#442 - Alan Foster

This guy is coming off his best season though you can’t tell from his expression. For a while baseball was very, very good to Alan Foster and then all of a sudden it wasn’t and Alan went from being a pretty happy-go-lucky guy to a much more staid fellow. But ’73 eventually must have felt pretty good for him with its 13 wins and his first sub-4.00 ERA since the Sixties. Early in May he got his first complete game since ’71 and he finished the year with one of the staff’s best records. But he was still a long way from the golden boy who graced the cover of SI in ’68 and was heralded as the next Rookie of the Year. Baseball can go that way sometimes.

Alan Foster was born in Pasadena and grew up in Hacienda Heights, California. In high school aside from playing hoops, he was a big pitching star, his senior year throwing three no-hitters while striking out 188 batters in 99 innings and posting a 0.39 ERA. He got a baseball scholarship to UCLA but LA got him that spring of ’65 when he was signed for a big bonus. In A ball that summer he went 5-2 with a strikeout an inning as a starter. He moved up to Double A the next year and went 11-5 with a 2.86 ERA. When the Dodgers went for a tour of Japan in the off-season they brought Alan with them and he was their best pitcher on the tour. By then he was really tight with Tom Hutton – ironically the next post – and the two put together a nightclub act where they sang Simon and Garfunkle tunes as well as other mellow pop hits of that time. In ’67 after Alan missed some early season time to finish his basic training they both got promoted to Triple A Spokane where he went 10-9 with a 3.49 ERA and got his first look up top where he generally performed quite well. In ’68 he got his SI cover, again threw some nice ball up top, and went 8-5 with a 2.60 ERA at Spokane. But the most significant event that year career-wise was when he tore the tendons in his right shoulder in a game. Until then his money pitch had been his fastball delivered with a big Juan Marichal-type kick. But besides wrecking the balance of his season the injury took away his big pitch and thereafter Alan had to become a control guy.

In ’69 Foster came up to LA and the after-effects of his injury were still apparent as he had a tough time balancing his off-speed stuff with his now-compromised heater. In two full seasons in LA he went a combined 13-22 with a 4.29 ERA. After the ’70 season he was sent with Ray Lamb – another formerly highly-regarded pitcher – to the Indians for Duke Sims. For Cleveland Alan again joined the rotation and the results were roughly on par with his prior two years in LA. After the season he was part of a big trade to California: he, Frank Baker, and Vada Pinson went to the Angels for Jerry Moses and Alex Johnson. For the Angels, Alan spent most of the season back in Triple A where his 8-8 record and 4.25 ERA didn’t excite anyone, although his nearly strikeout an inning must have turned on someone in St. Louis. The following April he was sold to the Cards.

Foster’s follow-up campaign in St. Louis started pretty badly with a 1-5 record and an ERA over 5.00. But he settled down the rest of the way to finish 7-10 with a 3.88 ERA. In November he went to his last stop, San Diego, with Rich Folkers and Sonny Siebert for Ed Brinkman and Danny Breeden. With the Padres the next couple seasons Alan pitched pretty well, spending more time in the pen than in the rotation. He went a combined 6-7 with a 2.95 ERA. He was released after the ’76 season and retired with a record of 48-63, a 3.74 ERA, and 26 complete games.

Foster must have liked his last couple years in San Diego because that is where he stayed. He and his wife opened some retail shops specializing in women’s cosmetics and outside of a few old-timer games, both in LA and Spokane, he has pretty much stayed away from baseball.

Alan’s bonus at the time was rumored to be anywhere between $60,000 and this number. Those two no-hitters in ’67 were pitched in successive starts. Alan had to borrow a teammate's cleats for the first game. He was so delighted in the outcome that he bought them.

These guys missed each other by two years:

1. Foster and Chris Chambliss ’71 Indians;

2. Chambliss and Tom Ragland ’73 Indians.

#441 - Tom Ragland

This is Tom Ragland’s only solo card. That means it is his last card – in ’72 he had a shared rookie card. Here he poses at Yankee Stadium during what was by far his most-used season in MLB. Going to Cleveland in a winter deal for pitcher Vince Colbert, Tom put in a decent amount of time at second, pretty much splitting the position with Jack Brohamer and John Lowenstein. He even got fielding props from Gaylord Perry which did not happen very often. But Tom was gone from Cleveland pretty much as quickly as he arrived. In fact this card has his whole MLB history on it as he never played another game up top. This will be a mighty short post.

