#135 - Roy White

Back to the action cards, this one has Roy White at Yankee stadium in either the batter's box or the on deck circle. Roy is smiling, which was pretty rare. Not that he wasn't a nice guy but in over ten years of late '60s and early '70s cards and Yankee yearbooks, I don't think I ever saw a Roy White smile. While Roy wasn't putting up his best numbers in '73 - his average suffered a bit from a bone spur - he did lead the AL in plate appearances as he didn't miss a game; he also led his team in runs scored. I think this is a great shot.

Roy White grew up in Compton in LA and worked his way through high school and Compton Junior College while also playing baseball. That means he was a tough bird. Signed by the Yankees in '61 as a second baseman, he would play exclusively that while working his way up the minors. An excellent fundamental player on offense he got into trouble average-wise when he made the jump from D ball to B ball in his first season and also at Double A in '64 when he tried to park the ball too much and overswung. But in between he hit .309 in A ball in '63 and then had a big '65 in Double A in which he hit .300 with 19 homers. By the end of that season he was up in NY playing the outfield since Bobby Richardson was still the man at second. In his late season trial Roy hit well and then - since Richardson appeared to be sticking around - did some Fall IL work at third base.Then in '66 lots of injuries to the regulars kept Roy in the outfield. While he didn't hit terribly well, neither did anyone else on that team and so he was back for '67. But that year he was moved around a bunch, playing third as well as outfield, and that movement affected his offense as well as his defense so he moved down to Triple A to get more experience at third. There he had a huge season, hitting .343 with a .420 OBA and in '68 Ralph Houk got the message and made Roy his permanent left fielder. He would start there the next 11 years and in '68 Roy's numbers took a huge upswing. They would have done so again in '69 had he not lost time to the military. In that year and in '70 - probably his best offensive year - Roy would make the All-Star team. His defense was superb; during the three seasons from '70 to '72 he made only four errors while playing pretty much every day. In '71 he fielded flawlessly. That year he also set a record for sacrifice flies with 17. In '72 and '73 Roy would be moved around the lineup a bit with the acquisition of power guys Graig Nettles and Jim Ray Hart and his average suffered. But the move to Shea for the '74 and '75 seasons worked well for Roy even though it wrecked some of the other outfielders. His average popped - .275 and .290 - and he performed very well defensively in a horrible outfield in which to play.

In '76 the long NY performance drought ended with the acquisitions of Mickey Rivers, Willie Randolph, and others and Roy would lead the league in runs while earning his first post-season appearances. He had a very nice series against the Royals then sort of collapsed with the rest of his team against the Reds. He was again a starter in '77 but got almost zero time in the post-season that year which irked a bunch of his teammates, even Reggie. In '78 Roy spent some time on the DL and got benched a few times. In the midst of the big Yankee comeback, though, he was again made the regular left fielder and responded well, hitting over .320 the rest of the season with nearly an RBI a game. That year he had a very good post-season and won a game in the Series against LA with a homer. In '79 the Yankees would not renew Roy's contract and after a sub-par partial season he left as a free agent. Instead of signing with another MLB team, Roy went to Japan for three seasons and did well. In 1980 he hit .300 with 29 homers and 106 RBIs, getting to play with Sadahuro Oh in his final season. In '81 he hit 23 dingers and in '82 he hit .296 with 12 homers as a reserve. He then called it quits both in Japan and the US. For his career Roy hit .271 with 160 homers and 758 RBIs. He also stole 233 bases and got on base at a .360 clip. In the post-season he hit .278 with a .387 OBA in 25 games.

After he left Japan, White took a year off and was back in NY as a coach from '83 to '86. He then performed various functions for the team through the late '90s. In '99 he moved to Oakland to coach for a few years, returning to NY to perform various roles in 2004. He also started an organization, roywhitefoundation.org, linked to on the name, that raises money to get inner-city kids to college.

