’s ’73 that indicated he’d be a star. After a pretty good rookie year in ’72 too may homers and too many walks in too few innings made his ERA shoot up and got him a summer furlough to Triple A where things went much better. And when he returned in September he finished the season with nine shutout innings so it wasn’t all bad. Here he appears to be throwing against Oakland and while I do love the shot thematically, it is difficult for me to imagine what the photographer was trying to capture by sliding Goose way to the left. He sure does look like he’s about to bring some heat though.

Rick Gossage – he was named Rich by the scout who signed him and that one stuck – grew up fairly economically challenged in Colorado where by high school he was a basketball forward and was throwing hard and well enough to generate MLB interest. His dad passed away from lung cancer when Rick was a junior and the next year he was drafted and signed in the ninth round by the White Sox. That summer he was off to three quick starts in Rookie ball where things went well and then to A ball where they didn’t. But in ’71 he fixed that latter hitch with a new pitch he’d learned from Johnny Sain and Chuck Tanner, a slurve. He put up super numbers in A ball that season and in ’72 made the Sox roster out of spring training. That year between Wilbur Wood, Tom Bradley, and Stan Bahnsen finishing nearly all their starts, Rick didn’t get a ton of work in the pen and his intervals between appearances were pretty erratic. But through the end of September he had gone 7-0 with a 3.39 ERA and a couple saves in about 85 innings all in relief. On the last day of the season he was given a start and he got bombed, taking the loss and watching his ERA climb by nearly a run. It was that year that he roomed with Bradley who noticed that when Gossage looked to the catcher for a sign that he tended to crane his neck like a goose. Hence his new and permanent nickname.

After the mixed results of ’73 Gossage returned in Chicago the next year and posted better numbers of 4-6 with a save and a 4.13 ERA around some time back in the minors. In ’75 he ramped things up in a big way, going 9-8 with an AL-leading 26 saves and a 1.98 ERA in his first All-Star year. He was also AL Fireman of the Year for the first time. ’76 got weird when the Sox ran out of starters early in the year with Wilbur Woods’ injury and both Goose and bullpen-mate Terry Forster put in starting time. Goose actually did a pretty good job, completing 15 of 29 starts and posting an ERA of 3.94. But the Sox were understandably pretty shaky then and he went only 9-17. After the season he and Forster went to the Pirates in the trade that brought Richie Zisk to Chicago. While Zisk had a big year, Goose may have had a better one, going 11-9 with a 1.62 ERA, 26 saves, and 151 K’s in 133 innings. It may have been his best season and he and Kent Tekulve formed a compelling bullpen duo. Goose wanted to stay in Pittsburgh but when the Pirates produced a lame offer he became a free agent and signed with the Yankees.

The signing of Gossage by the Yankees was pretty unexpected by lots of people. NY already had a bullpen ace in ’77 Cy Young winner Sparky Lyle and running through both pitchers’ recent seasons it was apparent they both performed tons better with lots of work. So nobody was sure how The Boss and his managers were going to be able to utilize the two of them effectively. This dynamic is a huge part of “The Bronx Zoo,” Lyle’s diary of the ’78 season. An early indication of where things were heading was made in the season’s first game – I remember listening to it on the radio while doing yard work – when Goose came in to relieve Ron Guidry in the eight inning of a 1-1 game against Texas. He promptly gave up a game-winning solo shot to none other than Richie Zisk. It would go like that a little bit for Goose with Lyle not-so-quietly stewing in the background. But he got right pretty quickly and pitched pretty super ball during the August surge that pulled NY into first from 15 back. Ironically one of his worst outings during that span was the playoff game against Boston when he got his 27^th save. He also went 10-11 in his fourth straight All-Star season with a 2.01 ERA before putting up decent playoff numbers and then throwing six shutout innings against LA in the Series. The balance of Goose’s time in NY was pretty eventful, though not always in good ways. In ’79 he was having a decent season when he got hurt in a clubhouse incident with Cliff Johnson that got Heathcliff exiled to Cleveland and put Goose on the DL for almost three months. He still went 5-3 with 18 saves but his outage and the death of Thurman Munson put a halt to the NY playoff streak. In ’80 Goose went 6-2 with a MLB-leading 33 saves and a 2.27 ERA as he returned to the All-Star game and Fireman of the Year status and the Yankees to the post-season. But this time Goose got bombed his only post-season appearance. In ’81 he came back during the strike year with a pretty amazing year, going 3-2 with 20 saves in just 32 games, his second successive year of over a strikeout an inning, and a miniscule 0.77 ERA. This time he followed suit in the post-season as he threw a combined 14 shutout innings with 15 K’s and six saves. In ’82 he went 4-5 with a 2.23 ERA and 30 saves and in ’83 he went Bill Campbell with a 13-5 record, 22 saves, and a 2.27 ERA. Both seasons he struck out a batter-plus an inning and during that time in NY he proved himself to be one of the best free agent signings ever. He departed the same way, signing with San Diego prior to the ’84 season.

