#330 - Juan Marichal

As far as final cards go this one is about as good as any I've seen. How many icons get to go out with their most visual trademark? Juan Marichal is still kicking high at age 35 at Candlestick even when there's just one fan in the stands. I had always thought his kick was a big power move but on researching this post I found that it was basically a ploy: he did it so everyone would concentrate on his leg and not see what pitch was coming. Pretty clever guy. The other iconic shot of Juan was his braining of Johnny Roseboro in '65. It was a pretty scary shot with Marichal's bat raised high above his head and ready to come down again on an already bleeding Dodgers catcher. It was sort of a milestone moment in Juan's career and after it a lot of people became non-fans despite his pretty amazing numbers. The incident probably delayed his induction into the Hall for a few years until Roseboro himself had to vet him as a good guy. Pretty noble of John - I am pretty sure I wouldn't be that forgiving of someone who hit me over the head multiple times.

There is a lot going on with this post. Not only is it an action shot of a player's final card, but it also represents the halfway point in the set. On top of that there is a Traded card. And this one is special because until recently - RIP Ron Santo - it represented the only one of an HOF player. So it's the only one that claimed any real value. And this Traded card is pretty good. The artist really didn't have to do anything and Juan is smiling on a sunny day. No biggie moving to the AL.

Juan Marichal came out of the Dominican Republic where in high school he was a shortstop until his junior year when a far-sighted coach had him take the mound. He already had a fastball back then and quickly added a curve. He then played ball for a team run by the dictator's son before being signed by the Giants in '57. That year he went 21-8 in D ball with 256 strikeouts and only 50 walks in 245 innings, with a 1.87 ERA. He spent '58 in A ball, going 18-13 with a 2.39 ERA and almost as good a K to BB ratio. During that season he picked up a change-up and slider to add to his retinue. He moved to Triple A in '60, taught himself a screwball, and went 11-5 before being called up that July. So before he even hit the bigs Juan was armed with five pitches he could throw for strikes. And the big kick.

Marichal had as good a first game as almost anyone, giving up one late hit in a start against the Phillies while striking out twelve. In '61 he won 13 despite missing three weeks late in the season with a leg injury. During '62 spring training he took off to get married and then returned to win 18 and help pitch the Giants to the Series. Then came the fireworks. Discounting '67 when a leg injury had him miss about 12 starts, for the years '63 to '69 Juan averaged 23 wins, nine losses, and a 2.30 ERA. And zero Cy Young's. Juan's big years always happened when someone else's did so he kept getting shut out. But he did make the All-Star team every year from '62 to '69. In spring training in 1970 Juan got sick and was given a shot of penicillin to which he had a horrible reaction and had to be hospitalized the next ten days. It turned out he suffered a bad allergic reaction and it affected his full season in a negative way. In '71 he had a nice bounce and was told he would pitch the division-winning last game of the season which he won 5-1. He lost his only playoff start to Pittsburgh even though he only gave up two runs. Then '72 and '73 were further impacted by the allergic reaction - he was developing arthritis and had to take regular cortisone shots to control it - and probably age. By the time he was sold to the Red Sox after the '73 season all his boys in SF had left and he expected the sale because there were strong rumours that owner Horace Stoneham was running out of money.

After the trade Marichal would go 5-1 in limited work in Boston but with an ERA that approached 5.00. At the end of the season he was released and signed with the Dodgers but after a couple lame starts he retired. Juan finished with a record of 243-143 with an ERA of 2.89, 52 shutouts, and 244 complete games. He won two victory titles, an ERA title, and led the NL in shutouts and complete games twice each. He pitched in a total nine All-star games and went 0-1 in the post-season with a 1.50 ERA, two walks, and ten strikeouts in 12 innings over two starts. After playing he did some scouting and by the early Eighties was the Oakland director of scouting in the DR. He left that to become Minister of Sports for his home country from 1996 to 2000. In '98 he was involved in a nasty car crash - he was not driving - that left him hospitalized for a while. The silver lining there was that he got a good doctor that prescribed rehab work for his arm and shoulder and within a few months he had more mobility in his pitching arm than he'd had in years. In the late '80's and early '90's he also did some Spanish-language broadcasting for various stations. He was elected to the Hall in '83 and since 2000 has been mostly retired.


