PEREZ
Pascual was a Rookie in this set, and he was named a Future Star; kind of an impressive card with Vance Law and Tony Pena as well. Pascual did become a star, an All Star in 1983. That year he was 15-8. Over his career he was 67-68 primarily as a starter. In 1985 he started 22 games and only pitched 95.1 innings. For me, he was best known for his occasional use of the eephus pitch, which is essentially a high arcing lob.
Tony was a cog in the Big Red Machine, anchoring first base and third base for the Reds for 16 years. I remember the back of his card having one of the largest stat boxes. Despite playing on a team which featured higher profile players, Perez was also a 7 time All Star and 2 time World Champ in his Hall of Fame career. His last best year was on the back of this card, 1980 when he hit 25 HR and drove in over a hundred for the final time. He approached 3000 hits but stopped shy at 2732, he had a respectable average hitting .279 with 379 HR and 1652 RBI which is 32nd all time and still 2nd all time for Cincinnati.
STANLEY
Neither are as awesome as Paul Stanley.
Bob is 8th all time for wins as a Boston pitcher. He is 2nd in saves. He had 15 wins and 10 saves in 1978 only starting 3 games (appearing in 52). He was an All Star as a starter in 1979 and as a reliever in 1983 and played his entire career in Boston. Stanley entered Game 6 with the Red Sox one out away from clinching their first World Series since 1918, holding a one-run lead with runners on first and third. Stanley threw a wild pitch to Mookie Wilson which allowed Kevin Mitchell to score the tying run and Ray Knight to move to second base, putting him in position to score the winning run on Bill Buckner‘s fielding error.
Fred was more of a wanderer, paying for 3 teams (4 if you count Seattle/Milwaukee as 2) before settling in with the Yankees where he won 2 World Series. This card would represent his last with the Yankees. He doesn’t appear to have been much of a starter other than 1975-1976 and in those two years he hit 1 home run and .222 and .238 over full seasons. His career average was .216 with 10 HR. He was on the last Seattle Pilots team.
WASHINGTON
U. L. wasn’t like VINCENT or DARRYL, he was just U L. Not an abbreviation, nor initials, his name was U L Washington. I am very grateful they included the toothpick in this card, this was so much of this guys persona, a toothpick. His dad’s name is George Washington Jr. Washington was on first base and scored on George Brett’s “pine tar” home run in 1983.
Claudell hit the foul ball in Ferris Buellers Day off that Ferris catches. He won the World Series as a rookie with Oakland in 1974, the next year he was an all-star hitting .308 with 10 HR and 40 SB. He was traded 5 times in his career but found a regular home and lineup spot in Atlanta where he was again an All Star in 1984. In April 1988, he hit the Yankees’ 10,000th franchise home run. Washington was eventually released by the Yankees, and retired following the 1990 season. He finished his career with 164 home runs, 824 RBI, 312 stolen bases and a lifetime batting average of .278. Washington struck out 39 times against pitcher Nolan Ryan, more times than any other batter.
KENNEDY
Neither related to each other but both have baseball relations. Junior’s brother Jim pitched for the 1970 Cardinals and Terry’s dad Bob was a 4 time All Star. Junior’s real name is Junior. Not like dopey Chris Berman calling Ken Griffey Jr., Junior Griffey. Junior missed out on the Big Red Machine but played for the Reds from 1974-1981 with a 3 year gap between 1974 and 1978. he was in the minors the entire time from 1975–1977 because he was traded twice, blocked by established infielders, and never got a roster opening until 1978. The Reds infield at that time was Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Dave Concepcio and Tony Perez.
Terry was also blocked, he was behind Hall of Famer Ted Simmons. But he would become a 4 time all star after being traded from the Cardinals to the Padres in 1980. He was traded with John Littlefield, Al Olmsted, Mike Phillips, Kim Seaman, Steve Swisher and John Urrea to the San Diego Padres for a player to be named later, Rollie Fingers (Hall of Famer), Bob Shirley and Gene Tenace. The San Diego Padres sent Bob Geren (December 10, 1980) to the St. Louis Cardinals to complete the trade.
KINGMAN
Kingman, how about Queenwoman or sumthin? Brian, well, he had notoriety but for the wrong reason. He had a pretty short career and until 2003 he was the last person to lose 20 games in a season when he lost 20 games in 1980. Career wise he was 23-45. This was his first solo card, shockingly they did not highlight his 20 loss season on the card’s back.
Kong. Paragraph should end there. He was Schwarbomb in the same stadium 30 years earlier. He had a bat, no glove and not a lot of discipline. Since he had a limited skillset he was a gun for hire moving from team to team, playing for 7 franchises. His 154 homers as a Met is still 6th all time. Lindor is closing in. 3 time all star, once led the majors in homers in 1979 with 48.
LEZCANO
They are primos (cousins). Carlos had a very brief career but Topps thought so highly of him that they made him a rare back to back future star. I tried to research who was named back to back future stars and I could come up with 8 including Mark Corey and Mike Boddiker from this set. In any event Carlos got into 49 games and hit 3 homers with a career average of .186.
Sixto was always one of my favorite names in this set, thus this was one of my favorite cards. Loved how it sounded when I said it, and loved to think, “does he have six toes?”, as a kid not understanding ethnic names, and knowing of three finger Brown, I didn’t really get it. After all these years I ended the mystery and in fact it is pronounced six toe. The Spanish pronunciation is seeks two. No information was available on his toes.
MADDOX
When the Cubs got Greg Maddux I wondered if he was related to these guys; then I saw Maddux, and I noticed he spelled his name differently so I then knew they were not familial. Elliott was on the last Washington Senators team before they moved to Texas. He was more of a role and bench player but he played over 1000 games. This was his final card.
Garry with two Rs. 8 time Gold Glove winner, the Secretary of Defense. He settled into 12 seasons with Philadelphia after 3 ½ with San Francisco. He never had an All Star season but he did finish 5th in the MVP voting in 1976. He stole a fair amount of bases, 248 for his career which is 12th all time for the Phillies.
PARRISH
Larry was kind of a mid range slugger hitting 256 HR and nearly 1000 RBI over 15 seasons nearly split evenly between Montreal and Texas. He was an All Star in 1979 with the Expos and 1987 with the Rangers. He hit three grand slams in one week in 1982. He amassed 1789 hits in his career with a .263 average.
Lance was a slugging catcher hitting 324 HR and driving in 1070 over 16 seasons primarily with the Tigers. He was an All Star in nearly every year that Larry wasn’t. 1980, 1982-1986 and 1988 and 1990. He won the 1984 World Series and was a 6 time Silver Slugger to go with his three gold gloves. 6th all time in homers by catchers.
PART III
Hoosier Favorite Card 