1978 Topps Cards #61 through #66

THE PLAYERS

#61 Larvell Blanks
#62 Jim Barr
#63 Don Zimmer Manager
#64 Gene Pentz
#65 Ken Singleton
#66 White Sox



If you're too lazy to download the photo and rotate it, or at least rotate your head, here is the same image rotated. I'm not going to do this in the future.



THE DESIGN

Good: The Zimmer card, our first manager, shows the awesome way that Topps did manager cards in this set. Showing a picture of the manager as a player was a great idea, and brings some great historical photos into the set. I also really like the way they framed the old photo as if it were a newspaper clipping. It reminds us that in the 1940s and 1950s, the vast majority of what fans knew about players, including their appearances, came from newspapers. Bravo, Topps!

On the back of the Zimmer card, they give his playing stats, plus some managerial hightlights instead of the PLAY BALL game. Nice.

I love the fact that the back of the White Sox team card lists the players' uniform numbers. Uni numbers are becoming a lost item in today's game.

Bad: I love team cards and I am happy to see the White Sox one here, our first in the set. The problem with team cards is that the photos are too small to recognize people. I would love it if, especially, some of the non-player personnel were easier to see or were identified on the back of the card. I believe that not all of the team cards are the same in this set...we'll see some different examples coming up.

THE PHOTOS

Good: There isn't much to like in this set, except for Zimmer's incredible cheeks, Pentz's crazy white man afro and smirk, and the Singleton shot is a fairly nice and unorthodox action photo.

Visible behind Jim Barr is 2B Rob Andrews.

Bad: On Barr's card, Topps managed to get not one, but two guy's faces completely obscured by shadows. That horrible abstract "C" on Blanks' card just ruins it for me, although that's not Topps' fault. And I've already mentioned that the White Sox team photo, as with most team photos, makes it too hard to recognize individual people.



THE STATS

Of his 14 career triples, Larvell Blanks hit two off Ken Holtzman a few weeks apart in 1976. Interestingly, Holtzman was an Oriole when he gave up the first one, but a Yankee when he gave up the second one.

Barr pitched in some bad luck. He had a few seasons with an ERA better than league average but a losing record. His neutralized career record is 120-103 (.538) as compared to his actual numbers: 101-112 (.474).

From 1955 to 1964, Zimmer was among the leaders in most seasons with at least 10 HR but no more than 132 games played. The guy could hit for some power.

Pentz walked too many guys. The guys he walked the most are a Who's Who of some of the best offensive players in the game at the time.

Singleton finished his career with more walks than strikeouts. Among guys who finished with at least 1200 walks, Singleton has one of the lowest strikeout totals in history. He's just ahead of guys like, umm, Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Aaron. Many of the players ahead of Ken are guys who played in eras where strikeouts were less common.

THE COUNTERS

Hall of Famers: 11
(none)

Deceased: 3
(none)

Future managers: 7
(none)

Fathers and sons of major leaguers: 5
(none)

Loyalty counter: 8
(none)

Rookies of the Year: 7
(none)

Total all-star appearances: 199
(+1 for Zimmer as a player, +3 for Singleton)

Total MVP awards: 8
(none)

Total Cy Young awards: 4
(none)

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PLAY BALL: Game 1, first inning

Following Splint's suggestion, I am going to play out a game of "Play Ball" using the backs of the 1978 Topps set in sequence.

I'll do this periodically in special posts like this, instead of adding more sections to the regular card posts.

We need two teams. I'm taking the Mudville Nine, from Casey at the Bat, and the New York Knights, from The Natural. (Incidentally, if you haven't been keeping up with Ben Henry's rendition of Casey, then you're missing out. Start here.)

The Knights are the home team (at least in Game 1) and so the Mudville Nine bat first.

GAME 1

TOP OF THE FIRST INNING
Mudville Nine at bat

(Note: the Record Breaker cards #1-#7 do not have the "Play Ball" game on them, so we start with card #8.)

#8 Mike Sadek: BB (runner on 1st, no outs)
#9 Doug DeCinces: BB (runners on 1st and 2nd, no outs)
#10 Phil Niekro: single (bases loaded, no outs)
#11 Rick Manning: K (bases loaded, one out)
#12 Don Aase: 2B (2 runs score, runners on 2nd and 3rd, one out)
#13 Art Howe: ground out (1 run scores, runner on 2nd, two outs)

(Note: I've made the decision here that a ground out or a fly out scores a runner from 3rd with less than 2 outs but does not advance other runners. The rules of the game don't specify how to handle these situations, so I've just decided to do it this way.)