At 32, the days of Gossage striking out over a runner an inning were pretty much behind him. But he was still huge and fierce on the mound and his seasons in San Diego would generally be only a modest discount to his ones in NY. In ’84 he came along just in time to help lead a Padre surge to the NL championship, going 10-6 with a 2.90 ERA and 25 saves. In ’85 his mound time started to decline a bit but he still had an excellent year, going 5-3 with 26 saves and a 1.82 ERA in 79 innings (after averaging over 100 all his full seasons since ’74). In ’86 his ERA popped a bunch – to 4.45 on an uncharacteristic eight homers in 65 innings – but his other stats were good with a 5-7 record and 21 saves. In ’87 his ERA dropped but so did his other numbers as he went 5-4 with a 3.12 ERA and eleven saves in 52 innings. That ended his San Diego time and he then travelled a bit, going to the Cubs in ’88 in a trade and then to the Giants and back to NY as a free agent where in both stops he did spot relief work and accrued 18 saves. In ’90 he spent part of the season in Japan, going 2-3 with eight saves. He then returned to the US, over the next four years putting in time with Texas, Oakland, and Seattle and going 11-9 with three saves during that span. He retired after the ’94 season at 42, finishing with lifetime marks of 124-107, a 3.01 ERA, 310 saves and 1,502 strikeouts in 1,809 innings. In the post-season he went 2-1 with a 2.87 ERA, eight saves, and 29 strikeouts in 31 innings in 19 games. He made nine All-Star teams and is currently 15^th all time in games pitched, eighth in games finished, and 19^th in saves.

Gossage made enough money while playing that when he was done he was able to return to Colorado and spend pretty much all his time contributing to and promoting youth sports in the area. In 2000 he co-wrote his autobiography, “The Goose is Loose.” He has both a SABR page and his own website. In 2008 he was – finally, according to him – admitted to the Hall of Fame. He brought Chuck Tanner and Dick Allen to his induction, both of whom he claimed were instrumental in his development as a professional. Classy move.

Despite that not great ’73 season Goose gets some pretty good star bullets. Topps didn’t include Instructional League stats on its backs back then so that second star bullet is not represented elsewhere.

This one will be pretty quick:

1. Gossage and Walt Williams ’72 White Sox;

2. Williams was on the ’73 Indians.

#310 - Terry Forster

This is a great card and we've nearly seen it before. Bart Johnson's card photo is taken in front of pretty much the same group of blurry fans. I got curious and did some digging and it looks like this game may be from July 1 in Oakland. If so then I am wrong about the time of Rollie Fingers' card since I had opined that it was a playoff shot. I now believe that it is also from this game and the reason for the fat Oakland crowd is that this was the third game in a series between the teams in which they were tied for first at its outset. Oakland won the game 3-0, with Blue Moon Odom and Fingers shutting down the Sox against Johnson and this guy here. But Terry did pretty well, throwing nearly five innings of shutout ball himself. He looks pretty nimble here which is a stark contrast to how he'd look later in his career. This card is also the first in what will be three straight action shots and I always like those.

Terry Forster was born in South Dakota and moved to Santee California by the time he was in high school. There he attended a school called Santana where in 1970 he was named the state's Mr. Baseball. While researching this post I came upon the list of the guys that won that award. They are amazingly well-represented by future Major Leaguers. Terry was sandwiched between Jeff Burroughs and Keith Hernandez. On another post I will list all the winners. Back to Terry, he was drafted by the White Sox in the second round of the '70 draft. That summer he had an excellent record in Single A in his only minor league stint in a long time. In '71 he was elevated all the way to Chicago.

Forster had a good rookie season for the Sox in '71. He then stepped up huge in '72, putting up a then Sox record 29 saves, along with his excellent ERA and over a strikeout an inning. '73 got interesting for him because he was having a very similar first half to the prior year's - at the time of this game (if I am correct) he was 1-1 with 11 saves and a 1.94 ERA - when some Sox pitching issues pretty much forced him into the rotation. While he did OK, his relieving numbers were much better and he finished the year with only 16 saves. But in '74 it was back to all relief and Terry responded by leading the AL with 24 saves and winning Fireman of the Year. In '75 he was off to another nice start when he injured his elbow in late May and was lost for essentially the rest of the season. In '76 staff ace Wilbur Wood got hurt and a couple other starters bombed so Terry and bullpen partner Goose Gossage were put in the rotation. That didn't go too well as they combined for an 11-29 record and the bullpen was decimated. After the season the two went to Pittsburgh for Richie Zisk and Silvio Martinez.

In '77 the two transplants paired up pretty well, Forster as the set-up guy, and Gossage as the closer, and both had comeback seasons, Terry going 6-4 after his 2-12 '76. After the season they each became free agents, Gossage going to the Yankees, and Terry to the Dodgers. In LA Forster continued his comeback, dropping his ERA over two runs as he pitched exclusively in the pen the first season since his big '72. His 1.92 ERA and 22 saves helped LA return to the playoffs and he had an excellent post-season. Early in '79, though, the elbow problems returned and he only put up 27 innings the next two seasons. In '81 he managed a tentative return where his season numbers were only so-so but he performed well in the playoffs and Series and won a ring. After a better '82 - at least until he gave up that Joe Morgan homer - he hit the free agent market again, this time landing in Atlanta.

For the Braves, Forster had his best regular season since '78 - 3-2 with 13 saves and a 2.16 ERA - and despite some injuries and his growing girth put up very good numbers his other two seasons there as well. Regarding that latter qualification, during his career Terry's weight got inflated by about 50 pounds to where during '85 David Letterman referred to him as a "fat tub of goo." In response Terry got a shot on Letterman's show and it was quite funny and showed Terry to be a pretty endearing and understanding guy. I have linked to his appearance on YouTube here. After that season he spent '86 with the Angels, where he again did pretty well, and in '87 signed with the Twins for whom he put up a few innings in the minors before he was done. Terry went 54-65 with a 3.23 ERA, five complete games, and 127 saves for his career. In the post-season he was 1-0 with eight shutout innings and nine strikeouts in his eight games. He was an excellent hitter, batting .397 with only nine K's in 78 career at bats. He has the highest lifetime average of any player with over 50 at bats.