Tom Ragland was born and grew up in Alabama and the one decent source I found about him claims that he graduated Carver High in Gadsden, Alabama, in 1965. But baseball-reference has him coming out of Northern High School in Detroit that same year so I guess they had as tough a time researching this guy as I did. Either way he was a 15th-rounder for Washington in that year’s draft and that season generated some pretty good numbers as a Rookie League shortstop. They weren’t nearly as good in A ball the next couple seasons when he also played some second base but in ’68 he showed enough at that level to get promoted the next year to Triple A where he resided a significant part of the next four years. In ’69 it was all second base in Buffalo where he began to develop pretty good OBA numbers, averaging about .355 the next four years. Then in ’70 he moved to Denver where he had similar numbers. In ’71 he made the opening day DC roster and debuted early that April at second before finishing out the year in Denver. In ’72 he reversed that, starting off in Triple A and moving up top later in the season. Then in ’73 came the trade and it was all Cleveland. He was released after the season and managed to hook back up with the Bears in ’74 which by then had become a Houston franchise. For them he hit .249 as the regular guy at second and then he was done. Along with his published stats he hit .251 in the minors with a .350 OBA.

And that’s it. The only bit I have found on this guy since his career ended is one of those “Where Are They Now” type articles written on the 25^th anniversary of the Senators’ final game in DC that came out in ’96 (Ragland played second in that game). But I would have to buy that article and my curiosity isn’t that intense. Plus it’s already 16 years old so it’s not exactly current. So Tom goes down as one of the most mysterious guys in the whole set.

Tom also got hit ten times in ’70 and eleven times in ’72. Not exactly Ron Hunt numbers but I guess he crowded the plate. Up top he only got hit twice.

Let’s use a guy with no neck to hook up a guy with no information:

1. Ragland and Walt “No Neck” Williams ’73 Indians;

2. Williams and Bill Melton ’68 to ’72 White Sox;

3. Melton and Jim Kaat ’73 to ’75 White Sox.

#440 - Jim Kaat

Now this is unusual in this set. Two posts after Ed Herrmann we get one of his battery-mates with an action shot of Jim Kaat. Sometimes this happened when an off-season trade occurred and they got wind of it early enough to change the team designation on the card but not the card number. But in this case Kaat had changed hands in the prior season. Just an anomaly I guess. This trade certainly had a silver lining for Jim as can be told by his seven-game record for the ChiSox. It got even better as he became a 20-game winner the next two seasons for the first time since his big ’66 year. I would guess that happened at least partly as the result of the influence of Sox pitching coach Johnny Sain. Jim gets an honorary card in ’74 and unless Topps was incredibly prescient the guess here is he was awarded it since he was on the cusp of his 200^th win. Here Jim gets it on probably warming up in Chicago, given the less than prepared status of the first baseman behind him; my guess is it’s Tony Muser. I like this action shot, but not as much as Jim’s ’73 one: about to run to first base after just stroking a ball to the right side.

Jim Kaat grew up in Zeeland Michigan where he pitched all through high school and then attended nearby Hope College where he continued to do so as a freshman. Following the season he was signed by the old Senators for $4,000. DC wanted to give him more but that would have pushed him to bonus-baby status and Jim wanted to pitch in the minors. That summer of ’57 he had a middling year in D ball, going 5-6 with a 3.70 ERA. His coach suggested he add weight to help get his fastball cranking – though he did K 95 guys in his 73 innings - so Jim lifted in the off-season and came back 15 pounds heavier. The immediate returns were pretty good as he went 16-9 with a 2.99 ERA and 245 strikeouts in 223 innings in C ball. He cooled off a bunch in Double A the next year but did get his DC debut that season with his highlight being 19 strikeouts in a game at the lower level. In ’60 it was all Triple A and DC and his first Topps card. The next year when the franchise moved out west to Minnesota Jim went with them.