#14 Lerrin LaGrow: 3B (1 run scores, runner on 3rd, two outs)
#15 Tony Perez: foul out (three outs)

4 runs on 3 hits and 2 walks. Mudville Nine lead 4-0

BOTTOM OF THE FIRST INNING
New York Knights at bat

#16 Roy White: HR (1 run scores, no outs)
#17 Mike Krukow: fly out (one out)
#18 Bob Grich: rules card (no play)
#19 Darrell Porter: single (runner on 1st, one out)
#20 Pete Rose: BB (runners on 1st and 2nd, out out)
#21 Steve Kemp: fly ouy (runners on 1st and 2nd, two outs)
#22 Charlie Hough: ground out (three outs)

1 run on 2 hits and 1 walk. Mudville Nine lead 4-1

1978 Topps Cards #55 through #60

THE PLAYERS

#55 Mitchell Page All-Star Rookie
#56 Randy Jones
#57 Dan Meyer
#58 Bob Forsch
#59 Otto Velez
#60 Thurman Munson




THE DESIGN

Good: There are two great things about the Munson card. Firstly, the border colors of purplish-blue and orangey-red nearly match Munson's navy uniform and red catching gear, giving the card very nice color uniformity. Also, on the back, they mention that it was Munson, and not DiMaggio, Mantle, Ford, or anybody else, who became the first captain of the Yankees since Lou Gehrig. That was a very big deal that is often overlooked today.

Bad: The text on the back of Forsch's card might be very confusing to some. First it talks about his pitching, mentioning that "he went distance" against the Expos. The next sentence talks about his hitting in that game, with his 2-RBI double. Then they switch right back to pitching again, talking about his 6 K's, unless Forsch managed to also strike out at the plate 6 times in addition to his double. Messy, messy writing.


THE PHOTOS

Good: I mentioned Munson's card already, and it's Forsch who clearly takes the cake here. With his hair sticking out forward on both sides, it looks like there is a stiff wind coming from behind him. I also like the cocky look that Meyer's got on his face.

Bad: The photo that Topps chose to use for Page's card is among the worst photos ever selected for a baseball card. Where do I start?

• The yellow on his jersey clashes with the gold All-Star Rookie cup, making this easily the ugliest All-Star Rookie card in any Topps set that I've ever seen.
• They chose to use a close-up of a guy with frizzy hair and a sparse beard and mustache, which is not a good look in any era. An action shot would have been much better.
• There is a terrible glare coming off his eyeglasses.
• The background is very out of focus, making the batting cage and stands look like metal rails going in every direction. It's very distracting and adds nothing to the photo.
• And did I mention how horrible the hot pink and green color scheme is?
  

Particularly as an All-Star Rookie selection, Page deserved much, much better.



THE STATS

On the Baseball-Reference.com Stat of the Day Blog, I previously noted that Page is one of just 14 players in history to amass 100 SB and 250 RBI while playing in at most 800 games.

Over the two-year period 1975-1976, Jones had the 2nd-most wins, 3rd-most innings pitched, 4th-most complete games, and the 3rd-most shutouts. Why didn't he continue that success later in his career? Perhaps because over that same period, of the 231 pitchers to throw at least 100 innings, he had the 223rd-best strikeout rate. Wow.

Dan Meyer, not to be confused with the current major leaguer with the same name, once had 7 RBIs in a game, a Mariners victory over the Yankees in 1979.

Despite the fact that I think he was overrated, I'm still surprised that Forsch never received a single Cy Young vote or was ever an All-Star.

Otto Velez could really hit. In baseball history, he's got one of the highest career OPS+ figures for a guy with no more than 2000 career ABs and at least 400 career hits. That list is a little screwy as the first 3 guys don't really count. Players like Ken Phelps, Dick Dietz, and Erubiel Durazo are better comparisons for Velez.

Munson is among a handful of (all good) players since 1940 with 3 seasons with at least 100 RBI but fewer than 20 HR.


THE COUNTERS

Hall of Famers: 11
(none)

Deceased: 3
(+1 for Munson)

Future managers: 7
(none)

Fathers and sons of major leaguers: 5
(none)

Loyalty counter: 8
(+1 for Munson)

Rookies of the Year: 7
(+1 for Munson)

Total all-star appearances: 195
(+2 for Jones, +7 for Munson)

Total MVP awards: 8
(+1 for Munson)

Total Cy Young awards: 4
(+1 for Jones)

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1978 Topps Cards #49 through #54

THE PLAYERS

#49 Ed Kranepool
#50 Rick Reuschel
#51 Charlie Moore
#52 Jim Lonborg
#53 Phil Garner
#54 Tom Johnson



THE DESIGN

Good: For some reason, I dig the double-name action on Kranepool's card, with his team jersey name appearing right above the card team name. I also note that Kranepool's photo absoluetly could be Greg Brady from about 1973.

