#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.

#575 - Steve Garvey

Remember when Steve Garvey was squeaky clean? Remember when he played third base? Back in ’73 most people didn’t know about the squeaky clean part so that was just beginning. But this was the final card on which he would be designated a third baseman and Topps seemed reluctant to let that go because in ’73 Steve actually put in zero time at that position. Thanks to the near-meteoric ascendency of Ron Cey that year, third base was finally free of the decade-plus mess of new faces it had been. And while Steve’s climb to regular status during the year was much more sublime than Ron’s, it was still impressive in what was an important transitional season for him. After three years of limited success trying to break into the line-up at third, the acquisition of Ken McMullen and the call-up of Cey left Steve without a position to start the ’73 season. He got some April starts in left field, but after going ofer in the last three of them that quickly ended. So for the first half of the season Steve was a pinch hitter and he did nice work in that role, going eleven for 26 for a .407 average in the pinch. That work got him some starts at first in late June during which he continued to hit and by early July he had taken over the position, pushing Bill Buckner to the outfield. On his action shot here Steve appears to have either just whiffed on a pitch or avoided an inside toss in what I assume is Philadelphia, the site of the other LA away action shots. Topps gives him an honorary card number which is quite prescient of them as was giving Steve and fellow ’74 MVP winner Jeff Burroughs an action shot for their big seasons. I always liked this card as I always liked his ’73 card in which he is nearly obscured by Wes Parker’s back. On that card Wes appears to be congratulating Steve after the latter guy just scored a run, possible following a homer. But in a more figurative way it could have been Wes passing the torch – delayed a year – to the new institution at first base for the Dodgers.

Steve Garvey was born in the Tampa area of Florida shortly after his folks had moved down from NY to run a motel. His dad had been a Dodgers fan and, as luck would have it, by the time Steve was about eight his dad had shucked the motel biz and become a bus driver. That spring was the first in which he became the Dodgers spring training bus driver and he leveraged that position to get his kid in as batboy. From there it was to local fame as a third baseman and in football first as a halfback and then a quarterback. His senior year of ’66 he had lots of offers from local schools to play baseball – he was seen generally as too small for football – and was drafted by the Twins. But his high school baseball coach was buddies with the coach at Michigan State and Steve got a scholarship there to play both sports. His freshman year he was shut out from playing football but he had a big role playing ND quarterback in practice the week before that huge game and in baseball he hit a grand slam in his first at bat. His sophomore year he was a defensive back and recorded thirty tackles and in baseball he hit .383 with nine homers and 38 RBI’s to get an All-American nod. LA nabbed him in the first round and he signed and in Rookie ball that summer hit .338 with 20 homers and 59 RBI’s in only 216 at bats. In ’69 around some military time he put up a .373/14/85 season in 316 at bats while playing both infield corners in Double A. Then in ’70 after a pretty-much hitless month of April in LA he was part of the wildly loaded Triple A Spokane club for whom he had a .319/15/87 year while moving back to third base full time. In July he returned to The Show almost for good.

Garvey had made his MLB debut in April and returned in July of ’70 to try to add his wood to the line-up. His best shot was at third base, a position which had been in flux since pretty much the early Sixties. In ’69 Bill Sudakis had settled in there but his bat went cold and he was needed at catcher so in ’70 new guy Billy Grabarkewitz pretty much took over. Billy was having a pretty good year but was putting up high K totals and was also needed elsewhere, he at second base and shortstop. So Steve got a bunch of starts at third in July and the rest of the month hit nearly .300. He then lost a bit of time for military stuff and got squeezed by roster moves back to Spokane, where he remained until September. He returned to LA to get some more work at third and pulled his average up another 40 points. In ’71 Billy G was a mess between injuries and a severely declined offense so Garvey again was the early-season starter at third and that year he remained pretty much the regular guy until breaking his hand in early June and then missing nearly two months. He retained his spot when he returned but his offense was a bit light so for the immediate future third base was still viewed as a bit open. In '72 Steve did get the Opening Day nod at the position and never really had a batting slump, but a lack of power and way too many errors – most of them throwing ones – opened the door for other guys to put in time there, namely Billy G and Bobby Valentine (though to be fair nobody performed well at the hot corner that year; the team as a whole recorded 53 errors!). In ’73 Steve finally got a regular gig for real, just on the other side of the diamond.