Despite his winning personality, Forster sort of went low key after his playing career. His last few seasons playing he met and married a woman from Montreal and relocated to Quebec. I am unsure as to what he did professionally but for a bunch of years he has coached the little league team from a town called Val d'Or. I have linked to another site here in which a happy Terry poses with his team about two-thirds of the way down (since it is a site from Quebec, it is in French, so anyone wishing to view it may have to have it translated).


I covered a whole bunch of this stuff above but those star bullets are pretty good. Terry got a big card in '74 with a "10" designation. But his '73, despite being pretty good, certainly didn't eclipse a bunch of other guys' seasons who didn't get that honor. I think he got this number because of his '72 work and given his '74 season, this card could be regarded as being prescient.

For the hook-up we get help from an infielder who probably wished he could hit like our boy here:

1. Forster and Derrell Thomas '79 to '82 Dodgers;
2. Thomas and Dave Roberts '72 to '78 Padres.

#182 - Lindy McDaniel

Lindy McDaniel gets a double post near the end of his career. '73 was one of his best seasons at 37 years old. Along with his 12 wins he had ten saves and he pitched 160 innings, the most in a season since his days as a starter. In one game he relieved in the first inning against the Tigers and gave up one run the next 13 innings to win the game. Here in a spring training shot he's showing off his forkball grip on a follow-through pose in sunny Florida. Lindy had three out pitches: fastball, curve, and that forkball, which he threw very low so that when it broke it was already just above the batter's knees. When the pitch truly worked it was virtually unhittable; in one of his early seasons he got 51 strikeouts and gave up only three hits on the pitch. It was a mighty contributor to Lindy's longevity.

Lindy McDaniel was a farm kid from Oklahoma who was a star baseball player in high school and American Legion ball. His senior year in school he threw two no-hitters - and lost both of them! He was a bonus baby, signed in '55 by the Cards for $50,000. He only got into 19 innings that season so '56 was really his rookie year and it was pretty good as he relieved and threw some spot starts. In '57 he was in the rotation and impressed everyone so much that the Cards went and snatched up his younger brother Von as a $50,000 bonus baby also (Von would shut out the Dodgers in his first start, go 7-6 his rookie year, blew out his arm and be done in the majors at 19. He tried to revive his career Rick Ankiel-wise in the minors but didn't hit well enough to make it back.). The next season was a bit of a flop - he spent his only time in the minors that year - so Lindy asked brother Von to teach him his forkball. In '59 armed with his new pitch he moved to the pen and led the league in saves with 15. It was a good prelude to his '60 season when he again led the league in saves, this time with 27, and was the first reliever to receive Cy Young votes, coming in third. He was an All-Star that season and it was also around that time that he began his streak of 225 straight games without an error. But '61 was pretty much a downer, despite his 10-6 record, and Lindy compensated by messing with his forkball. He would start to get things right in '62 when he returned to his original mechanics and double digits in saves with 14. After the season ended Lindy was sent to the Cubs in the deal that brought George Altman and future Met Don Cardwell (fitting) to the Cards. In '63 Lindy gave nearly a repeat performance of his '60 season - both years he was TSN's Fireman of the Year - by winning 13 and saving 23. He would then go through a period of alternating good and not-so-good seasons for mediocre teams.

He would also move around a bit . Before the '66 season McDaniel went to San Francisco in a trade that gave the Cubs Randy Hundley and Bill Hands. One would be an All-Star and the other a 20-game winner but Lindy went 10-5 his first season with six saves and helped to stabilize the bullpen. After a disappointing '67 in '68 he went to the Yankees for Bill Momboquette - Lindy definitely won that one - where outside of an off '71 during which he was hurt he put up very nice numbers for six seasons. In '68 he had a streak in which he retired 32 straight hitters. In '70 he had 29 saves. And in '72 he had a nice year as a set-up guy to new bullpen ace Sparky Lyle. After two decent seasons with the Royals following this trade Lindy would hang them up and finish 141-119 for his career with a 3.45 ERA, 18 complete games, two shutouts. and 172 saves.

McDaniel moved right into his next career following playing, a church ministry at which he is still active. 

The Traded card appears to be a closeup from the same site as the regular card (note the palm tree over Lindy's right shoulder. But the whole cap is pretty sloppy. Plus Topps really didn't have a photo that didn't highlight the double chin? This card doesn't get to be an ugly one but it comes pretty close.

No room for star bullets here. Lindy continued to hold that rank when he retired but he was later passed by others and is now 16th in games pitched behind number 15, Goose Gossage, who gave Lindy props at his HOF induction. Lindy is tied for 17th in games finished and had 119 wins in relief which is second all-time to Hoyt Wilhelm.

Sometimes the boys at Topps would get clever with the headlines, but I don't think this one really works. This trade was a pretty huge win for the Yankees.