Bad: There is a lack of consistency in the font. Check out the "P"s appearing on Lonborg and Garner's cards. The bottom of the loop on each P is different on the two cards. Naughty, naughty.


THE PHOTOS

Good: Charlie Moore's card is damn near perfect. I mean, the red and blue border colors are awful for Brewers cards, but otherwise the pose, lighting, and framing of the photo are all awesome.

I like the shot of Reuschel, mostly because it's very similar to Phil Niekro's card, which we now know was taken in Candlestick Park.

Bad: Those Pirates uniforms were terrible, and the Garner photo is just horrible. With all those dark pinstripes, they needed to have a closer-up photo to make it work. Not only is he too small, looking like a set of vertical blinds, but they got another pinstriped player right behind him and a coach in the dugout. It's just a bad shot.

Standing behind Garner is #6 Rennie Stennett. Checking out the Pirates' batting orders for 1977, Stennett batted immediately after Garner (at least in the starting lineup) on July 15th and in a doubleheader on July 17th. However, those games were all at Shea Stadium and the Pirates look to be wearing home uniforms here. Maybe the photo is from spring training? [A reader tells me that this photo IS, in fact, at Shea Stadium. How can you tell?) Also, is that manager Chuck Tanner in the background?




THE STATS

Kranepool has the most seasons in history with exactly 10 homers. Hmm.

Moore just misses adding to the loyalty counter by playing in 51 games at the end of his career with Toronto. Seven guys had at least one triple every year from 1973 to 1987. You would NEVER have guessed Moore, but he did it. The others aren't all easy either.

Lonborg faced a lot of HOFers and pitched pretty well against most of them, including Aparicio, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Tony Perez, and Dave Winfield.

In 1977, Johnson tied for the 3rd-most wins in a season (16) with no game starts.

THE COUNTERS

Hall of Famers: 11
(none)

Deceased: 2
(none)

Future managers: 7
(+1 for Garner)

Fathers and sons of major leaguers: 5
(none)

Loyalty counter: 7
(+1 for Kranepool, +1 for Johnson)

Rookies of the Year: 6
(none)

Total all-star appearances: 186
(+1 for Kranepool, +3 for Reuschel, +1 for Lonborg, +3 for Garner)

Total MVP awards: 7
(none)

Total Cy Young awards: 3
(+1 for Lonborg)

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Loot and photos

I'm going off-topic a bit to show off a few items I received from other folks. Also I'm looking at lots and lots of photos from 1993 Upper Deck Series 2 below--many great ones and some odd ones.



First up is a 1973 Doyle Alexander sent from Kevin in trade for the book and card I sent him. This is an insanely beautiful card. I love how young and fresh-faced Alexander looks, plus the three guys in the background, plus the tarp, plus the stray bats on the field, plus the ad for First Federal. It's just an awesome card.

I've decided that for my next project after 78 Topps Cards, I'll be looking at both the 1971 and 1973 Topps sets. So I'm taking any cards from those sets as trades now. If you see any cards in this post you want, you can send me a single card from either of those sets in trade.

The next card is an autographed card of Tim Hudson. The neat thing is that the card is in Spanish both front (shown above) and back (not shown.) I've never seen a card written in Spanish before. Anybody know anything about this set of cards? This one came in as a trade from Tribe Cards.

The rest of the cards in this post are all from 1993 Upper Deck Series 2. These are packs I won in a contest from Night Owl Cards. In the above set of scans, we've got special reissues of a classic David Justice card as well as a classic Reggie Jackson card. Note that the UD Heroes design for the Reggie Jackson card very closely resembles the 2008 UD Heroes set that's out now. We've also got the Derek Jeter rookie card, although I swear that guy doesn't look like Jeter at all. We've also got a very unusual but cool Strawberry card. It's obviously posed but does a great job of capturing his distinctive and very high leg kick.