In 1974 Garvey began in earnest his onslaught of NL pitching. As part of an infield that stayed intact – actually beginning midway the prior season – through ’81, Steve was a huge offensive gun throughout his time in LA. Over the next nine seasons he would put up an average of .306 while averaging 198 hits, 22 homers, and 102 RBI’s in his full seasons (I am discounting the strike year of ’81 though that was a good one also). He got his MVP in ’74 with a .312/21/111 year while leading LA to the Series and was an All-Star in eight of those seasons and a Gold Glove winner in four of them. In ’75 he recorded his higest average - .319 – and hit total with 210. In ’77 he joined the LA power train, becoming one of four guys on the team with over 30 homers while recording a career-best 115 RBI’s. In ’78 and ’80 he led the NL in hits, both times with over 200. He had six 200-plus hit seasons in seven years. Not surprisingly LA was quite prolific post-season-wise during that span, making the playoffs five of those years and winning the Series title in ’81. He also put together his record 1,207 consecutive game streak during that time. When his contract expired following the ’82 season the dismantling of the infield continued – Davey Lopes left after the ’81 season – as Steve signed as a free agent with San Diego.

Garvey’s signing by the Padres was viewed as huge though many thought his best days were behind him. He was still a solid hitter and an excellent defender and would ably serve as a clubhouse leader. And things went well, at least until a dislocated thumb suffered at the end of July 1983 ended both his season and that consecutive game streak. But he still hit .294 in his 100 games and came back strong in ’84 when he helped take San Diego to the Series with a .284 average, 86 RBI’s, an error-less season at first, and a spanking time against the Cubs in the playoffs. He returned as the regular guy at first the next two seasons, posting 81 RBI’s in each one though his average slid, especially that second year. After an ’87 of mostly back-up and pinch hit work he retired. He finished with a .294 average on 2,599 hits, 272 homers, and 1,308 RBI’s. He upped his stats in the post-season to hit .338 with eleven homers and 31 RBI’s in 55 games. He is currently in the Top 100 all-time in hits, singles, total bases, and sacrifice flies, and just misses that mark in RBI’s. Defensively he is 13^th in putouts, 47^th in assists, 23^rd in double plays, and seventh in fielding percentage at first base. At this point he seems about a push to get in the Hall, though it would have to be through the veteran votes.

Garvey was still a Golden Boy when he retired. He’d done lots of television work during his career and that seemed a good fit. There was also lots of speculation about him running for office (a conservative, he lionized Ronald Reagan). But things got public about Steve in a bad way when a contentious divorce amidst lots of extra-marital flings landed him in hot water image-wise. He ended up doing a pretty good Shawn Kemp impersonation by fathering eight kids with four women which pretty much killed his shot in politics. But he put together a media company that specializes in infomercials and has always been big on the corporate lecture circuit, both of which he has been doing since the late Eighties. He was inducted into his high school hall of fame in the Nineties and the Michigan State one in 2010.

Steve gets the offensive and defensive props on the star bullets. When he was at MSU one of his professors was Mike Marshall, his teammate on the ’74 pennant winner.

This one is faster than I would have thought and gets abetted by another ’74 teammate:

1. Garvey and Al Downing ’71 to ’77 Dodgers;

2. Downing and Dave May ’70 Brewers;

3. May and Bill Parsons ’71 to ’73 Brewers.

#473 - '73 World Series - Game #2

Wow, who’s this guy? Here we have the final card Topps issued of Willie Mays during his playing career. It’s a pretty dramatic shot and it looks like Willie has just taken a pitch from Rollie Fingers, the only pitcher he got up against in the game. Willie had come in the game in the ninth inning as a pinch runner for Rusty Staub, who had singled. He then got up a couple times as the game went to twelve innings. His second at bat in the top of the 12^th would be the final successful one of his career so this card is a milestone of sorts. Just because I can’t help myself I’m going to throw Willie’s bio out here in honor of his photo.