Given McDaniel's duration, this one should be quick:

1. McDaniel and George Brett '74 to '75 Royals;
2. Brett and Cesar Geronimo '81 to '83 Royals.

#120 - Wilbur Wood

Our next action shot - and obviously here "action" stretches the descriptive limit - is of Wilbur Wood reposing on a bench at an away stadium, probably either Oakland or New York since that is where just about all his teammates were photographed. That he was not on the mound was sort of an event for Wilbur during the earlier part of the season. In fact, Wilbur had one of the sickest starts ever to kick off the '73 season: in Chicago's first forty games, Wilbur went 13-3 with a 1.71 ERA and three straight shutouts (four in all) while getting a decision in every one of his games. He was on a pace to win 52 games! while that obviously didn't happen, Wilbur still put up some pretty mind-numbing stats: he continued to record a decision in his next 21 games and in his 49 starts only missed getting a decision in five of them. The arguably most successful knuckleballer of the first half of the '70's, Wilbur was a huge innings hog who seemed to have the ability to pitch every day. At least until Ron LeFlore shut him down.

Wilbur Wood was a three sport - football, hockey, and baseball - home-grown kid who signed with Boston in 1960 out of high school, where he won 24 games. He learned the knuckleball from his dad while playing youth league ball. When he hit the minors, though, he was aware that the knuckler was frowned upon so he threw more conventional pitches, primarily a fastball and a curve. Those would work to varying degrees in the Boston system the next few years in the minors and through '63  he had gone 35-30 with a career ERA well below 3.00. But in 32 games in the majors over that span he went 0-7 with an over 4.00 ERA as a spot starter and reliever. In '64 he made the Sox out of spring training but after a few bad early outings Wilbur was released outright to the club's Triple A franchise where he had a bang-up year, going 15-8 with a 2.30 ERA. Those numbers got Pittsburgh interested in him and late that year he was sold to the Pirates.

With Pittsburgh, Wood finally spent a full season up top in '65, finally won his first MLB game, and put together a decent season, though he wasn't used terribly much. But in '66 Wilbur got squeezed out of MLB Time and returned to Triple A where he put up a 14-8 season with a 2.41 ERA as a starter in a year where he tentatively turned to the knuckleball. At the end of that season he was traded to the White Sox for Juan Pizzaro and it was then that Wilbur's MLB career took on a new life.

The '67 ChiSox team Wood joined was a good one for a pitcher with his skillset to get established. For one thing, Chicago was in a pennant race all year and for another, one of the best knucklers ever was in the rotation in Hoyt Wilhelm. That spring Wilhelm worked with Wilbur to refine his pitch and the results were immediately beneficial. Wilbur had a nice '67, posting his first four MLB saves and then turned it on in '68, getting into a then-record 88 games and going 13-12 with 16 saves and a 1.87 ERA. Two facets of his knuckler contributed to his success: one was that his tended to tail down and away from righthanders; two was that he could throw it for strikes. Two more excellent seasons in relief followed. During that span in the pen, Wilbur led the AL in games three times and in games finished twice. Then before the '71 season Joe Horlen got hurt and Chuck Tanner moved Wilbur into his spot in the rotation. Tanner also wanted to have heat coming out of the pen and he had two young guys named Terry Forster and Goose Gossage who could do that.

Wood responded impressively, going 22-13 in 42 starts his first year and 24-17 in a league-leading 49 starts in '72. In those two years he would come in third and second, respectively, in Cy Young votes. After his fast 1973 start got brought back to earth by Sox injuries, Wilbur still won 24 and again led the league in starts as he would the next two seasons. In '74 he won 20 while in '75 he lost that many as his ERA bloated a bit. It was his first season in five years without Ed Hermann as his catcher so that was probably a contributor to that performance. In '76 Wilbur kicked things off very well and in early May was 4-3 with a 2.24 ERA when he started a game against Detroit. Ron LeFlore hit what Wilbur described as an inside-out hit right up the middle. An inside-out hit is one in which the batter's hands are kept inside the arc of the swing for the whole pitch and stay close to the body during contact. It looks to the fielders as if the batter is pulling the ball but in reality it can be hit to all fields. Wood wasn't ready for the comebacker and it hit his knee, shattering the kneecap. That was it for his season. When he returned the next couple seasons he was tentative on the mound and tried to re-work his knuckler so that it would tail to the inside instead of the outside. It didn't work too well and after 17 wins combined in '77 and '78 with an elevated ERA he quit. For his career he went 164-156 with a 3.24 ERA, 114 complete games, 24 shutouts, and 57 saves. He was also named to three All-Star teams. There is a nice interview with Wilbur on the Baseball Almanac site here.

After baseball Wood initially moved into the fish market business outside Boston before getting into insurance and pharmaceutical sales which he was still doing at the time of the above interview in 2005. He was named to the White Sox all-century team.

Wilbur was in the thick of an excellent stretch of his career at this point. He had one of the most successful reliever-to-starter transitions ever and had not had an off season since '64. That career ERA is awfully impressive also. The Fireman of the Year award has been given out by The Sporting News every year since 1960.

I just miss being able to use Jim Morrison on his one. Instead it will use some ex-Yankees:

1. Wood and Oscar Gamble '77 White Sox;
2. Gamble and Bill Robinson '72 Phillies.
3. Robinson managed by Danny Ozark on the '73 and '74 Phillies.