After a tough first year with the Twins in ’61 Kaat settled down and for the next decade put up consistently good numbers. Excluding an off year in ’63 he would average 17 wins, an ERA just over 3.00, and excellent control for the rest of the decade. In ’65 he pitched the pennant clincher and then did pretty well in his three Series starts, each one against Sandy Koufax. In ’66 he probably would have won a Cy in his big 25-win season if one was offered back then in both leagues (Koufax won it in his final season). Beginning in ’62 he had an annual monopoly on Gold Gloves for a pitcher, winning one every year through ’77 and in ’62 and ’66 he was an All-Star. He also could hit pretty well for a pitcher, posting a decade-high .247 in ’65. In ’69 he was again playoff-bound but he got shut out of any post-season play. In ’70 he won 14 for the third consecutive year and again went to the playoffs, but this time was bombed in his only start. In ’71 he posted his first losing season since ’61 though his ERA was much better. Then in ’72 he was on a tear, putting up probably his best numbers ever – he was on a path to a 21-4 season – when he broke his wrist sliding back to first base on July 2, ending his season. In ’73 he started off a bit handicapped still from the injury with an ERA a run over his career average. In six mid-year starts he gave up 40 hits and 27 earned runs and was then placed on waivers, although many thought the true reason for that move was to jettison his $60,000 salary. The Sox bought him for $25,000 so miserly owner Calvin Griffith must have been tickled pink at his new $85,000.

After his strong run to end the ’73 season, Kaat worked with Sain, who had previously coached him in Minnesota, on reviving his screwball and his mechanics. Something certainly clicked because in ’74 Jim went 21-13 with a 2.92 ERA and in ’75 was 20-14 with a 3.11 ERA and was an All-Star. After that season, fresh off a sale of the team to Bill Veeck, Jim was sent to the Phillies with Mike Buskey for Alan Bannister, Dick Ruthven, and Roy Thomas as the Sox began their youth movement. For the Phillies Jim didn’t quite match his ChiSox years, but he went 27-30 in the rotation the next three-plus years and gave them a quality start in the ’76 playoffs. In May of ’79 he went to the Yankees in a sale to help shore up their beleaguered bullpen and got a couple wins and a couple saves the rest of the way. In late April the following year he moved to his last stop, St. Louis, where he finished out the season as a swing guy. From then on it was all relief: he went 6-6 with a 3.40 ERA with four saves in ’81 and 5-3 in 62 games with a couple saves in ’82. That year he finally got to be on a Series champ at age 43 and got into four Series appearances during which he pitched pretty well. After the ’83 season he was done, finishing with a record of 283-237, a 3.45 ERA, 180 complete games, 31 shutouts, and 18 saves. He hit .185 with 16 homers and 106 RBI’s. In the post-season he went 1-3 with a 4.01 ERA in nine games and hit .222. He is pretty much on the cusp as a HOF guy and could get there via a veterans vote in the next couple years.

Kaat turned to coaching after he finished playing, in ’84 and ’85 working with Pete Rose in Cincinnati. Then he turned to his next true career path: broadcasting. He worked for various stations, mostly associated with the Yankees, from ’86 to ’87 and then from ’88 to ’93 did color for the Twins. In ’94 he returned to NY where he was a regular broadcaster through 2006 when his initial plan was to retire. But he got dragged back in – mostly at the behest of friends who thought he’d be happier working after his wife passed away in ’08 – and currently does color for the MLB Network.

Star bullets don’t get much better than that one.

Let’s try an old catcher:

1. Kaat and Larry Bowa ’76 to ’79 Phillies;

2. Bowa and John Bateman ’72 Phillies;

3. Bateman and Norm Miller ’67 to ’68 Astros.

John Bateman was a starting catcher with the Colt .45’s/Astros in the Sixties who had some occasional pop: 17 homers in ’66, his best offensive season. In ’69 he got drafted by the Expos and was one of their first starting catchers, retaining that job through ’71. He spent his last season with the Phillies.

#439 - Norm Miller

Not terribly surprisingly this smiling mug belongs to one of baseball’s true characters. The title of his autobiography – “Norm Who?” – tells a lot about its subject. Norm is posing at Shea during one of those end-of-the-world days judging by the color of the sky. There was a really good chance Norm wasn’t playing that day as he only had eight at bats for the Braves all year. Too bad, too, because he put up six RBI’s in those at bats so by extension if he got up more he could have had a huge season. But by this season Norm’s back was shot and he was placed on the DL just a couple days after being picked up from Houston for Cecil Upshaw. He’d go on it again later in the season and by ’74 the injury would help derail his playing career for good This is his final card.