Willie Mays grew up in Alabama where he played football – as a quarterback and punter – basketball – where he set a state record with points per game as a guard – and baseball in high school. His school either didn’t have a team or Willie was unable to play on it – depending on the source – so he played some semi-pro and industrial league ball while at that age. In ’47 he went to Tennessee for the summer to play for the semi-pro Chattanooga Choo-Choos and in ’48 when he was 17 he played for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues. He hit .262 and knocked everyone out with his performance in the field and then played in that year’s Negro League World Series that his guys lost to Homestead and Satchel Paige. He continued to play for the Barons the next couple summers and during that time nearly signed with the Braves and the Dodgers but the Barons’ owner didn’t want to let him go. Finally in June of ’50 the Giants nabbed him. That summer he went to Trenton to play B ball and hit .353. The next year he moved up to Triple A where he hit .477 (!) with 30 RBI’s in 149 at bats. That was enough of an audition and that May he moved up to NY.

Mays famously had a slow start to his MLB career, going 0 for 12 until in his 13^th at bat he homered off Warren Spahn. He ended up hitting .268 with 20 homers and 68 RBI’s which got him the NL Rookie of the Year and helped get NY to the playoffs against LA. When Bobby Thomson hit his famous shot Willie was in the on deck circle. After a slow start in ’52 – he was hitting .236 – Willie got tabbed by Uncle Sam and spent the rest of that season and all of the next in the military which he said made him stronger. He came back in ’54 and in his first full season won the NL MVP by hitting .345 with 41 homers and 110 RBI’s in leading NY to the Series. That time they won and Willie made that amazing catch off a Vic Wertz fly to dead center. He would spend four full seasons in the Polo Grounds and during that time averaged .323 with 13 triples, 41 homers, 105 RBI’s, and 28 stolen bases. In ’57 he won his – and the NL’s – first Gold Glove in center which he would do twelve years running, Twice during that time he made the 30-30 club and three times he led the NL in slugging.

In ’58 the Giants moved to San Francisco where it was a tad more challenging to hit them out at the corners and everywhere else due to the wind. Mays did just fine though and the next nine years would average 40 homers, 109 RBI’s, and a .312 average. In ’62 he hit 49 out with 141 RBI’s as he again led the team to a post-season playoff championship, and again against the Dodgers. In ’65 he hit .317 with 52 homers and 112 RBI’s to win his second MVP. In ’67 he missed his first significant amount of time as his wheels were starting to get  beat up too much and his power stats came down pretty hard. They stayed there the next few seasons until in ’70 he had a bit of a resurgence with 28 homers and 83 RBI’s while hitting .291. He got to the playoffs again in ’71 when he led the NL in walks and OBA, with 112 and .425, respectively. Those were both the highest marks in his career. In ’72 the Mets lobbied hard to return him to NY for the end of his career and that May he came back for pitcher Charlie Williams and $50,000. He played sort of sparingly the next couple seasons between center and first base and after being injured announced his retirement in late summer of ’73. But he came back for the post-season and had some memorable moments. Willie finished with a .302 average, 660 homers, 1.903 RBI’s, 338 stolen bases, and a .384 OBA. In the post-season he hit .247 with a homer and ten RBI’s in 25 games. He was an All-Star for 20 seasons and was inducted into the Hall in ’79. After playing he coached with the Mets through ’79, was a greeter at Atlantic City casinos from ’80 through ’85, and since ’86 has worked in various admin roles for the Giants.

Now let’s get to the game. The starters were Jerry Koosman and Vida Blue and neither one would be around too long. Vida had a 1-2-3 inning to start the game but Koosman got in trouble right away with a Joe Rudi double, Sal Bando triple, and Jesus Alou double that knocked in a couple in the bottom of the first. He also walked a couple and struck out Dick Green with the bases loaded so it could have been a lot nastier. Cleon Jones led off the second with a homer and in the bottom of the inning a Bert Campaneris triple followed by a Joe Rudi single got the run back. In the third Wayne Garrett had a rare offensive surge with a solo shot and in the bottom of that inning Oakland threatened again on a one-out walk by Gene Tenace, a single by Alou, and an error on a come-backer by Ray Fosse loaded the bases. Ray Sadecki then came in for his first post-season appearance and Oakland tried a squeeze play that backfired when Green missed the bunt, nailing Tenace. After Green struck out the score was still 3-2, Oakland. Sadecki pitched another shutout inning before getting pulled for a pinch-hitting George Theodore in the fifth. Vida, meanwhile, was putting at least an NY runner on base an inning but was shutting them out through the fifth. But in the sixth things got nasty: After a Rusty Staub strikeout, Jones walked and John Milner singled, putting runners on the corners. Horacio Pina replaced Blue and promptly hit Jerry Grote, loading the bases. Consecutive singles by Don Hahn and Bud Harrelson knocked in two runs, chasing Pina. In came Darold Knowles who got pinch hitter Jim Beauchamp to ground back to him but who then slipped while firing the ball home, allowing Grote and Hahn to score. He got Garrett to strike out, walked Felix Millan, and got Rusty to pop up with three on. But four runs scored, giving NY a 6-3 lead.