#111 - Clay Carroll

Another Cincinnati action card! Pretty cool. This one is Clay Carroll close to the end of his reign as the Reds' bullpen ace. Like the guy from the post before this, Clay was an Alabama kid. Here he throws one in at what I believe is Shea, so again it may be a playoff card. Clay's '73 was a bit of an aberration for him as it was the only one of his final nine seasons in which his ERA topped 3.00. It was a bit bipolar: a horrible early-season ERA  - it was above 10.00 by mid-May - helped lead to some time in the rotation. While Clay did much better in that new role - 2-1 with a 1.61 ERA in five starts, his time away from the pen allowed Pedro Borbon to sort of slide into the closer role. But from July on Clay's much better second half in the pen - 6-3 with ten saves and a 2.70 ERA helped revive the Reds into playoff mode.

Clay Carroll was signed by the Braves in '61 and began his career in the low minors where he was mostly a starter. In '62 he won 14 from his spot in a C rotation and in '63 and '64 he won a total of 21 between Double and Triple A. By late '64 he was throwing well enough at Triple A to get a call-up and responded by throwing real well out of the pen. In '65 he got very little work and returned for a bit to Triple A. The move to Atlanta must have helped because in '66 Clay led the league in games and got 11 saves. But '67 was a disaster as another run of bad early-season outings pushed his ERA way up and he was unable to recover. It was also another season in which Clay had to join the rotation due to a depleted starter roster. Then, yet another slow start in '68  - 0-1 with zero saves and a 4.84 ERA though early June - led to a trade to the Reds with Tony Cloninger for Milt Pappas and others.

Carroll's move to Cincinnati resulted in an immediate career revival as he dropped over two runs from his ERA the rest of the way that year and grabbed 17 saves. In '69 he threw over 150 innings which was buttressed by some more rotation work. But for the next three seasons it was all pen work as Clay averaged 95 innings a season as staff closer, topped by his big '72 in which he set the NL saves record. In '74 and '75 he threw a combined 200 innings out of the pen but a lot more of that was set-up work as manager Sparky Anderson went all out in his Captain Hook role. So the save totals came way down but the ERA was a very sharp 2.45 over that time. Clay remained in Cincy through the latter season and then was sent to the White Sox basically to reduce payroll.

His first season in Chicago had good and bad moments. Carroll's numbers were quite good - 4-4 with six saves and a 2.56 ERA - but injuries casued him to miss over a month in the summer and nearly all of September. In '77 he did a round tripper, going to the Cards for Lerrin LaGrow and then coming back to Chicago for a bunch of guys. The Sox released him at the end of the season and he hooked up with the Pirates, his last team in the majors. After a try in Triple A with the Brewers in '79 he was all done. Clay finished with a record of 96-73 with a 2.94 ERA, one complete game, and 143 saves and was a two-time All-Star. He killed in the post-season going 4-2 with a 1.39 ERA and two saves in 22 games.

I remember reading on the back of one of Carroll's cards that he was a deputy in Florida which was where he settled since playing for Atlanta. I have been unable to find more information on that. In 1985 Clay was back in the news for something pretty horrible. His stepson, a guy named Fred Nowitzke, got into an argument with the rest of the family and came back armed and loaded. While Clay was able to wrestle a shotgun away from Nowitzke, he was unable to prevent him from shooting him, his wife, and his 11-year old son with a handgun. His wife and son died and Nowitzke was sentenced to death in '87. From what I can gather he is still around, however. I also have seen photos of Clay at Reds' autograph shows as recently as 2008 and he is smiling and reported as being friendly and good-natured at them. A very resilient guy.

Every Topps source except his '73 card I have seen quotes Carroll with 35 saves in '72, but every other source I come upon says 37. I am going with the higher number. Hawk is a great nickname. It was on one of these cartoons that I saw the deputy thing.

Now this will be pretty weird:

1. Carroll and Dave Hamilton '76 to '77 White Sox;
2. Hamilton and Billy Williams '75 A's.

I gotta link two guys that played almost exclusively in the NL through the AL.

#108 - Al Hrabosky

Returning to NL East pitchers, we have Al Hrabosky, before his Mad Hungarian persona took over. Showing his follow through at Candlestick, he is fighting off those San Francisco Bay winds in his warm-up jacket. At this point in his career, Al had already had two Topps cards but this one represented his true rookie season. It was a funny year for him: his work up top in the pen - he recorded his first five saves in '73 - was markedly better than his work in a Triple A rotation. And it did the trick in keeping him in St. Louis after a few years pinging back and forth between the minors and the NL.

Al Hrabosky was drafted by the Twins out of high school in '67 and shot them down, opting to go to Fullerton State. He was then drafted out of there by St. Louis in the first round of the January '69 draft and threw well as a starter at Single A Modesto that year. In '70, off a great start at Double A Arkansas, he got pulled up to the Show and came out of the pen for the Cards late in the season. '71 was sort of a wash as he bounced between St. Louis and both the Double and Triple A teams and didn't get in a lot of games at any of them. That usually meant some military work back then. In '72 and '73 he continued the ricochet thing, although on the strength of his 2.09 ERA and over a K an inning, '73 was the year he stuck with the big club.

In '74 The Mad Hungarian came out: Al grew the wicked Fu, turned his back to the batter before every pitch and talked to himself, and then stared menacingly at the hitter before pitching. It was a total psych job and it worked: that year he went 8-1 with a 2.95 ERA and nine saves. In '75 he really lit things up , going 13-3 with a 1.66 ERA and led the league with 22 saves. Both seasons he would do well in the Cy Young race. In '76 and '77 he would return to earth a bit as his ERA got a little toppy, although he was the Cards' bullpen ace both seasons. Prior to the '78 season he was sent to KC for Buck Martinez and Mark Littell.