Roy is Paris' great uncle which has been a pain for him publicity-wise (just kidding). Roy had a great stance: he used to bat pigeon-toed which I believe he did initially to help keep him from over-swinging. He gets some props here for his switch-hitting and retired as second to Mickey Mantle for a bunch of team switch-hitting records. In "The Bronx Zoo" Sparky called Roy a class act, which was pretty much seconded by everyone he played with.

Yankee and Menke almost rhyme. They hook up via another former NY guy:

1. White and Clete Boyer '66 Yankees;
2. Boyer and Denis Menke '67 Braves.

#134 - Denis Menke

Just to prove that all things are cyclical, right after a rookie card comes Denis - I always want to spell it Dennis - Menke's final card. At this point in his career Denis was in decline mode: his knees were shot; his average and power were continuing their tailspin from his excellent '70 season; and one of the hot kids from the minors was ready to jump into his position. He doesn't look too concerned though. Maybe he knows he won't be idle for long. I believe the photo is a spring training shot so maybe too he has that spring optimism thing going.

Denis Menke was born and raised in Bancroft, Iowa and like David Clyde on the prior post, he was a local star in baseball. He was a .550 hitter at shortstop and 34-0 as a pitcher during his varsity career. He twice led his team to the state championship even though his town had south of 300 residents. Twelve teams sought him out with the Braves eking out the Giants, signing him in '58 for a $110,000 bonus. Denis was a bit of an everyman, able to play any infield position. From '58 to '61 he jumped from D to B to Triple A and with his exponential defensive range showed a pretty sharp eye at the plate, putting up a big '60 season in B ball with a .336/28/103 line followed by a .413 OBA in '61 in Triple A. Until then exclusively a shortstop, Denis began the '62 season playing every other infield position in Triple A. The '62 Braves had a pretty old infield - every starter that year was at least 30 - and Denis had proven his stick was ready for the majors. So the team decided to check out his position diversity and after a pretty good start to his Triple A season he came up two-thirds through to Milwaukee and backed up the infield. In '63 he was again all over and had a decent rookie year but with a few too many strikeouts. In '64 he settled in at shortstop and had a big year offensively. He was fulfilling his early promise and began '65 at a .337 clip when in mid-May he collided with Pirates catcher Jim Pagliaroni, badly damaging his knee. He came back later in the season but the knee went out on him again in September and his momentum was lost. For '66 and '67 he maintained his shortstop position and actually had decent numbers in '66 (60 RBIs and a .355 OBA) but concern over his knee, perceptions that he couldn't play as well in Atlanta as he did in Milwaukee, and public criticisms by GM Paul Richards led to a frustrating time for Denis. After the '67 season he was traded to Houston with Denny Lemaster for Sonny Jackson and Chuck Harrison.

For the Astros, Menke again resumed his itinerant ways. In '68 Joe Morgan got hurt and Denis took his spot at second. In '69 and '70 he moved back to shortstop and put up two very good seasons, earning All-Star selections each year. In '71 Roger Metzger came up and Denis moved to first base. But his numbers declined pretty significantly that year and Houston was in the market for the big power-hitting first baseman, feeling neither John Mayberry nor Bob Watson was ready. So Denis was included on the right side of the big trade to the Reds. And just to complete his infield sweep, for Cincinnati in '72 Denis played third base. He did OK enough, getting 50 RBIs and experienced his first post-season, nearly winning a game with a home run that Joe Rudi grabbed at the wall. But his batting average was still heading south and in '73 he lost starting time to rookie Dan Driessen. He did have an interesting facet of his offensive performance that year: while he hit only .191 his OBA was .368, one of the largest seasonal recorded gaps. For '74 he was sent back to Houston for Pat Darcy. After a poor start, he was done that June. He finished with a .250 average, 101 homers, and 606 RBIs and in the post-season hit .163 in 15 games. He is one of very few players to put in 100 games in a season at four different positions and despite his moving around was very good defensively.