Tug McGraw then came in to pitch for the Mets, replacing Harry Parker, who had pitched a shutout inning. Tug and Darold traded shutout ball of their own for an inning and then in the seventh McGraw hit Campaneris, walked Rudi, and struck out Sal Bando. But Campy stole second on the K and Reggie doubled him home, closing the gap a run and putting two guys in scoring position. Tug struck out Gene Tenace to end the threat. Blue Moon Odom then came in to pitch for Oakland and the eighth inning was all zeroes. In the ninth Staub singled and was replaced by Willie on the basepaths. Odom got Jones to fly out and gave up a single to Milner before getting two quick outs. Willie then took over center and Hahn took Rusty’s spot in right. This was important because the first Oakland batter, Deron Johnson, hit a liner to center that Willie couldn’t see – the sun was nasty for everyone that day – let get by him, and then fell while chasing. Double Johnson. He was replaced by Allan Lewis and after two quick outs and a Bando walk, Reggie and Tenace came through with singles, scoring Lewis and Bando. Alou tapped one back to the mound but it was a tie game.

The extra innings didn’t disappoint if you were one for drama. Rollie Fingers came in to pitch the tenth and gave up a lead-off single to Harrelson. McGraw sacrificed him to second and Garrett reached on a Tenace error at first. With one out and runners at the corners, Millan lofted one to short left that Rudi caught. Harrelson ran on the catch and Rudi winged it home. Umpire Augie Donatelli called Bud out to the consternation of many – including Willie (see below) in the on-deck circle – and on replays it looked like Ray Fosse missed the tag. But the inning was over with no damage. Tug breezed through the bottom half and Rollie again put two on in the eleventh but escaped. After Oakland went o-fer in the bottom came the big drama. Harrelson again led off the inning with a big hit, this time a double. McGraw then got another bunt off and this time was safe. Garrett went down swinging and Millan popped to first and up came Willie with two on and two outs. A clutch single to center scored Harrelson and a Jones single then got the bases loaded, chasing Fingers. Paul Lindblad – another pitcher making his post-season debut – came in and got Milner to hit a hot grounder to second. But the ball went right through the legs of Mike Andrews – who came in the game in the eighth - and both Tug and Willie scored. Jerry Grote then did an instant replay and this time Andrews fielded the ball cleanly but his throw pulled Tenace off the bag. Jones scored and Grote was safe, and after a Hahn groundout it was 10-6. Reggie led off the bottom of the 12^th with a big triple that many felt Willie misplayed and after Tug walked Tenace he was relieved by George Stone. Alou greeted Stone with a single, scoring Reggie, and a Fosse groundout pushed Tenace to third. Andrews then walked and Vic Davalillo, who was super hot in the playoffs, came in to pinch hit. But he popped up, Campy grounded out and the Mets got a 10-7 win that evened the Series. McGraw got the win, Stone the save, and Fingers took the loss. The game went 4:13 beating the former longest Series game by nearly 45 minutes. The eleven pitchers used also set a record. Poor Mike Andrews was essentially fired by Charlie O right after the game, though it was claimed he was injured. And that pushed manager Dick Williams – who’d already intimated he might not come back – right over the edge. Andrews had been a steady player for Williams in Boston and Dick went to bat for his boy, saying if Andrews wasn’t coming back neither would he. But the most enduring visual legacy of the game – at least for me – was this great photo of Willie rushing to protest the out call at the plate in Life magazine that had the equally compelling header: “The Say Hey Kid Says So Long.” I haven’t been able to find the magazine or the photo but here are two that come close. The first is of Mays running out from a different vantage point and the second an SI shot of Willie pleading with Donatelli to change the call.

Willie really put his soul into the game, didn't he?