On the regular card back we get one good star bullet and one obvious one. I like the cartoon. He would also eventually have a son. When I was growing up most of my friends that were dogs with women ended up having daughters as a sort of kharmic payback. If that theory holds water Juan must have been quite an operator.


Topps gets pretty creative with this Traded card. Check out that headline. Plus that first sentence is pretty good. They don't attribute the quote to anyone but it is a pretty interesting one in that back then Boston regularly came in second place and in '72 only missed first by half a game. But I guess that's losing. In any case Juan wasn't the guy to get them over the top. That would be that other colorful Spanish-speaking pitcher on their staff with a unique motion.

So to catch up on music news for this month there are only a couple items. In '73 a new Number One song hit in the States. "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John would be the first chart topper of his career (that's pretty surprising) and was taken from his album "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player." That album also produced the hit "Daniel." In '74 on the 7th Barry White won the first four of what would be many gold records. Barry was a big deal that year, charting as both a solo guy and with his Love Unlimited Orchestra, a 40-piece band. His golds were for "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Stone Gon'" (solo) and "Love Theme" and the album "Under the Influence of Love Unlimited" (with the orchestra).

I guess Marichal pitched against Belanger a bit in '74 but outside of that their careers never crossed:

1. Marichal and Lindy McDaniel '66 to '68 Giants;
2. McDaniel and Curt Blefary '70 Yankees;
3. Blefary and Belanger '67 to '68 Orioles.

#329 - Mark Belanger

Here we have Mark Belanger posing at Yankee Stadium. Mark not only played for the Orioles but was also from Boston, so this choice as a setting may have been tough. Because of the pose and his high choke it almost looks like he's holding his bat upside down, like an oar. He almost wasn't an Oriole for this shot. After the '72 season, one in which Mark split time at shortstop with new thing Bobby Grich, Mark was to be included in a big trade to Atlanta in which he, Eddie Watt, Johnny Oates, and Pat Dobson were to be exchanged for Earl Williams, Marty Perez, and a phenom at the time named Taylor Duncan. But the trade fell through when Atlanta wouldn't give up Duncan and a day later the same essential trade happened except that Perez and Watt stayed put and the Braves got Davey Johnson - and his 43 homers - instead of Belanger. The contested Duncan would put up one season with Oakland in '78 and then be done. Mark here won the first of six consecutive Gold Gloves, Grich settled in at second, and relative harmony ruled in Baltimore for the balance of the decade.

Mark Belanger came out of Pittsfield, Mass where he played both basketball and baseball. He later credited hoops with his ability to move so well laterally at shortstop. For a while the Red Sox and Orioles were neck-and-neck in signing him in '62 but Mark went with Baltimore because their scout saw him in about 35 games while the BoSox guy only came to about five. That summer he did a nice job offensively in D ball, hitting .298 with a .486 OBA. He then missed all of '63 for the Army and when he returned the next year hit a portentous .226 in A ball. But after working a bit in the spring with Ron Hansen his defense improved markedly and the next two seasons he moved up a rung, improving his D each step, and hitting .262 in '66 at Triple A. Each of the '65 and '66 seasons he got short looks up top.

In 1967 Belanger came up to Baltimore for good, putting in time behind Luis Aparicio at short and Davey Johnson at second. His hitting wasn't anything special, but he impressed everyone enough with his glove that Little Louie, who really wasn't terribly kind to Mark, was traded back to the White Sox. The new O's shortstop pressed at the plate in '68 and the next spring spent a bunch of time working with Charlie Lau, ostensibly the Baltimore bullpen coach, but apparently on his way to his renowned hitting guru status. Mark upped his average 80 points and put up the best offensive season of his career in '69. He would then uncharacteristically homer in the AL playoffs. In '70 he returned to earth average-wise before rebounding the following year. In '71 he also won his second Gold Glove (the first came in '69) before he kicked off his big string a couple years later. '72 was pretty crappy for him between Grich's ascendancy and a bit of a decaying relationship with manager Earl Weaver. But then came all the defensive wizardry, an All-Star selection in '76, and by '78 the highest lifetime fielding percentage for a shortstop ever. Mark would be the regular guy through that last season when Kiko Garcia and then Len Sakata replaced him. But both those guys were just stopgaps until some kid named Ripken came along. In '81 Mark - who'd been the Baltimore player rep for a bunch of years - was a big presence in the pre- and post-strike negotiations with management. That is never a career builder and when he added a public declaration about Weaver losing his mojo, his time in Baltimore was done. In '82 he signed as an infield reserve with LA and then hung them up. He finished with a .228 average, 167 stolen bases, and a .300 OBA. I only mention that last number because for a few years in the midst of his career he put up the best O numbers for that stat which shows its light regard back then. Along with the eight Gold Gloves he led the AL in fielding at short four times and assists three times. In the post-season he hit .183 in 43 games. He ranks high across the board in defensive stats for his position but lost the best fielding average years later to Cal, among other guys.