When he was done playing Menke moved into coaching and by '78 was managing in the Toronto chain which he did for two years. From '80 to '81 he coached for the Blue Jays. In '83 he moved to Houston where he coached through '88. From '89 through '96 he was the Phillies' hitting coach. His last gig was back with the Reds from '97 to 2000. He was an excellent hitting coach - both formally and informally - for a bunch of teams and has been given props by many players including Lenny Dykstra, Jim Eisenreich, Barry Larkin, and Paul Molitor.

I always loved the name Sugarland, Texas. In the 80's there was a great Bruce Springsteen bootleg from a concert there. As noted above, Denis had quite a good offensive season in '64 and his 20 homers that year would be his career high. Still, with that line-up, it is interesting that he was the guy pitchers avoided. Checking the game, an 8-4 win over St. Louis - though Denis was hitting over .300, he was in the eighth spot, so the next batter in each case was a pitcher. I still find the one "n" thing odd.

Time to hook up the two Texans:

1. Menke and Pete Rose '72 to '73 Reds;
2. Rose and Bernie Carbo '70 to '71 Reds;
3. Carbo and David Clyde '78 Indians.

#133 - David Clyde

This is the first card from the second '73 checklist, which means I'll be reviewing the first fifth of the set below. This guy, holding what appears to be an enormous mitt, was The Prodigy of '73 and within two years would be The Cautionary Tale. David Clyde was the can't-miss local kid who went straight to Arlington Stadium from high school ball. His debut was huge and if this shot was taken in Texas there'd probably be a million people behind him, or at least 36,000, which filled the Rangers' park. Here he strikes a pose in a more sedate Yankee Stadium, the big grin he usually displayed during the year replaced by a petulant look, one sadly much more representative of his career than the big smile ever was.

David Clyde was the star of Texas high school baseball in '73. He went 18-0 for his championship team, with over 300 strikeouts and only three earned runs in the 148 innings he pitched that year. He threw five no-hitters, two in the state playoffs. For his whole time in school, he K'd 845 guys in 475 innings with a combined 45-1 record. Pretty amazing stuff and Dave was getting very high-profile press when he was drafted and signed by the Rangers number one in June of that year. He made his debut June 27 to such aplomb that there were all 36,000 seats filled in the park. That doesn't sound like very much but the Rangers' normal draw that year was about 5,000. Against the Twins in that game he walked the first two guys, then struck out the side. After a two-run homer in the second he pitched hitless ball, leaving at the conclusion of the fifth inning having given up the two runs and grabbing eight strikeouts. He won the game and before it was over, Texas had already sold over 30,000 seats for his next start. The night after the debut the Rangers drew 3,500. While his performance the rest of the year didn't match the debut - see the card back - he sure did what was expected of him in terms of economics. David initiated the momentum that allowed the club to be sold the next year as the '74 team nearly won the division.

And '74 started out well for Mr. Clyde also. He was 3-0 as the team under Billy Martin became respectable. But then things shifted. Fast. David went 0-9 the rest of the way and in an ironic twist, as the Rangers were chasing the title, he became an extravagance that was dropped from the rotation. After a poor training camp in '75 he was sent to Double A Pittsfield. While his 12-8 record and 3.07 ERA were pretty good, he had developed a hitch in his delivery, was walking too many guys, and was divorcing his high school sweetheart. He also carried down to the minors a reputation as a partyer - but, geez, who wasn't when he was 20 - and after a terrible start in '76 he would have a corrective shoulder operation. But '77 sucked too and his control as well as his confidence were out the window. After the season he was traded to Cleveland with Willie Horton for John Lowenstein and Tom Buskey.