Finally we get the card back which highlights two busy catchers and lots of pitchers. Another record set was by Don Hahn who became the first guy with seven at bats in a Series game. Here are the pitching stats:

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	ERA
Koosman	3.1	6	3	3	3	4	8.10
Sadecki	1.2	0	0	0	-	3	-
Parker	1.0	1	0	0	-	0	-
McGraw	6.0	5	4	4	3	8	6.00
Stone	1.0	1	0	0	1	0	-
	12.0	13	7	7	7	15	5.25
Blue	5.1	4	4	4	2	4	6.75
Pina	-	2	2	0	-	0	-
Knowles	1.2	1	0	0	2	2	-
Odom	2.0	2	0	0	-	2	-
Fingers	2.2	6	4	1	-	2	3.37
Lindblad	0.1	0	0	0	0	0	-
	12.0	15	10	5	4	10	3.75

Five unearned runs. That’s pretty tough. On to NY and out of the sun!

#460 - Boog Powell

 Boog Powell gets an action card in this set and it appears to be a shot in Oakland with a pretty fat crowd which, as we have seen, was not the norm for that fan base. So this may be an action shot from the playoffs, which adds some appeal. Boog had a pretty good run of these cards as this year would be the second of four consecutive ones with him in motion. I think the best is the one from ’75 when it looks like he’s about to catch a whale at first base. ’73 was not his best year since between a shoulder injury and manager Earl Weaver’s platooning Boog got in just over half a season at first base. His numbers that year were just a nudge above his ones in ’67, his worst season and another one decimated by nagging injuries. Still, he was a crowd pleaser with his big body and super friendly personality. Boog grew pretty much every year and his listed 250 pounds is probably a bit generous on the low side. His ’74 season would be even more of a downtick but he’d have one more year of All-Star-type performance when his buddy Frank Robinson rescued him in ’75.

Boog Powell was born in Lakeland, Florida, where as a kid he was so big that he was initially banned from his Little League for a year. That was when he was 12 and they let him back in before the season was over, which was a good thing since as a pitcher he led his team to the Little League World Series. Boog pitched eleven straight games to get his guys there in ’54 and unfortunately those games took a toll as he went down 17-0 in the first round to the eventual champs, a team from Schenectady, NY. When Boog was a sophomore in high school his family moved down to Key West where he was all-state in football as a tackle for two years, both of which his team won the state championship. He also turned the double in baseball – in which he was now a slugging outfielder/first baseman – his senior year. He received lots of interest from colleges for his football and signed a letter of intent with one school when the Orioles came down and swooped him away to the tune of a $25,000 bonus. That was in ’59 and his first summer as a pro he claimed he was overwhelmed by the pitching in D ball, though it sure doesn’t come across in his stats: .351 with 14 homers and 59 RBI’s in only 191 at bats. In ’60 Boog moved to B ball and first base full-time and racked up a .312 average with 100 RBI’s. Then in ’61 was a big jump to Triple A by which he apparently wasn’t fazed since he hit .321 with 32 homers and 92 RBI’s. Late that year he made his debut in Baltimore.

Powell was always a big boy and pretty tough but he was awfully slow and was always getting nailed by nagging injuries. In ’62 he was kept upstairs where he played leftfield and put up good enough rookie numbers to make the Topps team despite playing through, in order: a sprained wrist; a blood clot in his leg; a beaning that took him to the hospital; and a shoulder injury. In ’63 he was relatively healthy and stepped up his power numbers significantly. Then he did that again in ’64 despite again spraining his wrist. He also put up a .399 OBA that year, by far his best in the majors up until then. In ’65 Boog split his time between the outfield and first base as it was decided his lack of speed would make him a better defender at the latter position. He actually turned out to be quite nimble there over the years and became a whiz at scooping balls out of the dirt. But he had a relative slump at the plate, ironically the one year he didn’t lose time to injury. He came back strong in ’66, so strong in fact that he won the AL Comeback Player of the Year award. He also got his first post-season action and hit .357 against the Dodgers during the surprising Orioles sweep. After his disappointing ’67 – again, no big injuries – came ’68 when Boog did an about-face from the rest of the AL and raised his numbers significantly. Big years and AL championships followed in ’69 and ’70 and the latter year he won the AL MVP.