For the Royals Hrabosky assumed the closer role and in '78 put up a nice year as his ERA dropped over a run and he put up 20 saves. Al also saw his first playoff action (he gave up a run in three innings). I was at one of the games at Yankee Stadium. It was a game in which George Brett hit three solo homers; when Hrabosky came in the game, the whole stadium started booing and throwing stuff on the field. I think he reveled in those reactions as part of his act. After another good year in '79 he became a free agent and signed with Atlanta. For the Braves Al continued coming out of the pen but was not the number one guy as Atlanta had Rick Camp and Gene Garber ahead of him. In '81 his workload contracted significantly which was too bad since his ERA barely cleared 1.00. But that stat blew up for him in the playoff year of '82 as Garber took over the closer role and after the season Al was released. He signed with the ChiSox but only pitched for Denver, their Triple A club, and didn't do terribly well. He wrapped things up with a 64-35 record, a 3.10 ERA, and 97 saves in 545 games. He moved into broadcasting almost immediately and is currently calling Cards games for the local Fox affiliate. He also owns a restaurant across the street from the stadium.

Al pitched the final two innings of that first win. His first save was about a month later. Two wins and five saves got Al to be the top lefty in '73; things are sure different for relievers now. That Al's career ended with the ChiSox is a bit ironic since that team was one of the first to scout him in college. In fact, the team DID sign a major leaguer-to-be after attending one of Al's games but we won't see that guy for some time in this set.

The two Al's just missed each other in the Cards' system. That should help:

1. Hrabosky and Lou Brock '70 to '76 Cards;
2. Brock and Alex Johnson '66 to '67 Cards.

#82 - Dave Giusti

This is my first truly crooked card so I get out of blaming myself for a bad scan. Also, I would be real surprised if this shot isn't from the same set of shots that Dave's '73 card is from (it is almost exactly the same pose on the same field) which would make the shot from the latest 1972. Plus I believe it is a spring training shot. Dave is another guy whose '73 was smack in the middle of his most productive years: his 9-2 record, 2.37 ERA, and 20 saves helped get him his only All-Star nod as he was the Pirates closer the fourth year running. '72 was a pretty good year for Dave too so maybe that he was stuck there for a while was a good thing.

Dave Giusti was another college guy, having gone to Syracuse after growing up in upstate NY. For the Orange, Dave played a couple years of hoops and helped take the team to the CWS his last year there. He was then grabbed by the new Colt .45's in the '61 draft and that year - since the Houston franchise hadn't officially opened shop yet - went on loan to the Cubs for some time in A and Triple A ball, posting a 2.38 ERA on the season. In the game in which he pitched his first shutout at the lower level he also went 4-for-4 at the plate. Dave then started the initial Colt .45 '62 season on the Houston roster and did some spot starts but mostly relieved. After putting up not great numbers, he returned to Triple A for the balance of the season and most of the next two. During that time he went a combined 25-20 with a 3.45 ERA and missed some '62 time for an elbow operation. After some relief time back up top at the end of the '64 season he was up for good.

Giusti returned to the Astros in '65 and after that season of again both starting and relieving (and posting three saves), he became Houston's most dependable starter the next three seasons. He was their only guy to get double figures in wins each year. In a 1966 start he blanked the Reds while grabbing six RBIs! In '67 he began the year 0-5 while dealing with tendonitis, but had a strong second half. In '68 poor run support led to a losing record though his ERA was quite good. Following the '68 season Dave was traded to the Cards for Johnny Edwards, who became the Houston starting catcher. The Cards left Dave unprotected in the expansion draft and the Padres grabbed him. The Cards then used four players - including a pitcher named Phil Knuckles; too bad that guy never made it - to bring Giusti back. Unfortunately Dave didn't have a bang-up year - 3-7 with a 3.61 ERA - and St. Louis sent him to Pittsburgh shortly after the season for Carl Taylor.

For the Pirates Giusti blossomed. After a poor spring training in '70, Danny Murtaugh moved him to the bullpen and there Dave responded. His 9-3 record and 26 saves were, according to Willie Stargell, the primary reason the Pirates won their division. In '71 Dave led the league with 30 saves for the Series winners. He also didn't give up a run in over 10 post-season innings. The next two seasons he also recorded over 20 saves and in '73 he had the All-Star year. Two more effective years followed: 7-5 with a 3.32 ERA and twelve saves in '74; and a 5-4/2.95/17 line in '75. Then, after a sub-par '76, Dave was traded to the recently destroyed Oakland A's in the big trade that brought the Pirates Phil Garner. He actually had a very nice partial season for Oakland. In August he was sold to the Cubs for whom he did not do so well. Chicago released him after the season ended and that it was it for Dave. For his career he went 100-93 with a 3.60 ERA, 35 complete games, nine shutouts, and 145 saves. His post-season record was not nearly as good: 0-2 in 16 games with 2 saves and a 4.87 ERA. As indicated above, Dave was a pretty good hitter with four homers, 46 RBI's, and a .187 average in 412 career at bats.

During his career, Giusti was able to get his Masters in Education from Syracuse and he spent at least some time teaching science (his baseball-reference site is sponsored by a former student). But after his career he became a corporate sales rep for American Express and is reported to have retired in 2002.

This is actually a really good scan of a slanted card. The star bullets are nice but kind of ho-hummy. Dave's specialty pitch was a palmball which is sort of like a changeup; it looks like a fastball and is an out pitch because the batters are usually ahead of it. He picked it up while attending Syracuse.