After playing Belanger capitalized on his player rep status and became a union representative, mostly as a rep to the players. He eventually worked up to being union head Don Fehr's assistant which he was still at when he contracted lung cancer in the mid-Nineties. He passed away of pneumonia related to his cancer in '98. Mark was 54.


Mark gets some recognition for his awards in the star bullets. He was an all-star each league he was in once he got back from the service. Regarding that, he also put in a couple years of reserve work in the National Guard after his Army hitch. I like the cartoon but have not been able to find any specific information regarding it. Given his backround, I'd say he did a little hoops work locally.

Jutze played with a former Oriole and a future one so this is pretty easy:

1. Jutze and Lee May '73 to '74 Astros;
2. May and Mark Belanger '75 to '80 Orioles.

#328 - Skip Jutze

For the first three years of the Seventies, Houston catching was handled by Johnny Edwards backed up by Larry Howard. But in '73 almost the day after the Astros traded Howard, Edwards got hurt and Houston was pretty much without a catcher. Even Bob Watson had to start a game behind the plate. So Skip here pretty much saved the day. Acquired at the end of '72 he was once a pretty hot prospect. Things didn't really work out that way up top and '73 was the most action he ever got at that level, but for that year he filled an awfully big gap. Here he gets photographed at Candlestick with a teammate in the background who is perhaps signing autographs. If I am correct in that the partial number on that guy is an eight then it is probably Cesar Cedeno. For anyone interested, by the way, Skip pronounced his surname JUTZ-ee. I had always thought it was a long u, like the rugs.

Skip Jutze was born in Bayside - which means Queens - New York. That was before the Mets came along so most baseball fans in that part of the city rooted for the Giants. He then went to Clarke High School in Westbury, NY, where he was a big multi-sport guy, quarterbacking his team to an undefeated season as a sophomore. When he graduated in '64 he went to Central Connecticut State where by his sophomore season he was again starting QB and was all-conference. He also played some baseball and was drafted in '66 by the Red Sox and in '67 by the Tigers but both times passed to stay in school. He graduated in '68 with a degree in education and was drafted by the Cards, this time signing. After a couple games that summer in Rookie ball he hit pretty well in A ball. At that level in '69 he got less than 200 at bats which back then tended to mean injury or military duty. '70 and '71 were spent in Double A and in '72 he ramped things up considerably at Triple A before his September call-up. He did OK offensively that month but his most impressive stat was nailing 12 of 18 would-be base-stealers. After the season he was sent to Houston with shortstop Milt Ramirez for infielders Ray Busse and Bobby Fenwick.

In '74 Houston got a couple new catchers in Milt May and Cliff Johnson so Skip, deficient to both offensively, returned to Triple A where he hit .321 in 100 games. He then spent '75 and '76 as the third catcher in Houston getting under 100 at bats each season. His defense was pretty good but he never put up the lofty pick-off totals of his time in St. Louis. After the '76 season he was basically sold to the Seattle Mariners where in '77 he backed up Bob Stinson, hitting .220. He was released during '78 spring training finishing with a .215 average. In the minor leagues he hit .286.


Skip gets some props for his defense in his star bullets. His cartoon is particularly relevant since it gives a good window on his life after playing. He was already teaching at a middle school on Long Island in his off-seasons (when he wasn't playing ball in PR), and after he finished playing would resume that role. Within a decade after his last game he was coaching at the high school level, particularly in Colorado. As recently as 2010 he was coaching at Regis University in Colorado and he is also on the coaching staff of a St. Louis-based group called the Sandlot Baseball and Softball Academy with quite a few other former major leaguers.