In ’71 Powell had all his injuries in about the same place, breaking a wrist and getting hit in each of his hands. His offensive numbers came in pretty hard and continued to do so in ’72 when the nagging wirst injury made it difficult to hold the bat. Things didn’t improve in ’73 or ‘74 and after hitting .265 with 12 homers and 45 RBI’s in 344 at bats the second year he was sent after the season to Cleveland with Don Hood for Dave Duncan and a minor leaguer. Frank Robinson, who'd come to Cleveland himself late in '74, had also been named manager and he opted to give Boog first base solo which worked out pretty well as Powell hit .297 with 27 homers and 86 RBI’s to win his second AL Comeback Player award. But it was a one-season revival as ankle, shoulder, and wrist injuries would demolish his ’76 season in which his numbers fell to .215 with nine homers and 33 RBI’s in 293 at bats. After the year he was released and then picked up by the Dodgers for whom he primarily pinch hit before his August release ended his career. Boog hit .266 with a .361 OBA with 339 homers and 1,187 RBI’s. His post-season numbers were .262 with six homers and 18 RBI’s in 33 games.

After playing Powell returned to Key West where he opened a marina which he ran for a few years. In the early to mid-Eighties he made some high-profile beer commercials for Miller Light and also wrote a cookbook. In the early Nineties when Camden Yards opened Boog got together with Oriole brass and suggested opening a barbecue stand in the park under his name. The stand has been wildly successful, allowing Boog to open another one on the Baltimore waterfront and act as sort of a traveling Johnny Apleseed for barbecue foods, even getting to Tahiti in recent years. He signs lots of autographs and is still a huge – in more ways than one – fan favorite.

Boog gets a couple good star bullets and his signature barely fits in its spot. That’s some cartoon picture of him. That hat would have been actually more appropriate for China but nobody was going to that nation from MLB back then.

In 1976 the Baltimore contribution to the baseball centennial was its Series victory in 1970. No surprise there, though the ’66 one was a more dominant and surprising win. The O’s went up against the Big Red Machine and sort of beat them up, winning the Series four games to one. Baltimore hit nearly .300 as a team – only Don Gullett and Clay Carroll had any success for Cincinnati on the mound – and the O pitchers and especially Brooks Robinson helped the Machine to a .213 average. Brooks was the Series mvp with his amazing fielding.

Coincidentally we get to hook up Boog with the team he helped beat in 1970:

1. Powell and Merv Rettenmund ’68 to ’73 Orioles;

2. Rettenmund and Pete Rose (and many others) ’74 to ’75 Reds;

3. Rose was on the ’73 Reds.

#400 - Harmon Killebrew

I’ve been on a good jag about being current with my posts but I couldn’t do this one on Friday the 13^th, so I skipped a day, or a few since I don’t post on weekends and then got side-tracked. For the big 400 card Topps gives us an action shot of The Killer, who, despite an off year, is very deserving. And it was an off year: early season knee problems killed his power and then required surgery, pretty much cutting his year in half. And while he would return to double digit homer totals his next couple seasons, Harmon was in decline mode so he was not likely to get such an honorary card designation again. Let’s just chalk up the big number to his eight years of 40-plus homers. He is set to tee off somewhere on the road, but it’s hard to tell exactly where. He swung a pretty mean bat; he is about as far away from a choke grip as I’ve seen in the set.

Harmon Killebrew was born and raised in Payette, Idaho. In high school he played the big three sports and was an all-American in football. He planned to go to Oregon – his dad spent a bunch of time in Portland – but a state senator saw him playing summer baseball and happened to know Nats owner Clark Griffith and it was bye-bye football. Harmon signed with DC in ’54, a year outside of high school, for either $50,000 or $30,000, depending on the source. Either way, the amount was enough to land him bonus baby status and he spent his first two years exclusively on the Nats roster, rarely playing, and not hitting terribly well when he did. But he did show some big occasional power and when he was allowed to he hit the minors in ’56 where he hit .325 with 15 homers in A ball. He rose a level each season, continuing to show pretty good power, and after a few stints each year at the top was ready in ’59 to take over a regular spot in DC.