Norm Miller is another Southern California kid, he from LA and Van Nuys high school. At some point he attended Los Angeles Valley College, a two-year school, but I see no record of his playing ball there. He was signed by the Angels in ’64 when he was 18 so maybe he never did. At any rate, he did some nice hitting to start his career, tapping the ball at a .301 clip with 30 RBI’s and a .448 OBA in 53 games in A ball that summer. In ’65 he showed more power, putting up 20 homers and 92 RBI’s in Double A while he hit .289 with a .405 OBA. When he debuted for Houston later that season the umpire had to let him know that he still had his warm-up jacket on when he stepped to the plate. In ’66 he cooled off a bunch with a .245 and 30 RBI’s in Triple A along with some more at bats up top. In ’67 he shared a rookie card with Doug Rader, hit .406 with a .535 OBA in Triple A and began his MLB career in earnest.

Miller spent most of ’67 in Houston where he backed up Ron Davis in left field and unfortunately didn’t take too much of that Triple A stroke with him. In ’68 he boosted his average over 30 points as he took over the lion’s share of right field since that year Rusty Staub was forced to play first base. Norm held down that spot in ’69 when his best season included a .348 OBA. He also saw his profile raised a bunch retroactively that year when he roomed with Jim Bouton after the latter guy was traded from Seattle and Norm got considerable mention in “Ball Four.” Probably his funniest bit was when he claimed that since he was Jewish he would refuse to play on Jewish holidays, not because he was super religious, but because he happened to go o-fer on the ones in which he did play. In ’70 Houston did some shuffling in the outfield, mostly to allow rookie Cesar Cedeno playing time, and Jesus Alou and his .306 average moved across the field, pushing Norm back to a reserve role. Then in ’71 with the added rise of Bob Watson, Norm got more marginalized and only in ’72 would he again top 100 at bats. In early ’73 he went to the Braves for Cecil Upshaw and in ’74 after hitting .171 in 41 at bats he was released. He attempted to stick with LA in ’75 but that didn’t work so he was done, or done in by his bad back. He finished with a .238 average with ten homers and 160 RBI’s and a .323 OBA. In the minors he hit .284 with a .395 OBA.

Miller had relocated to the Houston area while he was playing for the Astros and moved into marketing there after playing ball. One of his first gigs was for Monterey House Restaurants, a local Mexican food chain. Back then – in the late Seventies – he also pitched batting practice for the Astros. Ten years later when Bouton caught up with him on the 20^th anniversary of his book Norm was selling television ads for the Astros. He continues to work in that field, published his book in 2010, and since 2011 has had a local AM radio talk show. He too has a website that includes some YouTube videos and is linked to here.

This is one of the most lopsided card backs in the set which is about right for its subject. Norm also scored the only run to end a 24-inning marathon game against the Mets in ’68.

Since this will be the last post in September it is a good one on which to catch up on music news. In 1973, September 29^th saw new Number Ones on both sides of the pond. In the US, Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band” took over for a week. In the UK, “Eye Level” by The Simon Park Orchestra began a four week run. As suspected, it is an instrumental – you have definitely heard this song someplace – that was the theme song to a BBC show called “Van Der Valk.” That series, which ran on – and mostly off – for about 20 years starting in ’72 was about a detective based in Amsterdam. Think of a European-stylized “Kojak.”

Ed Herrmann played for Houston a few years after Norm did, but they shared at least one teammate:

1. Miller and Cesar Cedeno ’70 to ’72 Astros;

2. Cedeno and Ed Herrmann ’76 to ’78 Astros.

#438 - Ed Herrmann

This is Ed Herrmann’s first card with what would from this point on in his career be his trademark facial hair. And Ed goes deep with it in his debut, bringing to mind another  - at that time – cultural icon, Grizzly Adams. Here he shows his swing at Yankee Stadium during another fun season. ’73 was the last of three consecutive – and four overall – seasons in which Ed would lead the AL in passed balls. And he was considered an awfully good defensive catcher, so what was going on? In a word, knuckleballs. Between Wilbur Wood starting nearly every third game and Eddie Fisher and the occasional other experimenter Ed caught nearly 500 innings of that pitch in ’73 so passed balls were just a necessary evil. In a later interview he said his goal every season was to go one game without dropping a Wood pitch. He never got there.