The Indians made Clyde a project. Manager Jeff Torborg and pitching coach Harvey Haddix saw a kid whose pitching motion had devolved to the point where it was just a mess of all the advice he'd received in the majors. Haddix told him to throw like he did in high school, to lose his ineffective slider, and not try to blow the ball by everyone. According to Haddix David already had one of the fastest three arms in the league. And it worked for a while. David started '78 going 4-0 with a 2.58 ERA. But then came five losses and Cleveland went into a dive in July. David had to turn to clubhouse savior Andre Thornton to salve his confidence wounds (in "The Curse of..." Thornton described Clyde as suicidal). In the end, David was 7-11 with a 4.28 ERA, his best season. After a poor '79 season (3-4 with a 5.91 ERA) in which he had his second shoulder operation, David was sent back to Texas. He didn't make it out of spring training of '80 and he went home. After a comeback attempt with the Astros in '81 (he went 10-10 between Double A and Triple A) he was done. He finished 18-33 with a 4.63 ERA and ten complete games in the majors and was 27-29 in the minors.

After his playing career David returned to Tomball, Texas where he worked at his family's lumber business for 22 years, ending in 2003. He did some high school coaching and when he was part of the SI "Whatever Happened to...?" issue in '04 was coaching a semi-pro team and hoping to hook up with a baseball organization. He does a bunch of private coaching now for pitchers of all ages. Every now and then, when a new pitching phenom comes around - the last time was for Steven Strasburg - the interviewers come and see him about the attached pitfalls. That must be a pain, but he never sounds bitter and in most current photos of him he looks pretty happy.

More high school stats populate the back. I wonder if the cartoon on back is a joke. Where the hell was this guy going skiing?

Here's the hookup:

1. Clyde and Lenny Randle '74 Rangers;
2. Randle and Felix Millan '77 Mets.

Now for the good stuff. The last post ended the first 20% of the set's cards. Here is where we are in various categories:

Post-season play: Every year from 1957 to 1987 is represented by someone who played in that year's post-season with the exceptions of 1960 and '63. '74 has the most representation, with 22 guys from that year's playoffs and Series. That's about right.

Awards: There are nine MVP winners, eight Cy Young winners, 10 Comeback Player of the Year winners, and 10 Rookie of the Year winners. I added a couple awards this time. There are eight Fireman of the Year (later Rolaids) winners, five Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year, and five Manager of the Year winners.

Milestones: There are 19 Hall of Famers. The set has had 18 rookie cards as well as nine guys whose final cards are in the set. There have been 14 guys traded prior to the season, including the official "Traded" cards. Nine players are now deceasd.

Rookies: There have been four players from the '73 Topps Rookie All-Star team (Grubb, Thomasson, Lopes, and Boone), so that rate won't last. I also decided to go through the set to see how many guys were still playing from past teams, since the designation was initiated in '59. I thought it might be interesting to see how predictive the awards were. Along with '73 we have the following:

'61-two '64-one '65-one '66-three '67-two '68-three '69-one
'70-one '71-two '72-one

Random stuff: There have been 39 action cards, or about a third of the set. That's pretty good. There have been 76 guys in away uniforms and 43 in home uniforms. Seven guys get the parenthetical name thing. Three guys have served in 'Nam. And there are five cards I have designated as ugly. That last one is a big drop-off from the first survey so I'm pretty happy about that.

#132 - Felix Millan

So this time Topps stuck a Phillie in between the '73 Series opponents so we had to wait a card to get to a Met. This one is an action shot of Felix Millan at Shea watching a hit to left-center it looks like. Felix was always moving at the plate; the guy only struck out between 20 and 30 times a season. He used a heavy bat that he choked up on about a third and was a good contact hitter. In '73 he came over to stabilize the NY middle infield. He did that, provided timely hits, and was probably the only regular not to go out with injury that year. That's John Milner in the background wearing what appears to be a powder-blue batting glove. It's very bright.