In ’59 Killebrew became the regular Washington third baseman which was his normal position in the minors. Finally given a chance to get decent at bats he responded by hitting an AL-leading 42 homers, probably making DC fans wonder why the team took so long in giving him the gig. Then in ’60 he split time between first and third while missing over a month due to hamstring problems. The guys who subbed for him while he was out were Reno Bertoia (3^rd) and Julio Becquer (1^st) which are both awfully good baseball names. In ’61 the team moved to Minnesota to become the Twins and Harmon spent most of his time at first while putting up the first of four consecutive 40-plus homer years. Then in ’62 he moved to left field when Don Mincher became the regular guy at first and continued to yank them despite playing with a pulled quad for a couple months. In ’63 a hurt knee contributed to his RBI totals sliding below 100 and in ’65 he cracked his elbow, missing a couple months during the big playoff run. But he hit .286 with a .444 OBA against the Dodgers in the Series and followed it up with two healthy seasons.  He also moved back to the infield as his knees were in pretty much constant pain and he did a better job as a fielder there anyway. Then after a slow start in ’68 he pulled a hamstring in the All-Star game and missed the rest of the year. But he returned big in ’69, leading the majors with 49 homers and 140 RBI’s while posting a .427 OBA to lead the Twins to the first AL playoffs. While the O’s would pitch around Harmon in that series – he was walked six times in three games – it ended an amazing decade in which he led the AL in homers five times, RBI’s twice, and walks three times. He hit the most homers of anyone in the decade and was an All-Star nine seasons.

The Seventies pretty much picked up where the Sixties left off for Killebrew as in ’70 he put up another 40-plus homer and .400-plus OBA year. That was his last year as the regular guy at third and in ’71 while the homer tally dropped he did lead the AL in RBI’s and walks in his final All-Star year. Then in ’72 the knee issue hit hard and the ribbies and average tumbled. After the further slowdown in ’73 he came back to DH in ’74 for about half a season to hit 13 homers and 54 RBI’s. After the year ended he was given the option of coaching, managing in the minors, or being released. He opted for the last one, hooked up with Kansas City for a year of DHing and was done. He finished with 573 homers, 1,584 RBI’s, 2,086 hits, a .256 average, and a .376 OBA. In the post-season he hit .250 with three homers, six RBI’s, and a .444 OBA in 13 games. He was elected to the Hall in ’84, his fourth year of eligibility.

After he was done playing, The Killer did some parallel professional things. In baseball he announced: for the Twins (’76-’78 and ’84-’88); Oakland (’79-’82), where he also served as hitting coach; and California (’83). He also had his own insurance agency from ’76 to ’87 and auto dealership from ’84 to ’90. That last year he relocated to Arizona and began to make a living from personal appearances. He also did a bunch of charity work, including organizing the Danny Thompson Memorial golf outing every year in Idaho and other work to raise funds for kids. In late 2010 he contracted esophageal cancer – he’d had issues with his esophagus in the early Nineties as well – and in May of 2011 decided to go into hospice care, passing away a few days later a few days shy of his 75^th birthday.

Harmon gets no space for star bullets but certainly wouldn’t be hurting for them. He has a classy signature. When he retired he would be the number one guy in career homers for a right-hander.

 A couple of music items are worth noting. On July 13, 1973 the Everly Brothers put on their last concert in many years as a duo after Phil Everly smashed his guitar and walked offstage. Brother Don continued to perform, explaining the group breaking up by saying “the Everly Brothers died ten years ago.” They wouldn’t perform together again until ’84. The following day ex-Byrds guitarist Clarence White is killed by a drunk driver while loading a van after a concert. He was 29. On July 13, 1974 a new Number One song tops the charts in George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby.” George had been an AOR guy who had also written hits for other artists, so of course his big one was written by someone else: Harry Wayne Casey, better known as KC of KC and the Sunshine Band. Finally on July 17^th, Cat Stevens performs a charity gig for UNICEF at Madison Square Garden, and in return the group names him its first “pop music ambassador.” Pretty ironic title for a guy who would later demand the killing of author Salman Rushdie.

I am falling back again on the ex-MVP for the hook-up:

1. Killebrew and Zoilo Versalles ’59 to ’67 Senators/Twins;

2. Versalles and Mike Paul ’69 Indians.

#350 - Bob Gibson

This is NOT Bob Gibson's last card. They would come in '75. But it is his last card memorializing a good year although it wasn't all smooth running. When the Cards were having a tough time early in '73, so was Gibby, starting off at 2-5 but with a healthy 3.34 ERA. He then went 4-1, pulled his ERA below 3.00 and was looking to get a win total to match '72's when he went down in late July with a knee injury. He missed about ten starts, effectively killing St. Louis' chance for a division title, but returned in late September to win his final game. Here he looks warm before a sparse crowd at Candlestick. Bob had absolutely zero problem throwing at hitters and I am pretty sure that being on the receiving end of that stare could be an intimidating place to be. Even in '73.