Next up are 4 unusual Phillies cards. First is a sort of cool action shot of Eisenreich catching a fly ball, although it's odd that they chose to use a photo with the glove covering almost his entire face. On the back of the card (not pictured), they show him collapsed on the warning track and his face is completely hidden. Next is Incaviglia looking very much like he has just struck out. Next is Ricky Jordan, usually a first baseman, looking as if he's making a catch in the outfield although it's hard to tell for sure. Is there a Giants fan who can identify which part of Candlestick park that is? (I note that Jordan did play 11 games in left field in 1992.) Jordan makes another appearance on Milt Thompson's card, with Thompson looking a bit unsure of the close touching. I'm pretty sure that's Dale Murphy on the left.

Finally in this set are two cool sunglasses photos. Check out the reflections on the Wells card, and the sheer bling of the Cole card. (See below for the back of Cole's card too.)




Here are a series of unusual shots: Greg Vaughn toweling off, an umpire completely in frame on Kevin Seitzer's card, a supreme ass shot of Bob Scanlan, a wicked cool angled shot of Rey Sanchez jumping over Larry Walker, Vinny Castilla about to eat a baseball, and Luis Sojo about to commit an error, probably.



Here are a few nice card backs. Ellis Burks has just shimmied out of the way of a pitch, but caught like this without the baseball in view, he looks more like he's avoiding a bee. Kevin McReynolds' bat has split all the way down! Lloyd McClendon looks like a huge dork with his cap coming off, but at least UD made some money from Gatorade for this advertising photo. Scott Servais is shown, unusually for a catcher, trying to throw out a baserunner. I have to assume this photo was taken during drills. Alex Cole is being shown interviewing and we can see his awesome sunglasses again, plus a nice pretty bracelet that the camera operator is wearing. And check out the bottom right of the Charlie Hayes photo. How cool is that little wave of dirt that Charlie just kicked up while moving for the ball?



Here are some team checklist cards. As is usually the case, these illustrations are hit or miss. First up is the Bagwell card, which if you ask me makes the best possible use of the Houston rainbow. Next up is Bobby Bo, as the card says, and for some reason the headshot in the lower left reminds me of the Transformers. Anybody else get that vibe? The Eck card is nice. Robby Thompson, however, looks like a pedophile. Strawberry looks just fine. Randy Johnson looks like he was drawn by a child. Much better than I could ever do, but a lot worse than most of the rest. These illustrated cards are, on the whole, pretty damn awesome.



Here are various cards featuring team stars. There are two different cards featuring Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, and Will Clark. It's truly amazing how tiny Bonds looks. The three Astros in front of the Astrodome is great, especially with such youthful photos of Bagwell and Biggio. That Rockies card is the most phallic and homoerotic a card can get without showing actual male nudity. I put the Pirates card up here for the nice shot of downtown Pittsburgh and a very youthful (and still active) Tim Wakefield on the left. And finally, that Padres card is very cool with Gwynn, Crime Dog, Sheff, and, ahem, Phil Plantier.



Wrapping it up are a few more horizontal cards. Big Daddy is kicking up a bunch of dirt. The back of the card (not pictured) has Fielder looking through the kind of camera lens used to take these photos. We have a Manny Ramirez rookie card, and an awesome multi-frame Phil Hiatt card. Then we have an illustration of Sammy Sosa that looks nothing like him, and a very weird Albert Belle card. All the Native American stuff, while true to the Indians name, is fairly contrary to the way the Indians team has identified with their namesakes. And showing Belle breaking a bat is kid of creepy. Finally, we have Gerald Clark looking very pissed after getting knocked down at the plate.

There you have it--the 1993 Upper Deck Series 2 cards are really great, and thanks again to Night Owl Cards for giving me the chance to check them out. (I still have a bunch of unopened packs, too!)

Once again, if you want to trade for anything here, see if you can dig up a 1971 or 1973 card and email me at 78topps at gmail dot com.

1978 Topps Cards #43 through #48

THE PLAYERS

#43 Bill Atkinson
#44 Toby Harrah
#45 Mark Fidrych
#46 Al Cowens
#47 Jack Billingham
#48 Don Baylor



THE DESIGN

Good: The Fidrych card is a classic, both because of his unusual career and because it's simply beautiful. The orange and brown cards are the best of this set, for both the Tigers and the Padres.

Bad: Now that we've seen close to 50 cards, we see that there are only something like 6 color pairs. Numerous teams have a yellow border, numerous teams have either hot pink and green or green and hot pink, and numerous teams have the purplish borders. I'm not sure why Topps chose to have so few colors. I'm guessing it was either because someone thought that more colors would make the set seem too scattered (recall that most sets before 1978 had very little in the way of border color variation) or that it was a way of uniformly using up ink and managing their printing costs efficiently.