Tom and Skip had relatively brief careers up top so this may be a long one:

1. Jutze and Milt May '74 to '75 Astros;
2. May and Mickey Stanley '76 to '77 Tigers;
3. Stanley and Tom Timmermann '69 to '73 Tigers.

Or not.

#327 - Tom Timmermann

This is Tom Timmermann's last card which means it's the only he one he had without the heavy dark-framed glasses that were omnipresent on all his other cards. So maybe it is fitting that his photo was taken on a dark day at Yankee Stadium. It took a long time for Tom to reach the top: he was 29 his rookie year. He had a streaky '73. After being traded to the Indians by Detroit early in the season he won his first game - ironically against the Tigers - lost a couple, and then went 6-1, eventually finishing with a pretty good record for a pretty poor team, despite an awfully high ERA. There wouldn't be too much of a follow-through, hence the final card thing, but at least the last run would have some drama.

Tom Timmermann grew up in Illinois where he attended and played ball at both a public and Catholic high school. From there he went to Southern Illinois University for a couple years until he was signed by the Tigers in '60. He had a good start that summer in D ball - 3-2 with a 1.61 ERA in nine starts - and in '61 went 15-6 with a 2.70 ERA in C ball for probably his best professional season. After nine wins in A ball the next year he spent a bunch of seasons mostly in the pen, moving between Double and Triple A. After pitching only 50 innings in '66 - he may have been hurt or off in the military - he moved up to Triple A Toledo the next two-and-a-half seasons. '67 and '68 were again mainly bullpen years with a few spot starts. In '69 he returned to the rotation and after a 9-2 start with a 2.41 ERA in eleven starts he made his debut up top that June.

Timmermann had a pretty good rookie year in '69, pitching relief and adding a save to his listed stats. In '70 a rough start got him moved to Triple A for a few games. But he returned strongly and his 27 saves not only led the team and ranked him high in the Fireman race, but also won him Tigers Man of the Year. In '71 new manager Billy Martin didn't like what he saw of Tom in spring training so Tom was moved to set-up guy and Fred Scherman took over the closer role. Then in '72 Billy took a turn on Tom and stuck him in the rotation and the result was pretty good ERA-wise. Tom wouldn't get any playoff action that year against Oakland and early in the '73 season when Martin was looking for a new reliever Tom was dealt to Cleveland with former Met Kevin Collins for Ed Farmer. After his streaky '73 Tom kicked off '74 for Cleveland 1-1 in four games but with an ERA above 5.00. He returned to the minors for some more work but the results there were about the same and he was done. He finished with a 35-35 record up top with a 3.78 ERA, eight complete games, two shutouts, and 35 saves. In the minors he was 75-58 with a 2.99 ERA.

Timmermann is another guy who has pretty much gone radio silent since his playing days. He returned to Illinois where there is a local sports writer - he actually works for the St. Louis Dispatch - with the same name, so perhaps they are related.



Topps seems to be reaching a bit with the second star bullet and the cartoon. Tom's first game was scoreless, but he only pitched a bit over an inning. I think part of the problem was that this was his first card without his extensive minor league statistics so they never had to fill the gap before.

Another double link and Sparky would manage in Detroit, but more than half a decade after Tom left. First for Sparky as manager:

1. Timmermann and Milt Wilcox '73 to '74 Indians;
2. Wilcox was managed by Anderson on the '70 to '71 Reds and the '79 to '85 Tigers.

Now for Sparky as a player:

1. Timmermann and Tony Taylor '71 to '73 Tigers;
2. Taylor and Robin Roberts '60 to '61 Phillies;
3. Roberts and Sparky Anderson '59 Phillies.

#326 - Sparky Anderson/Reds Field Leaders

Look at all of Sparky's white hair. And those wrinkles on his neck. This is an old baseball guy in what I am labelling as - yes - an action shot. Sparky is 39 years old in this photo at Riverfront. Look at how baseball can age a guy.