Felix Millan is the first guy in the last few posts who did not play college ball. Felix grew up in PR, one of nine kids in a pretty poor household. He played local ball after school and was scouted by a bunch of teams. The A's signed him in '64 and sent him to Single A ball in Florida where he did pretty well. But they left him unprotected and he was snatched by the Braves in that year's first year draft. They sent him to Yakima - that must have been fun for a warm weather kid - where he hit well over .300 and was in Double A before the season was out. He did the same thing up a level in '66 and saw some time in Atlanta at the end of the year. The Braves were ready for him to be their number one guy at second in '67 but Felix tore his Achilles and they sent him to Triple A to recover. He would win his league's player of the year award, hitting .310 with nine triples for the league champs. In '68 he came up to Atlanta for good and made an immediate impact. When he went down with a hand injury in the middle of the season for 17 games, the Braves were a game under .500; when he returned they went 6 and 1. Felix batted close to the plate and would get plunked a few times. But he managed to stay more-or-less injury free the rest of his time in Atlanta. While there he made three All-Star appearances, including a start, and won two Gold Gloves. He had some amazingly low strikeout totals. His worst season was '69 when he had 35 Ks in 708 plate appearances. In '72 he injured a hamstring, lost some time, and his numbers declined. Before the '73 season he was sent to NY with George Stone for Danny Frisella and Gary Gentry.

Millan was a key player for NY during the '73 season and did well against the Reds in the playoffs but not so super in the Series. From '74 to '76 he would continue as the Mets regular second baseman posting around a .280 average with excellent defense and his habitually low strikeouts. In '77 Felix had a slow start and his season was shattered in a game in which he got in a fight with Pirates catcher Ed Ott who threw Millan on the ground, wrecking Felix' shoulder. That was it for the season and the Mets. The next three seasons he played in Japan and in '79 he would win the league batting title, hitting .346. He would hit .306 over there in total and after some nagging injuries that cut into his '80 playing time he retired. In the majors Felix hit .279 with only 242 Ks in almost 1,500 games. In the post-season he hit .254 with ten runs in 15 games. He is the top 50 for career DP's turned at second base.

After playing Millan returned to PR and got college and masters degrees (I do not know in what). He did some work for Atlanta and the Mets in various community-related capacities. He presently does speaking engagements.

That six-for-six record was broken by Rennie Stennett in '75. As noted above, Felix finished with a pretty good defensive record too. In addition to the DP work indicated, he is 31st in career putouts and 50th in career assists at second base and he was done up top when he was only 33.

Let's use a guy whose already had a post:

1. Millan and Del Unser '75 to '76 Mets;
2. Unser and Bob Boone '73 to '74 Phillies.

#131 - Bob Boone

Here we have the catcher for the 1973 Topps Rookie All-Star Team. Bob Boone was a welcome addition to a roster that had seen a not great recent history at his listed position. In '70, in the wake of a Tim McCarver injury, the Phillies used six catchers, including one they pulled out of retirement. Then, while Tim was healthy in '71 his fragility returned the following year and a mid-season deal with Montreal brought over John Bateman to take the catching lead, but that wasn't a long-term solution either. So Bob got a quick peek that September and then in spring training of '73 impressed everyone with his defensive work. He stuck, had nice rookie numbers, and made the Topps team. Not bad for a guy who didn't become a full-time catcher until the prior season. Here he gets his first solo card in this set and he looks pretty sanguine in a catcher's crouch somewhere during spring training.