THE PHOTOS

Good: There isn't a single good photo in this group, actually. Every player either has a strange facial expression or pose (Cowens, Billingham, and Baylor) or their face is significantly shadowed (Atkinson, Harrah, and Fidrych.)

The Fidrych card jumps out as an iconic card because he didn't have very many cards due to such a short career. But it's actually a pretty awful photo, with his head completely dark and his body caught in a very compact and obstructed view. Compare the Fidrych photo with the Atkinson photo. Atkinson's was taken perhaps a quarter second later in his delivery and is a much better photo overall.

Bad: Special bad marks go to the Cowens photo where not only is his brow in the shadows, but they got a really grumpy look on his face, plus there are reflections in his glasses making his face harder to see. Were Cowens not deceased, perhaps I wouldn't judge this photo so harshly. I just feel like he deserved better.

The Baylor card is another one where the blue sky background just doesn't work. His body position is kind of weird and the photo is overexposed.




THE STATS

Atkinson allowed 17 career HR including a pair to two different guys you'd NEVER guess: Biff Pocoroba and Dave Concepcion.

Harrah has one of the few palindromic last names in MLB. Can you come up with any others? (No points for Nen.) There were lots of great third basemen in the 1970s and Harrah was quite overshadowed. But he does rank 5th among 3B for HR from 1974 to 1982.

In 1977, Fidrych completed 24 games while winning "only" 19. These days, completing more games than you win is unheard of. Fidrych's season is the 10th most recent time a guy completed at least 20 in a season while winning no more than 19.

Cowens had a whopping 10 walk-off plate appearances, including two homers. In 1984, he won 2 out of 3 games against the Rangers in the same series!

Billingham had the 9th most victories in MLB over 1973-1974, just 7 behind leader Catfish Hunter.

THE COUNTERS

Hall of Famers: 11
(none)

Deceased: 2
(+1 for Cowens, the second deceased player to appear so far in this set, and both are wearing Royals uniforms.)

Future managers: 6
(+1 for Harrah, who managed Texas for half a season in 1992, taking over from Bobby Valentine, +1 for Baylor)

Fathers and sons of major leaguers: 5
(none)

Loyalty counter: 5
(+1 for Atkinson, +1 for Fidrych)

Rookies of the Year: 6
(+1 for Fidrych)

Total all-star appearances: 178
(+4 for Harrah, +2 for Fidrych, +1 for Billingham, +1 for Baylor)

Total MVP awards: 7
(+1 for Baylor)

Total Cy Young awards: 2
(none)

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Trivia

Seven guys had at least 1 triple every year from 1973 to 1987 (15 seasons.) How many can you name?

I'll take guesses in the comments.

1978 Topps Cards #37 through #42

THE PLAYERS

#37 Rick Waits
#38 Willie Montanez
#39 Floyd Bannister
#40 Carl Yastrzemski
#41 Burt Hooton
#42 Jorge Orta



THE DESIGN

Good: So here is a difference between the 1988 Topps set and the 1978 Topps set. In 1988 Topps (and many other Topps sets in the 80s) the All-Stars chosen by Topps got their own special All-Star cards. In this set, however, Topps put the All-Star logo, league, and position right onto the base cards for the selected players. See Yaz's card for an example of this. Now, I'm not entirely sure if the 1978 version of the All-Stars were Topps' choices (as they were in the 80s) or if they were based on the actual participants in the 1977 All-Star game. Does somebody know the answer?

Bad: There are three hot pink and green cards in a row. Ugh.

The back of Hooton's card mentions that he struck out the first batter he ever faced in the majors. Is that such a big deal? Very roughly, 1 in every 6 plate appearances is a strikeout, meaning that abotu 1 in every 6 pitchers probably starts his career with a strikeout. They could have at least mentioned who the unlucky batter was, HOFer Lou Brock.


THE PHOTOS

Good: The Yaz photo is a classic. By 1978, he was already a longtime veteran, and this rare profile shot captured the grey on his temples and a contemplative look not often seen on baseball cards.

I also need to shout out about the Bannister card, a great card of a young pup.

Bad: The worst photo here is Orta's because he's just about asleep. And while I can't blame the photographer, I need to complain about those terrible 70s uniforms for the Indians, and the horrible blue sateen warmup jackets for the Braves.



THE STATS

In 1978, Rick Waits was one of 17 pitchers to throw at least 15 complete games, but he was the only one with a losing W-L%. His ERA+ of 118 was not the problem.