There were some question marks for Sparky going into the '73 season. It was only his fourth season but he'd already been to the Series twice. But his best power guy, Johnny Bench, was coming off lung surgery. His fastest guy, Bobby Tolan, though he had a huge comeback in '72 was still a question mark after missing all of '71 with a leg injury. Pitching was spotty and there may or may not have been a big hole at third base. By mid-season he had most of his answers: Bench was fine; Tolan's speed was gone; Denis Menke was pretty much toast but new kid Dan Driessen was able to take his spot and hit the hell out of the ball; and after Jack Billingham and Don Gullett, starting pitching was middling. So they weren't all good answers and by the end of June an under-.500 month had the Reds in fourth place. But they acquired a little guy who'd pitched them tough earlier in the season and Fred Norman went on an 8-0 run as they put together a killer July and August and finally nudged the Dodgers out of first in September. Then it was all Reds and all they had to do to get back in the Series was beat a team that could barely play .500 ball. Oops.

Sparky Anderson was a hustler of a second baseman who was signed by the Dodgers out of high school in South Dakota in '53. He started things off that spring in C ball and hit OK but had a rough time in the field. He spent the next five seasons working up the Brooklyn/LA chain, producing very good defense and some nice averages - .296 in '54 and .298 in '56 - with not much power, although he did hit 35 doubles in '58. That was his third year of Triple A and after it he was traded to the Phillies for three guys. Philly immediately pulled him up and he was their second baseman for all of '59, hitting .218 with 34 RBI's. That was it for Sparky up top and the next four seasons he spent at Triple A Toronto for various franchises. For his minor league career he hit .263.

In '64 Anderson returned to Toronto but this time as a manager. After a winning season there, he moved to the St. Louis system for three years and to the Cincy system for one, establishing a record of 395-295 over that time. In '69 he became a coach with the new Padres and in '70 was signed away as the Reds manager. Sparky had immediate success in Cincy, going to the Series with the Machine. Sparky was famous for his bifurcated system of letting his players play but having a quick hook for his starting pitchers. After his '71 hiccup, he led the Reds to four more Division titles, three NL Championships, and two straight Series titles, all by '78, after which he was canned. Sparky was quickly named manager of Detroit and while the success there wasn't as immediate, it came soon enough as the Tigers rode a fast '84 start into the Series. Another Division title came in '87 and while in Detroit he won two Manager of the Year awards, ironically after none in Cincinnati. Sparky stuck with Detroit through '95 when at 61 he stepped down, leaving behind a lifetime 2,194-1,834 record. Following his managing he did some broadcasting for the Angels through '99 and was inducted into the Hall in 2000. Over the next ten years his health slowly deteriorated until, suffering from dementia, he passed away in 2010 at 76.


Alex Grammas was born and raised in Alabama and after high school and his military hitch was a star in Mississippi State baseball from '47 to '49. That last year he was signed by the White Sox. His next four seasons he spent in the minors playing the left side of the infield and, like his manager, was an OK but generally light hitter (though he did hit .327 in A ball his first season). In '53, after being traded to the Cards, Reds, and back to the Cards, he put up a .307 average with 62 RBI's while playing exclusively shortstop at Triple A Kansas City. The next year he hit the majors, playing the same position as Red Schoendienst's DP partner. His 401 at bats were a career high and after another season as the primary guy he would move to Cincinnati where he backed up Roy MacMillan a few seasons. Following his minor league path he returned to St. Louis in '59 where he was the regular guy for a season before settling into his backup role the rest of his career. He finished that out with two seasons for the Cubs ending in '63 with a lifetime .247 average. Like Sparky, Alex moved right into managing, running a Double A Cubbies club in '64. He then coached for the Pirates from '65 to '69 when he also managed the last five games of the MLB season, going 4-1. But The Pirates were able to wrangle a return out of Danny Murtaugh so Alex moved to Cincy where he coached third from '70 to '75. He then got the managing gig for Milwaukee but after two terrible seasons in '76 and '77 he was done as a manager, finishing with a record of 221-264. He returned to coaching for Cincy ('78), Atlanta ('79), and Detroit ('80-'91) and then retired.