Bob Boone went to Stanford where he played third base, a position he also played in the summers of '66 to '68 in Alaska. Up there he joined other alumni we have already seen (Tom Seaver, Rick Troedson, etc.). Looking at the list of Goldpanner players I noticed one of his contemporaries was Dan Pastorini who would go on to QB for the Houston Oilers (a little cross-sports reference). Bob was drafted by the Phillies in '69 and played that year in Single A where he hit .300, again playing third. After missing nearly the entire '70 season to injury, he beagn putting in some time behind the plate in a '71 spent in Double A. By '72 he was at Triple A Eugene and while his offensive numbers were pretty good - he even showed some power that year - his real strength was defense. That season he moved exclusively to catcher since there was another Eugene kid named Mike Schmidt who was a pretty good third baseman. Bob did pretty well in his late season call-up to Philly and was given the starting job in '73. He was an excellent pitch-caller right off the bat and eventually even Steve Carlton would let him call his pitches. Boone would be the primary Phillies receiver through the '80 season. He would get on a good run offensively as well; after a couple sub-.250 seasons, he averaged over .280 from '76 to '79. By then he had accrued three All-Star appearances, two Gold Gloves, four division-winning seasons, and one Series-winning season. And two serious knee injuries. The latter of those occurred in '79 and although Bob hit a ton in the '80 Series, his offensive and defensive numbers were hurting in '81, he was pissing off management by being player rep in the strike year, and he lost some starting time to Keith Moreland. After that season the Phillies sold him to California.

The Boone sale by Philadelphia would turn out to be a bad move. Bob was physically recovered by the beginning of the '82 season, threw out 21 of the first 36 guys to try to steal on him, and helped mold the Angel pitching staff into a division winner. He would go on to start the next six yearns for California, adding another All-Star season and four more Gold Gloves. In '88 he hit .295 but was released (he was 40 at the time). He then signed with Kansas City where he had a decent '89 while winning another Gold Glove. In '90 he was a reserve and after breaking a finger decided to hang them up. At that point he was the leader in games played at catcher, but that was broken almost immediately by Carlton Fisk. Bob is now third on the list. He finished with a .254 average, 105 homers, and 826 RBIs. In the post-season he hit .311 with 13 RBI's in 36 games. Defensively he caught 40% of the guys who tried to steal on him against a league average of 33% and he is in the top 25 all-time of catcher assists and the top ten in putouts and double plays.

After playing, Boone turned to coaching. In '92 and '93 he managed in the Oakland chain. In '94 he coached with KC and then took over as manager from '95 to '97. He also managed the Reds from 2001 to '03. His managerial record in the majors is 371-444 and in the minors 125-161. He has stayed in baseball since and is currently assistant GM of the Nationals.

That second star bullet shows what an easy transition he made from third to catcher. Pretty impressive. Bob's dad was an All-Star as would be both Aaron and Brett, his two sons who played in the majors. He also had a brother Rod who played for the Goldpanners right after he did. Speaking of the Goldpanners, Bob did some excellent work his summers in Alaska. For his career he put up a line of .376 with 20 homers and 139 RBI's in his 154 games. He is still the career leader in those stats plus hits and runs.

This one's easy. These guys played together:

1. Boone and Reggie '82 to '86 Angels.

#130 - Reggie Jackson

Hey, it's Reggie! In the Oakland Coliseum no less. And there are fans there! That's a nice trifecta. Around the time of this card it seemed like Reggie and the A's would be winning the Series forever. No wonder, given Reggie's swing here. That's a nice cut. If he connected, it's probably a double to deep center (if it was a homer he'd already be watching it). '73 was Reggie's MVP year and one of his best seasons. He led the AL in runs, homers, and RBI's. He finally got his first Series time and delivered, though the work that got him that Mr. October nickname would come further down the road. Lots of trivia on this post: did you know Reggie was the first player of his era to wear a mustache? Did you know the ball girl on the '73 As would go on to be Mrs. Fields, the cookie lady? I bring up that last bit because while looking for some Reggie dirt, I came upon this great site with a bunch of old photos of Oakland guys, called ronreisterer.photoshelter.com. It is linked to on the name and should definitely be checked out.