Ed Herrmann hailed from San Diego where in high school he was a linebacker and primarily a pitcher – he went 10-1 as a senior - and was signed for that role by the Braves upon graduating in ’64. Part of the reason he opted for the Braves was that his grandfather had played for them in the early part of the century. But by the time he got to Rookie ball he badly hurt his ankle and couldn’t effectively push off the mound. So the righty pitcher was asked to don catching gear and he had a new home as a left-handed hitter. He hit .286 that year and in ’65 around his military hitch hit .250 in A ball. The previous winter he was plucked by the White Sox in the first year draft. The next couple years he moved up the ladder and in ’67 after spending his season in Double A he got a few at bats up top, debuting on his 21^st birthday. He returned to Triple A in a ’68 split between a couple teams and then in ’69 after Jerry McNertney went to Seattle in the expansion draft, Ed moved up to Chicago for good.

Herrmann moved pretty much right into the starting role and had a pretty good rookie year. In ’70 he put on his best offensive show with 19 homers 52 RBI’s and a .283 average in just over half a season. Then in ’71 his numbers got much more ChiSox-ish, mostly due to an appendectomy that constricted his swing a bunch. In ’72 he caught every one of Woods’ 49 starts which hadn’t happened for a battery combo since the 1800’s. He continued in that starting role through the ’74 season, a year in which he was an All-Star. That year his numbers were pretty much identical to his ’73 ones, except for a 35 point bump in his average. In ’75 he wasn’t crazy happy with Chicago’s salary offer and so remained unsigned through training camp and right before the season began he was traded to the Yankees for four minor leaguers. In NY he backed up Thurman Munson and did some DH work. He then asked to be traded to somewhere near his San Diego base and the Yankees obliged, selling him to the Angels prior to the ’76 season.  But he only got into a few games for California before that June when he was sent to Houston for Mike Barlow and Terry Humphrey. There he took over the staring role the rest of the year and though he hit only .204 he was a huge defensive improvement over Cliff Johnson. In ’77 the Astros acquired former LA Dodger Joe Ferguson so Ed moved to a back-up role but performed well, hitting .291 with a career-high .352 OBA. After sitting most of the ’78 first half he was sold to Montreal in June of ’78 where he finished things up by spelling Gary Carter. Ed had a .240 average with 80 homers and 320 RBI’s.

Herrmann stayed near his Southern California base after his playing career ended and also stayed very close to baseball, at least after a while. Initially he got into retail ownership, buying gas stations and liquor stores, neither of which went particularly well. He would inherit an under-18 travel baseball team from Mike Epstein that he coached to a few national championships. From ’94 to ’99 and 2004 to ’07 he coached at Poway High School sandwiched around five years in the same role at Mesa Community College. He has also been a partner with sports agency Seminara Sports and has been a long-time scout, principally for the Royals. He has his own website, linked to here.

Ed’s card back focuses on ’72. The intentional walks were because he batted just ahead of Rich Morales and Luis Alvarado, two notoriously poor hitters. The DP’s were from nailing runners after third strikes. He also was big on working on cars.

I’m going to drop the 100 at bat rule since Jim Lyttle rarely got that many up top. That makes this particular exercise a short one:

1. Herrmann and Jim Lyttle ’72 White Sox.

#437 - Jim Lyttle

This card always intrigued me a bit as a kid because the “b/e” part of the Expos insignia on Jim Lyttle’s helmet looked like it was glowing. I also liked this shot, which I’m guessing is from Candlestick, because Jim looks moderately pissed, like he just passed on a really good pitch. He’s very tense, judging from his jaw and that vein in his neck. Plus he really likes the pine tar. ’73 was a pretty typical year for Jim, who moved around a lot during his career. He spent the first half of it with Kansas City, where he hit .300 with eleven homers and 45 RBI’s in Triple A before getting sold that July to Montreal after Tim Foli broke his jaw. There were thoughts of using Jim as a middle infielder – he played second base in high school – but instead he filled a gap in center where his excellent defense and pretty decent power got him a bunch of starts down the stretch. It was the most playing time he had since his rookie year of ’70 and would remain so for a few years. So he looks a bit frustrated here, but not as much as he would a couple years down the road.