Ted Kluszewski had by far the biggest playing career of any of these guys. A big boy from Illinois, he went to the University of Indiana on a football scholarship where he also played baseball, leading the football team to an undefeated Big Ten championship and hitting .443 as a center fielder his senior year of '45-'46. He was signed later that year by the Reds and in A ball later that summer hit .352 with 87 RBI's in 90 games. After a .377 follow-up in Double A in '47 he made the Reds lineup for good the following year, taking over first base and hitting .274. He upped that to .309 in '49 and .307 with 25 homers and 116 RBI's in '50. By then he had taken to cutting off his jersey sleeves to free up and show off his huge pipes. After a setback in '51 he went on a huge run, averaging 38 homers, 108 RBI's, and .315 over the next six seasons. He was an All-Star every year from '53 to '56. He then ran into a wall that was his bad back and was not able to put up a full season as he moved to Pittsburgh, the White Sox, and the Angels. His last hurrah was in the '59 Series for Chicago when he hit .391 with three homers and ten RBI's in six games against LA. Klu finished up with California in '61 with a .298 average, 279 homers, and 1,028 RBI's. After some time away from baseball he returned to Cincinnati and was the club's hitting coach from '70 to '78, Sparky's duration as manager. From '79 to '86, when he suffered a heart attack, he was a minor league hitting instructor for the Reds. He retired after his '86 episode and passed away two years later from a heart ailment. He was 63.

George Scherger was signed by the Dodgers out of his high school in North Dakota in '40. A second baseman, he put in three seasons at the D level before he then put in three years in WW II. When he returned in '46 he went to B league ball but that was the highest level he reached as a player and the next season he began managing as well. George would play through '56 and finish with a .270 average in the minors. He also managed through that year and from '57 to '60 coached in the Brooklyn/LA system. He returned to managing from '61 to '65 and then moved to the Cincinnati system, coaching in '66 and managing the next three years. He was named first base coach by Sparky in '70 and stayed with him his full time in Cincy. In '79 he returned to the minors to manage, which he did through '82. From that year through '87 he returned to coach up top. After one last season as manager in the minors in '88 he retired to Florida. His lifetime record as manager was 1,312-1,253. George passed away in 2011 at age 90.

Larry Shepard was a pitcher out of Ohio who went to McGill University in Canada. Signed by the Dodgers upon graduating in '42 he won 15 that year in C ball. He then missed the next three-plus seasons for WW II, returning in '46 to win 12 in B ball and the following year 15 in A ball. Despite his upward mobility and apparent success he was 28 that year and prospects were slim for hitting the majors before he was 30 so the next year he started managing as he continued pitching. He went 22-3 in D ball in '48 and the next three years averaged 22 wins as a pitcher at Class C Billings. From then on he focused on relief and managing and in '52 he moved to the Pirates system. He pitched through '56 and finished with a record of 179-84 with a 3.31 ERA. By '58 he was up in Triple A where he continued to manage through '66. In '67 he moved to Pittsburgh to coach and in '68 was named the Pirates' manager. He kept that gig through a pretty good '69 but was fired with five games left that season (and ironically replaced by Alex Grammas). Like all the other guys he joined Sparky in Cincinnati from '70 to '78 as Reds pitching coach and then for a season did the same thing in San Francisco, retiring after the '79 season was over. He finished with a managing record of 168-156 in the majors and 1,232-1,100 in the minors. Larry moved back to Nebraska where he did some consulting coaching to the Lincoln team he had managed in the late Fifties. He passed away there in 2011 at age 92.

This is the first time we get a double hook-up in a while. First for Sparky as a manager:

1. Anderson managed Tony Perez from '70 to '76;
2. Perez and Tommy Harper '64 to '67 Reds.

And as a player:

1. Anderson and Don Cardwell '59 Phillies;
2. Cardwell and Art Shamsky '68 to '69 Mets;
3. Shamsky and Tommy Harper '65 to '67 Reds.

#325 - Tommy Harper

Tommy Harper is the third AL guy in a row which has been pretty rare so far in this set. He does break one streak though, in that his '73 season was a pretty big one. In a sort of comeback year Tommy boosted his offensive numbers pretty considerably in Boston and led the AL in stolen bases, setting a Red Sox record in the process. He gets a sunny spring training shot here, which is appropriate because he was generally a well-spoken, thoughtful guy. He got good props in "Ball Four" and his profile would get raised years later after he was done playing but we can get to that below.