How do we go from a Pirate to an Indian? Through the Phillies:

1. Giusti and Bill Robinson '75 to '76 Pirates;
2. Robinson and Oscar Gamble '72 Phillies;
3. Gamble and Frank Duffy '73 to '75 Indians.

A lot of hair on that one.

#73 - Mike Marshall

It has been a while since we have had a multi-card post and it is appropriate that it is this guy, the subject of the first or second biggest trade of the off-season. Mike Marshall looks enormous here pitching at Candlestick in a position that indicates he has yet perfected his delivery system (more on that later). If I am correct, then that is one of four guys behind Mike: Ron Hunt (too tall to be him I think) or Tim Foli (don't see the glasses) at second or Mike Jorgensen or Hal Breeden playing an awfully wide first base. My nod goes to Jorgensen. Regardless of who is behind him, Mike put up a very big year in '73, setting soon-to-be-broken records in games and relief innings by a pitcher; winning 14 in the pen with an NL-leading 31 saves; and finishing second in NL Cy Young voting. He damn near got his team to the playoffs which would have put a non-US team there 20 years before Toronto.

Like the man himself, Marshall had an interesting career. Signed by the Phillies in 1961 as a shortstop, Mike put up some nice offensive numbers in four minor league seasons: a .280 average with an OBA in the upper .300s. He had a very bad back that was injured in a horrible car accident when he was 11 and that plagued him throughout his career which made fielding problematic. One season he had 68 errors. He reached Double A in the infield and in '65 informed management that he was going to become a pitcher. He had just finished his undergrad degree at Michigan State and had started on his Masters when they demoted him to A ball in response to his position change. Mike actually put up some decent numbers as a reliever right off the bat and by the end of the '65 season was back in Double A. Prior to the '66 season he was sold to Detroit and for them he put up super numbers at that level - 11-7 with a 2.33 ERA again in the pen - and was promoted in '67. It was around then that he became interested in the physics of throwing a baseball and kinesiology and that year he initiated his ability to piss off his managers and other players by utilizing the fruits of his academic labors in his craft. Despite excellent numbers, he was sent down by Mayo Smith, who was upset that Mike taught himself a screwball, which would be his signature pitch. It was also around this time that as a graduate teaching assistant at Michigan State, Mike had a student who happened to be a wide receiver on the football team named Steve Garvey. After a season in Triple A as a starter - he went 15-9 with a 2.94 ERA - he was taken by the Pilots in the expansion draft. There he got some nice props from Jim Bouton in "Ball Four" and also argued constantly with manager Joe Schultz and pitching coach Sal Maglie, neither of whom came off particularly well in the book. Thogh Mike's numbers remained pretty good in Triple A  - the Seattle minor league system was a bit messy - Mike's '69 for the Pilots was pretty messy itself and he decided around then that due to his back and other issuers he was much more effective as a reliever. He was sold to the Astros before the '70 season and then went to the Expos mid-year for Don Bosch. For both teams his time was spent primarily at Triple A where his numbers - a combined 6-4 with a 1.85 ERA and seven saves in 25 games - showed it was time to be given a shot up top. It was in Montreal he found his niche.

For the Expos, everything started clicking for Marshall in '71. While his ERA was nothing special, it was his first of four successive seasons that he led the league in games finished and the year he established his game: three money pitches (screwball, slider, and curve) and 100+ innings in relief with double digits in saves and decisions. He attributed his success to an understanding manager in Gene Mauch. In '72 and '73 he had his two huge seasons, garnering significant Cy Young and MVP votes. Those four seasons he put up 93 saves. When in '73 LA decided that a workhorse reliever was the needed step for a title, they sent Willie Davis to Montreal for Marshall. The trade was hugely rewarding for LA as the team won the NL pennant and Mike got his Cy, setting new records in games and relief innings pitched, with 106 and 208 respectively. In '75 Mike broke a rib throwing a curve which aggravated his back as well and he missed a significant part of the season. In '76 he was traded to the Braves - while he and Walter Alston got along great, he and Tommy Lasorda were not friendly - and for the next few seasons his stats were mediocre. During that time he injured his knee and finally had surgery that repaired his back.

In '78 Marshall was signed by the Twins as a free agent and reunited with Gene Mauch, then Minnesota's manager. For those next two seasons, he was up to his old tricks, and in '79 he had numbers that rivaled his best: 142 innings, 10 wins, a 2.65 ERA, 32 saves, 90 games, and 84 finished games. He led the league in those last three. He had a poor start in '80 and as player rep managed to piss off Calvin Griffith and was cut. A nice season followed with the Mets, but despite really good numbers, he was released. Mike finished with a 97-112 record, 3.14 ERA, three complete games, a shutout, 188 saves, and 1,386 innings pitched in 723 games, or nearly two innings per game. He was also a pretty good hitter and an excellent fielder. In his sole post-season, '74, he went 0-1 but with a 0.75 ERA in seven games, striking out 11 in 12 innings.

Marshall now runs a baseball institute in Florida where he teaches pitchers to throw using the fundamentals he developed from his studies. He has a pretty cool website, linked to here. It has videos and a bunch of literature.

OK, so we finally have a lame Traded card. It is not the phosphorescent paint on the hat that bothers me so much as it is the photo itself. First of all, it is the same one used for Mike's regular '73 card. On top of that, I am almost positive that it is a Tigers uniform he is wearing which would make the photo seven years old! That's lame.