Reggie Jackson - who has a thoroughly detailed wiki page by the way - grew up in PA and went to Arizona State. He was both a football and baseball star in high school and was actually more sought after for the former sport but he ended up getting really banged up playing for Frank Kush and opted for just baseball. In his one year on the Sun Devil baseball team he hit .325 with 15 homers and 65 RBI's and was named All-American. He was then signed by Kansas City (the A's) in '66 and got things rolling pretty quickly with 23 homers in only half a season of minor league ball. In '67 he experienced his first taste of southern hospitality in Birmingham and showed some speed as well as power, hitting 17 triples. By the end of the year he was up top with his fellow ASU boys Sal Bando and Rick Monday. While that partial season was nothing special, he did connect for some massive bp homers as well as get 46 strikeouts in 118 at bats. In '68 he was a starter and led the league in K's, but he did produce 29 homers and 74 RBIs in a notorious year for AL hitters. In '69 he raised his average 25 points while cranking 47 homers and leading the league with 123 runs and a .608 slugging percentage. Oakland assigned Joe Dimaggio to help Reggie cut down on the whiffs, but Reggie wanted the long ball too badly. In '70, after an acrimonious contract negotiation, he had a huge slump, basically halving his power numbers. But in '71 he recovered to lead Oakland to the division title, the A's first post-season appearance in 40 years. In '72 he had a comparable season and scored the tying run in the last game of the AL playoffs against Detroit. Unfortunately he messed up his hamstring on the play and couldn't play in the Series that year.

In 1973, hopes were high for Oakland to repeat, but the team was playing .500 ball when June opened and Reggie was benched, something he hadn't experienced for a while. He also got into a fight with coach Jerry Adair. But the A's hit a winning streak going into the All-Star break and Reggie would go on to have his MVP season. He had big power seasons in '74 and '75, combining for 181 runs, 65 homers, and 197 RBI's. Both were division-winning seasons for Oakland and the second season Reggie again led the AL in homers with 36. But after a couple years of arbitration he and Charlie O were at an impasse and before the '76 season Reggie was sent to the Orioles with Ken Holtzman for Don Baylor and Mike Torrez. He wasn't crazy happy about going cross-country and had to tie up some business stuff so missed the first few weeks of the season but still had a fine year, with 27 homers and 91 RBI's. After that season Reggie became the biggest name free agent.

Jackson rather quickly signed for the only team that could house his ego, the Yankees, where he either was or was not "the straw that stirred the drink." But he did help NY get two new elusive Series wins in '77 and '78 in pretty grand style, especially in his three homer game to clinch the '77 win. That year he led NY sluggers with 110 RBI's. In '78 he and Billy Martin went at it pretty hard; Billy won some of the battles, actually benching Reggie for a few games, but Reggie won the war which partly resulted in Billy's firing. Plus he finished the year with yet another ring in what was his beat total post-season run - a .417 average with four homers and 14 RBI's in ten games. In '79 Reggie was about the only Yankee hitter to have a good season and in '80, tired of hearing that he couldn't hit .300, he did just that, producing perhaps his best season which included an AL-leading 41 homers and 111 RBI's. His final year in NY was a bit of a disappointment as his numbers fell pretty hard in the strike season. But it was a productive stay as in five years the Yankees made the post-season four times and won two rings.

In '82 Jackson signed as a free agent with the Angels in  what would generally be his last great season with a .275/39/101 line. A knee injury in '83 contributed to a big drop in power and a sub-.200 average. The next two seasons he would put up a combined 52 homers and 166 RBI's and then after another discounted power year in '86 - his final trip to the post-season - he returned to Oakland for his final season. He was elected to the Hall his first shot in '93 based on his 563 homers and 1,702 RBIs. He also hit .262 and stole 228 bases. He made 14 All-Star teams. His Mr. October sobriquet was earned by hitting .357 with 10 homers, 24 RBIs, and a .457 OBA in 27 Series games. Overall in the post-season he hit .278 with 18 homers and 48 RBI's in 77 games.

Reggie stayed high profile after playing. He'd started announcing before he retired and has been an avid car collector for decades. He coached in Oakland and has been with the Yankees in various posts since the mid-'90s.