Bob Gibson was raised in housing projects in Omaha, Nebraska. His dad passed away before he was born and he had an older bother Josh - not the Negro League catcher - help look after him. He was a small kid most of his time in high school but ended up being a superior baseball and basketball player. The Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues attempted to sign him but his brother pushed him into college and Bob won a hoops scholarship to nearby Creighton University and was the school's first black player in both sports. When he graduated in '57 he signed with both the Cardinals and the Harlem Globetrotters. When the Cards scouted him in Omaha every other MLB scout was there for the CWS to see a kid from USC named Ron Fairly. The two would be teammates in Bob's last season. That summer he threw so much heat in A ball that he was bumped all the way up to Triple A - Omaha of course - where his manager was Johnny Keane. He was having a tough time finding the plate though and in '58 he pitched for two teams at the higher level, going a combined 8-9 with a 2.84 ERA. In '59 he started the season in St. Louis but between too many walks, an inability to get a regular spot in the rotation, and a less than great relationship with manager Solly Hemus, he was sent back down to Triple A. There he went 9-9 with a 3.07 ERA. After a few games there in '60 he was back up top for good.

Gibson and his manager his first few years, as noted above, didn't get along too well. Most of the black guys on the Cards thought Hemus was a racist, and none of them had a super relationship with him. For Bob's first couple seasons he caught as much pen as starting time and his inconsistent appearances didn't give him much time to work on his control. But with Gibson at 2-6 through the early part of the '61 season, Hemus was fired and replaced by Johnny Keane, a manager with whom Bob had an excellent relationship. Keane stuck Gibby in the rotation and he went 11-6 the rest of the way. He then improved his strikeout to walks ratio markedly in '62 as he won 15 and made his first All-Star team. A mostly better '63 followed in part because the strike zone was expanded. Then in '64 he capped an awesome season with an even better Series, winning the clincher in Game Seven. Then came the big years: in the next six seasons came six All-Star games, six Gold Gloves (he would get nine of those in a row), two Cy Young awards, and an MVP. The only season in that time he didn't win 20 he was injured in '67 and that year he had one of the most dominant Series ever, seemingly purely on spite, when he went 3-0 with a 1.00 ERA. In '68 he had his amazing MVP year that inluded what I still think is one of the wiggiest stats I've ever seen: nine losses in a year in which his ERA was only 1.12. No wonder they lowered the mound the next season. In '70 he nabbed his second Cy and the next season most of his streaks ended as nagging elbow pain pulled his wins south by a few games. After a nice bounce in '72 came his last Gold Glove season. In '74 the elbow issues were compounded by serious knee issues - they would be drained 22 times the next two seasons - and an 11-13 '74 was followed by a 3-10 '75. That last season his knees were so out of whack that he pulled some pen time which didn't work for Bob and he opted to retire before the season was over. Gibby finished with a record of 251-174 with a 2.91 ERA, 255 complete games, 56 shutouts, and six saves. In the post-season he went 7-2 with a 1.89 ERA in nine starts in which he totalled 92 strikeouts in 81 innings. When he was done Bob had several team and other records including most wins as a Cardinal (251), most NL strikeouts (3,117), most strikeouts in a Series game (17), most seasons with 200 or more strikeouts (nine), most consecutive starts (303), and most complete games in the Series (seven). No surprise he was elected to the Hall in '81, his first year of eligibility.

After Gibson retired he traveled the country a bit and then returned to Omaha where he served on a bank board and opened his own restaurant. He returned to baseball in '81, coaching for old friend Joe Torre on the Mets and then the Braves ('82-'84). He then did radio announcing for the Cards ('85-'89) and color for games on ESPN ('90). He would do a bit of instructional work for St. Louis for a few years before a one-year gig as a coach proper in '95. He would start an annual golf tournament in '97, put out two autobiographies, and from about '95 on has been actively involved with The Baseball Assistance Team.


Bob never passed Walter Johnson on that list but he was the first NL guy to top 3,000 strikeouts. He also threw a no-hitter in '71. I remember his commercials as a kid. The one that stands out the most is his one for an asthma product, an ailment he picked up in the housing projects.

Bob and John rarely crossed paths but a pitcher will help:

1. Gibson and Rick Wise '72 to '73 Cards;
2. Wise and John Vukovich ''70 to '71 Phillies.