Jim Lyttle was born in Hamilton, Ohio and relocated to Indiana as a kid where in high school he was a basketball star. He then went to Florida State on a hoops scholarship and his sophomore year was the team’s starting point guard with a 12.4 ppg average. He then played ball, moving to center, and set school records with his .324, 13 homer, and 51 RBI season, earning All-American honors. Following that '66 season he was selected by the Yankees in the first round of that spring’s draft. He had a slow start in A ball that summer but pushed his average up 54 points to .274 at that level in ’67 with some decent speed. In ’68 he moved up to Triple A where he hit only .234 but he bettered that significantly the next year where he hit .313 with seven homers and a .367 OBA in half a season that got him a late look in NY.

Lyttle spent all of 1970 up top where he and Ron Woods – a future Expos teammate – backed up Curt Blefary in right field. Jim missed a bunch of the season after his appendix burst but he still managed to hit .310 and looked good in the field. In ’71 the Yankees acquired Felipe Alou to replace Blefary and with Bobby Murcer establishing himself in center, Jim was relegated to a late defensive and pinch hitting role. After that season he went to the White Sox for pitcher Rich Hinton and had a tough go of it in ’72. He spent most of it in Triple A where he hit .270 but had an unusually large amount of errors. In his few games up top he reprised his ’71 role for Chicago and though he raised his average, recorded 28 strikeouts in his 82 at bats. He then went to KC for outfielder Joe Keough. He began ’74 in Montreal but was almost never used and in May was sold to the Mets, where he again played in Triple A but saw his average move south nearly 100 points from his ’73 one at that level. He then did a repeat, first returning to the ChiSox where he put up excellent numbers in Triple A in ’75 - .311 with a .386 OBA – and in mid-season returned to Montreal where he did much better in the pinch, hitting .273 with a .406 OBA. ’76 was more of the same with the Expos with time in Triple A and up top and in August he went to LA after being released where he finished his career in the US. Jim hit .248 with nine homers and 70 RBI’s in 710 lifetime at bats. In the minors he was a .267 hitter.

Lyttle was a busy boy after his career in the US ended. In ’77 he went to play in Japan where he put in six years with Hiroshima, winning their World Series in ’79 and ’80, the latter year being named Series MVP. He had his best season there in ’81 when he hit .318 with 33 homers and 100 RBI’s. For most of his time with the Carp Adrian Garrett was the other US-born player on the team. Jim finished things up there in ’83 with Nankai and put up a total of 166 homers during his career. He had moved to Boca Raton in ’71 and had completed his degree at FSU by ’76 and when he returned full-time in ’84 was inducted into the university’s hall of fame. The prior two off-seasons he was the JV basketball coach at Boca Academy and in ’84 took over that role for the varsity team. The following spring he took over as head coach of the local American Legion team after the former coach pulled a Ron Artest and got into a fight with some people in the stands. In the meantime Jim had begun his own nursery wholesale and landscaping business. In ’87 he began a two-year stint as head coach of the Flynn University baseball team and from ’98 to 2002 he was the hitting coach for Florida Atlantic University. He had to leave both gigs because his nursery business took up too much of his time. He continues to run a farm in the Boca area.

This is Jim’s final card – except for a pretty funny looking Japanese one in ’79 – and Topps can’t seem to fill it up. Not too surprisingly most of the back facts regard his defense.

These guys both moved around a bunch but didn’t play together:

1. Lyttle and John Ellis – they shared a ’70 rookie card – ’69 to ’71 Yankees;

2. Ellis and Don Hood ’75 Indians.

#436 - Don Hood

Here is a rookie card and it’s a spring training shot which means it’s about as rookie as you can get. When Doyle Alexander got hurt in July of ’73, Don Hood was the guy that got pulled up and he went to work fast, shutting down Oakland in a long relief appearance. Long relief would be his stock in trade a bunch of his years up top which generally back then meant not too many coveted stats, at least not at contract time. That career would also cover a decent amount of territory since he would play for five teams and would include a bunch of drama, most of it off the field, and some of it just plain odd. For instance the way he ended his first season with Baltimore: in game two of the AL playoffs as a pinch runner.