Tommy Harper came out of California where he played high school ball with Willie Stargell and Curt Motton. He was all-league in both football and baseball at Encina Alameda High near Oakland and continued reaping league awards at San Jose Junior College. He then transferred to San Francisco State and was hitting over .500 when he was signed by the Reds in '60. He had a deceptively good first summer that year in B ball, hitting .254 while playing second, but with a .427 OBA, 65 runs, and 26 stolen bases in only 79 games. He spent '61 at the same level and position, boosting his average 70 points and showing some good power from his leadoff spot with 15 homers and 65 RBI's. The next year he jumped all the way to Cincy, starting the opener at third but after a few games was admittedly overwhelmed and sent down to Triple A the rest of the season. There Tommy had a big year, hitting .333 with 120 runs, 26 homers, 84 RBI's, and a .450 OBA while working on his game at third. The next season he went up for good.

In '63 Harper took over right field for the Reds, becoming, with fellow rookie Pete Rose, the first of a new generation of Reds that would ultimately become The Big Red Machine. Tommy put up pretty good numbers on offense, most of them approaching those of Mr. Rose, who won that year's NL Rookie of the Year. Tommy did get named to the Topps rookie team. In '64 he moved to left, switching positions for the most part with Frank Robinson, and suffered a bit of a sophomore setback. Then in '65 he turned it on and though hitting a relatively - for a leadoff guy - light .257 led the majors in runs scored with 126. A bunch of those runs were knocked in by recent post subject Deron Johnson. In '66 Tommy boosted his average a bunch but in '67 he did a big about face and after the season he was traded to Cleveland for Brad Raudman, George Culver, and Fred Whitfield.

For the Indians Harper pretty much bottomed out. The Cleveland outfield was a bit messy in '68 - eight different guys started at least 55 games - and Tommy was used mostly against lefties which didn't work too well. So when the new Seattle Pilots nabbed him in the expansion draft that winter, Tommy wasn't unhappy. In the Pilots first - and only - season he played everywhere, primarily at second and third. His average wasn't anything special but he put up a .349 OBA - the highest of his career to date - and led the majors with 73 stolen bases, the highest AL total since Ty Cobb swiped 96 in 1915. Then in '70 Tommy rewrote the Pilots/Brewers record book - it WAS only a year old - when he had his best overall season. Settling in pretty much at third, he hit .296 with 104 runs, 31 homers, and 82 RBI's to make his first and only All-Star team. He finished pretty high in AL MVP voting and became the fifth guy - and first infielder - to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in the same season. After a discounted '71 in which he again became itinerant in the field, Tommy was part of a big trade that sent him, Lew Krausse, and Marty Pattin to the Red Sox for Jim Lonborg, Ken Brett, Don Pavletich, George Scott, Billy Conigliaro, and Jim Lahoud. Inserted into center field his stats in '72 were almost identical to those of the prior year. After the big step-up in '73 he slowed down a bit in '74, playing mostly left field and DH. After the season he went to the Angels for Bobby Heise. For California he played mainly first base and did a notch better than in '74 until mid-August when he was sold to Oakland for their then-annual pennant run. Tommy did a nice job, hitting .319 the rest of the way and stealing a perfect seven bases. He got his first post-season appearance and walked but that was pretty much his last hurrah. In '76 he signed as a free agent with Baltimore for whom he DH'd and pinch hit. He was released at the end of the season and retired with a .257 average, 146 homers, 567 RBI's, 972 runs, and 408 stolen bases.

In '77 spring training Harper went to Oakland, hoping to hook up with the decimated former champs. When that didn't work he took a scouting gig with the Yankees. In '78 Boston hired him away into their sales organization and from '80 to '84 he was the Sox first base coach. In '85 he moved back to the admin side, this time as an assistant GM. That tenure got stormy, however when Tommy complained to management about the team's long-standing policy in spring training of offering passes to the local Elks Club, which only admitted whites (in '85?!!). He was fired that December and in response filed a discrimination suit through the EEOC the following January. There is an interview with Tommy linked to here when he was working at an auto maintenance place as a follow-up gig. He won the case in December and the Sox stopped using the club. By '88 Tommy was back in baseball as a consulting base-running coach for the Expos. From '90 to '99 he was a Montreal coach proper. In 2000 he returned to Boston and remained on the coaching staff through '02. Since then he has worked as a roving and consulting hitting coach for the Sox, most recently bailing David Ortiz out of his 2011 slump.