For players with at least 100 career intentional walks since the stat has been kept, Montanez has one of the lowest career OPS+ values. A guy we saw recently, Garry Templeton, is even lower on the list.

We know that Fenway is a great place for hitters, and Yaz benefited as much as anyone. His home/road splits are amazing but the OPS says it all: .909 at home and .779 on the road.

Orta flew under the radar, but he was a well above average player in terms of power and speed. From 1974 to 1980, he was one of just 19 players with 80 HR, 60 SB, and an OPS+ of 115.


THE COUNTERS

Hall of Famers: 11
(+1 for Yastrzemski)

Deceased: 1
(none)

Future managers: 4
(none)

Fathers and sons of major leaguers: 5
(+1 for current major-leaguer Brian Bannister)

Loyalty counter: 3
(+1 for Yastrzemski)

Rookies of the Year: 6
(none)

Total all-star appearances: 170
(+1 for Montanez, +1 for Bannister, +18 for Yastrzemski, +1 for Hooton, +2 for Orta)

Total MVP awards: 6
(+1 for Yastrzemski)

Total Cy Young awards: 2
(none)

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3D Eddie Murray

Here is a stereoscopic 3D image of Eddie Murray's 1978 Topps rookie card.

Just cross your eyes and create a third image in between the original two. You might want to click on the above image for the larger version.

1978 Topps Cards #31 through #36

THE PLAYERS

#31 Glenn Abbott
#32 Garry Templeton
#33 Dave Lemanczyk
#34 Willie McCovey
#35 Sparky Lyle
#36 Eddie Murray All-Star Rookie




The Murray card I have has been PSA graded, which is why it's scanned separately here.

THE DESIGN

Good: The script used for the team names is unusual in some ways, such as the lower-case "r"s. Check them out in "Mariners" and especially in "Cardinals" above. Note how high the r's go, all the way up over Templeton's belt. The way the Cardinals name overlaps Templeton's belt gives that card a very nice framed quality.

Bad: What is the deal with giving McCovey a card number like #34? Topps was already giving good numbers to stars by this time, and although he was at the tail end of his career, McCovey was coming off a good year in 1978 and was still a major star. That was really unkind of Topps, I think.

Also the hot pink and green cards just keep coming and coming, with a Cardinals card this time.


THE PHOTOS

Good: Heck yeah, we've got two awesome photos here. Firstly, the McCovey card is simply beautiful. The parallelism between the "Giants" team name both on the card and on his jersey is great. The pose is great, and the coloring is spot-on with all the black and orangey-red. Secondly, the Murray card is just an absolute classic. The guy looks like such a god damn bad ass, and he really was. It's such a close-up shot and Murray has such a stern look. You can't bare look away but also can't help but get a chill.

Anybody voting for anything other than McCovey or Murray here is crazy.

Bad: The Lyle photo is clearly mere milliseconds after the photo used on his Record Breaker card #2, which is no big deal, just thought I'd point that out.

The real loser here is Dave Lemanczyc, caught not only with a bizarre collared shirt under his jersey, but a badly pressed collared shirt at that. How embarrassing.





THE STATS

For pitchers with at least 1200 IP since 1960, Glenn Abbott had one of the lowest strikeout rates. His walk rate was pretty good but his hit rate was high, leading to a career 1.366 career WHIP.

In his all-star season of 1979, Lemanczyk went 8-10 despite an ERA+ of 116. Overall, his neutralized record was 45-54 (.455) as compared to what he actually got: 37-63 (.370). This guy was royally screwed.

Which pitcher gave up the most homers to McCovey? That would be Don Drysdale, with 12.

Sparky Lyle has the most wild pitches (66) by a pitcher who never started a single game since 1901.

Murray's the only player with at least 1 triple every season from 1977 to 1994.

THE COUNTERS

Hall of Famers: 10
(+1 for McCovey again, +1 for Steady Eddie Murray)

Deceased: 1
(I'm pretty sure that Garry Templeton's soul died a long time ago, but I don't think that counts.)

Future managers: 4
(none)

Fathers and sons of major leaguers: 4
(Murray's brother Rich played in the big leagues, although I'm not adding that to the counter)

Loyalty counter: 2
(none)

Rookies of the Year: 6
(+1 for McCovey again, +1 for Murray)

Total all-star appearances: 147
(+3 for Templeton, +1 for Lemanczyk, +6 for McCovey again, +3 for Lyle again, +8 for Murray)

Total MVP awards: 5
(+1 for McCovey again)

Total Cy Young awards: 2
(+1 for Lyle again)

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