Don Hood came out of Florence, South Carolina where as a high school pitcher he went 28-1 for his career including an 11-0 senior year in which he pitched his team to a state title. The summer of his graduation – he was 19 – in 1969 he was drafted by Baltimore in the first round. In high school he was all heat and he continued to be primarily a fastball guy his first couple years in the minors, including his first summer in Rookie ball and ’70 in A ball, both of which he averaged well over a strikeout an inning. As he moved up the ladder he continued to add and refine his pitches – mostly in winter ball – and though his K totals subsided, his numbers in Double A in ’71 and Triple A the next couple years were generally pretty good, outside of his record. By ’72 he started working on his new pitch, a forkball, which he would incorporate more and more into his rotation. After a shutout in a start in July in ’73 he was moved up to Baltimore when Alexander went down.

Hood spent all of ’74 on the O’s roster but only got in 57 innings since Baltimore still had a bunch of starters who liked to complete games. He wasn’t real happy about not being used and during the season his mom was found drowned in a stream that ran behind his childhood home after she’d been missing a bunch of days. That must have been terrible and probably fueled Don’s fire about his non-usage which he apparently verbalized quite a bit. After the season he got traded to Cleveland with Boog Powell for Dave Duncan and a minor leaguer. With the Indians Don got to pitch a bunch more and spent a considerable amount of time in the rotation. But that year his walks topped his strikeouts and his ERA was well over 4.00, so the next year he returned to his long relief role which didn’t help too much since both stats got worse. In ’77 he reversed things and went 2-1 with a 3.00 ERA in 105 innings, nearly all in relief, as his K’s once more topped his BB’s. '78 saw him back in the rotation a bunch but his numbers were very comparable to his ’75 ones. In ’79 after a pretty good start he went to the Yankees in June for Cliff Johnson to help fix the mess Johnson made when he put Goose Gossage on the DL wrestling in the clubhouse.

In New York Hood didn’t become the new closer but he did assume a set-up role, allowing Ron Davis – and for a bit Ron Guidry – to fill the Gossage role while Goose was out. Don had one of the better runs of his career that summer, going 3-1 with a save and a 3.07 ERA though his walks continued to top his strikeouts. After that season he signed with St. Louis as a free agent and for the Cards did pretty well as a swing guy, getting eight starts and going 4-6 with a 3.39 ERA. He was released after the season and went the winter without being signed until KC picked him up just before spring training of ’81. He spent all that year in Triple A as a swing guy, putting up a season very much like his one with the Cards. After a few games at that level in ’82 he returned to The Show and went 4-0 the rest of the way. In ’83 he did the back and forth again and his numbers in KC were quite good – 2-3 with a 2.27 ERA in 48 innings – but he again chafed loudly about his lack of playing time which at one point led to a scuffle on the team bus with manager Dick Howser. That wasn’t a good career move and after the season Don was released, finishing his career. He went 34-35 with a 3.79 ERA, six complete games, and six saves.

Hood resided in his hometown during his career and was still there when he played a season in the Senior League in ’89. He got some negative publicity in ’85 when one of the coke dealers nabbed in the big sting operation from earlier in the decade named Don as a frequent customer. At some point thereafter he relocated for good to Florida though there is virtually no media at all about what he had done since his career ended professionally or otherwise. Even his family was in the dark on that if a sequence of posts on the 1980 blog are to be believed. I have linked to them here.

Most of the back of the card stuff was covered above. Note the big dropoff in K’s after his second season. During his high school career he won 25 straight beginning his freshman year.

Now to catch up on the music scene in ’74. It eerily resembles that of the prior year. On September 14, the new Number One in the States is Eric Clapton’s cover of Bob Marley’s “I Shot The Sheriff.” It is followed in the top spot on September 21 by Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe.” In the UK on that second date Number One is taken over by Carl Douglass’ “Kung Fu Fighting.” On September 23 another rocker passes when the Average White Band’s drummer Robbie McIntosh went into cardiac arrest after snorting some coke that turned out to be heroin laced with strychnine. That happened at a party for Greg Allman at which Allman’s wife at the time – Cher – kept another AWB member, singer Alan Gorrie, from going south by making him stay conscious.

Concepcion didn’t travel but Hood did so that should help:

1. Hood and Hal McRae ’82 to ’83 Royals;

2. McRae and Dave Concepcion ’70 to ’72 Reds.