Tommy gets the solo star bullet and it came up on top. His cartoon is kind of lame. In "Ball Four", a book Tommy has disavowed but is presented quite well in, it is explained that he showed up in Seattle's spring training camp fresh from his military tour in the Air Force. The service thought so highly of him that they invited him back offering him the position of staff sergeant if he re-upped. Tommy's response was "You can make me a general and I'm not coming back."

In music news on this date, Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" took over Number One in the States in '74. Sorry about that Tommy.

Since we are still all-AL, this one should be quick:

1. Harper and Danny Cater '72 to '74 Red Sox;
2. Cater and Steve Kline '70 to '71 Yankees.

#324 - Steve Kline

Like the subject of the last post, Steve Kline's '73 was a marked discount to his '72 season. Significant elbow problems had him on the disabled list for two months and then killed his season in early August. Until that year Steve was making real nice progress in the rotation upping his win total every year. His high point of the season may have been teaming up with Gene Michael to pull the hidden ball trick on poor Vic Harris. At least he gets a nice-looking action card at Yankee Stadium. And look at that mound. It's barely higher than the rest of the infield. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Steve Kline captained his basketball and baseball teams in Washington and was an all-state pitcher as well as top scorer in the state hoops tournament his senior year. That year - 1966 - he signed a letter of intent for Washington State and also was drafted by the Yankees. While he attended the school he never played ball there and that summer he played both Rookie and A ball, showing awfully good control at both levels. The next three seasons he would miss some time for his military service but put up generally good numbers throughout the NY system, almost all as a starter. After a big performance discount in his first stab at Triple A in an abbreviated '69 he was going pretty good guns in '70 when he was called up to NY in July and immediately jumped into the rotation, out-performing more high profile young pitchers John Cumberland and Bill Burbach. In '71 the Yankees won eleven fewer games and Steve, despite a losing record, had generally very good numbers. '72 was even better as his 16 wins would be a career high and he and his team-best 2.40 ERA moved up to third man in the rotation. Prior to '73 spring training many were predicting a 20-win season for Steve that season. That was not to be and after a better start to the '74 season he was sent to Cleveland in the wildly unpopular trade - at the time - that brought Chris Chambliss and Dick Tidrow to NY.

After pitching well and winning his first start for the Indians, Kline suffered six straight losses as the elbow pain returned and kept him on the disabled list for all of July and the last month-and-a-half of the season. He then missed all of '75 and had a tough '76 - 9-10 with a 5.04 ERA - rehabbing in Triple A. That December he was sold to Atlanta and after a couple pretty good starts for the Braves in Triple A returned to the majors, pitching out of the pen and getting a save. But with an ERA over 6.00 he was released that July, ending his time in baseball. Steve retired with a 43-45 record, a 3.26 ERA, six shutouts, that save, and 34 complete games.

After playing Kline returned to the Pacific Northwest where for a long time he was involved in the lumber business and recently has returned to his high school as an assistant baseball coach.

Steve only gets one star bullet regarding his first game as a Yankee. The Mayor's Trophy Game is an annual affair - usually on an off day for both teams in June - that became pretty high profile in '78 when as the Yankees were falling apart a bunch of players refused to play, contributing to Billy Martin's later firing. This cartoon is a crack-up and I commented once on a Night Owl blog about the definition of "most." Did it mean something anatomical (too R-rated for the kids); was it ride-related (maybe Steve had a jacked-up Camaro); line-related (most books I have read from that era do not confirm ball players as being particularly smooth)? Either you were single and eligible or you weren't. Steve was actually a pretty busy guy back then, and his pursuit of a math degree took him cross-country from Washington State to the University of Miami to Cal Polytechnic. He got it but I am unsure as to which college he matriculated.

Steve and Richie were both Indians, but years apart, so there is probably a better route:

1. Kline and Lindy McDaniel '70 to '73 Yankees;

2. McDaniel and Amos Otis '74 to '75 Royals;

3. Otis and Riche Scheinblum '72 and '74 Royals.