Look at those '73 numbers: hard to believe they were just a warm-up. Of course Marshall played chess; the guy was a genius. He has another name that would have been great for a lawyer. Mike was also the guy that talked Tommy John into getting his rotator cuff surgery.

Not too much going on with the Traded card back. I find it hard to believe that his season did not qualify for at least a "5" card. Frankly, though, I have not found anyone occupying those cards not deserving of that status.

Again, these two guys narrowly missed playing with each other:

1. Marshall and Tommy John '74 to '76 Dodgers;
2. John and Aurelio Rodriguez '80 to '81 Yankees.

#66 - Sparky Lyle

This is Sparky Lyle's last card without his walrus mustache. It is also one of the cards I am classifying as an action shot even though there is nothing happening. Not unless you include that wad of tobacco being chewed. The shot looks like it was taken by the dugout at Yankee Stadium. Spark's '73 was pretty active though it didn't start that way as an off-season ankle injury led to an abbreviated spring training and a save-less April. But in May he caught fire and by the end of June had 19 saves which helped him grab his first All-Star nod. He would finish with 27 saves for the season despite missing some significant time from early August on, again due to the ankle.

Sparky Lyle played American Legion ball in rural PA during high school - his HS didn't have a baseball team - and was signed by the Orioles in '64. After spending that summer as a starter in Rookie ball (not so good) and A ball (quite good), Sparky was left unprotected and taken in the first year draft by the Red Sox. While his first season for Boston didn't produce great numbers - 5-5 with a 4.24 ERA in A ball - it was a very important year for Sparky career-wise because of two things: he met Ted Williams who told Sparky he needed to pick up a slider; and he got moved to the pen. Armed with his new pitch Sparky accelerated his move upward as a nice 8-3 extended season in Double A and fall ball in '66 was followed by a '67 in Triple A during which he went 2-2 with a 1.71 ERA in 16 games that got him elevated to Boston that June.

Once Lyle got to the MLB level he was there to stay and he picked up that summer of '67 where he left off in the minors, throwing excellent ball and adding five saves. An injury in late September kept him from the Series though. Two excellent seasons followed during which Sparky accumulated a total of 28 saves. Then, after not giving up a run until early May a tough spring of '70 led to a poor record and elevated - for him - ERA, though he did record 20 saves. '71 saw the ERA returned to its norm, another 16 saves, and a trade. Prior to the '72 season the Sox, looking for a first baseman after the trade of George Scott to the Brewers, sent Sparky to the Yankees for Danny Cater and Mario Guerrero. The trade worked out damn well for NY.

While the trade hardly matched the Ruth sale from years earlier, it did land the Yankees an All-Star reliever for a backup infielder and a guy that would be out of baseball in three years. Lyle hit the ground running for NY in '72, posting his best numbers to date, including a sub-2.00 ERA, nine wins, and a then-AL record 35 saves (that record was broken the next season by a guy we have already seen, John Hiller). Sparky was viewed as the primary reason the Yanks almost won the division and he would ironically finish higher in MVP voting (third) than in Cy Young voting (7th). After his All-Star '73 he repeated the great/OK pattern in '74 -'75: the first year he went 9-3 with a 1.66 ERA and 15 saves; in '75 as things got a bit testy with manager Bill Virdon, his line was 5-7/3.12/six. In '76 Spark returned to the All-Star game, led the AL with 23 saves, and pitched shutout ball in the post-season. In '77 he stepped up those numbers in his final All-Star season, led the league in games, went 13-5 with a 2.17 ERA and 26 saves, and won the Cy, the first AL reliever to do so. He won two games against KC and one in the Series. The reward for that was being stuck behind free agent Goose Gossage the following season and while the numbers were decent - 9-3/3.47/nine saves - it was a very frustrating season for Lyle as detailed in his diary of that year, "The Bronx Zoo." After repeated requests to be traded he got his wish when after the season he was sent to Texas in a deal that brought the Yankees Dave Righetti.

Things didn't go super well for Lyle once he departed NY. His record woulds be pretty good and his first season in Texas produced a 5-8/3.13/13 saves line. But after his ERA moved up by over a run in '80 Sparky was sent to Philadelphia for the pennant dash and while he threw well he got there too late to make the post-season roster. In '81 he went 9-6 in 48 games but the ERA stayed up there and he only recorded two saves. After a poor start to the '82 season he was sold mid-year to the White Sox in his final year. Sparky finished with a 99-76 record, 238 saves, a 2.88 ERA and 899 games, all in relief. In the post-season he was even better: 3-0 with a 1.69 ERA and a save in his 13 games. And he wasn't a bad hitter, putting up a career batting average of .192.

After playing Lyle made some Miller Lite commercials and spent a few years working the casino circuit. He then returned to baseball in '97 when he became the manager of the Somerset Patriots, a Jersey minor league franchise. He just finished his 13th year there.

The first star bullet refers to a game in '64 in which Lyle pitched 15 innings. The cartoon is very tongue-in-cheek although the author of it may not have known that at the time. Sparky's primary association with birthday cakes was that he enjoyed sitting - naked - on the ones that came for his teammates. This is also courtesy of his book. I do not remember anything from it that specifically related to the '73 season, but there will be other pearls on future posts.

It does seem appropriate to link these two All-Stars with a third:

1. Lyle and Lou Piniella '74 to '78 Yankees;
2. Piniella and Amos Otis '70 to '73 Royals.