That second star bullet was a big deal. Lots of attendees said it was the hugest hit they ever saw and estimates are it would have gone close to 700 feet if it didn't hit part of the stadium. He would win a couple Series MVP's before he was done. In 1972 Reggie was the first player to appear on a Topps baseball card with a mustache. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis banished them back in the Twenties and nobody had worn one since. The A's jumped all over it and by season's end everyone that could grow one on the team had one.

These two guys were left coasters but in different leagues:

1. Reggie and Rick Reuschel '81 Yankees;
2. Reuschel and Chris Speier '87 to '89 Giants.

#129 - Chris Speier

Now this is an interesting photo, not only because it is an action shot at Candlestick. It is interesting also because a little due diligence needs to be done to figure out who that is playing third in the background. It's not Jose Pagan because all he did that year was pinch hit at Candlestick. It's Cesar Tovar who sort of filled the transitional gap for the Phillies between Don Money and Mike Schmidt. But let's turn to the subject of the card. Chris Speier was everyone's favorite young NL shortstop in '73. Tito Fuentes loved him. Sparky Anderson loved him. All-Star voters loved him. Topps loved him. He was a man with a serious shot at the HOF if all the early print on him was to be believed.

Chris Speier was drafted out of the University of California by the Giants in 1970. He'd been drafted by the Senators out of high school in '68 but wanted to stay closer to home and passed. He went to Double A Amarillo for the '70 season and had a good enough year that he was pegged for Triple A when '71 spring training started. But after a great spring in '71 he not only made the Giants, but was named the starting shortstop, beating out incumbent Hal Lanier. Chris proved to be a whiz at playing the artificial turf and had great range which was a huge help for Tito Fuentes at second. He made the Topps rookie team that year and played well in the playoffs. In '72 he pushed his offensive numbers up to the best of his career and was named to his first All-Star team. In '73 he kept his run production up but in August hurt his shoulder and his average tumbled a bit. But he was named the All-Star starter. '74 was his third and final All-Star selection though his offensive output continued to be hindered by his recovering shoulder. He had a good bounce in '75 with a .271/10/69 season topped with a career-best OBA of .362. But in '76 he got hurt again, his average nosedived, and he gave away some starts to Johnnie LeMaster. Shortly into the '77 season he was sent to Montreal for fellow shortstop Tim Foli.

For the Expos Speier would pick up as regular shortstop. His average never really recovered to his first season level and in general his offense would be compacted a bit from his best days on the left coast. His best two seasons up north were his busiest ones: '78, when he posted a .251/5/51 line; and '82, with a line of .257/7/60. But the rest of his time in Montreal was negatively impacted by two knee injuries, in '79 and '83, though he was an integral part of the Expos' first division winner in '81. Those last two injuries also affected his once-infinite range and in '84 Chris moved to a back-up role and also moved geographically, going to St. Louis and then Minnesota. Following that season he went to the Cubs as a free agent. He would generally reprise his back-up role for Chicago and saw some offensive revivals, like when he hit .284 in '86. He then took the free agent route again, landing back in San Francisco for his final three seasons. After 19 years in the bigs he finished with a .246 average, 112 homers, and 720 RBIs. In the post-season he hit .280 with a .368 OBA in 17 games. He is also one of a handful of guys who hit for the cycle twice, once with Montreal and once during his second Giant stint. Defensively he places quite high in lifetime rankings for shortstops for games (25th); putouts (42nd); assists (32nd); and double plays (31st).

Speier was always an inspired guy per the cartoon and was an intense player. After he finished playing he moved into coaching, first as a roving hitting instructor for the Giants ('90 to '94) and then the Cubs ('95). From '96 to '99 he managed in the Arizona chain, going 256-240. He then coached in the majors for the Brewers (2000), Arizona ('01), the Cubs ('05 to '06) and the Reds ('07 on). The last two gigs he has worked with his friend Dusty Baker.

I like using HOF guys for this exercise:

1. Speier and Gaylord Perry '71 Giants;
2. Perry and John Ellis '73 to '75 Indians.