Inbound and Down #35: Summer of '74

I have almost 200 cards from the '80 and '81 Topps sets to put away, courtesy of Matt from the Summer of '74 blog.  Yesterday I showed the '78s he sent, a manageable number of 16 cards.

I wondered how to show off the remainder.   I wasn't going to scan all 200, that just takes up a lot of time and energy.  I also decided to show any of the '81s, since I've already shown quite a few of those lately on the blog.

So I finally decided to go through the '80s and see what I can put together as far as a post.

I started seeing star pitchers and star hitters, so I figured I would put a few together and see who was better against the other.   How about Jim Palmer vs. Reggie Jackson?  122 plate appearances for Reggie and he didn't fare too badly, 30 hits with a .286 average, 6 doubles, 5 HR and 11 RBI.  He also walked 11 times while striking out 16.

Carlton Fisk against Doyle Alexander was another match-up that intrigued me.  (Note: look up Doyle's stats on Baseball Reference dot com and you'll see he's wearing a Blue Jays cap that has the logo reversed).  Not as many appearances as Palmer V. Jackson, but kind of similar offensive numbers if you pro rate them.
.286 average, 19 hits, 1 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR and 14 RBI.  9 K's and 7 walks. 

Fergie spent a lot of years with the Cubs, so that made me curious about this match up.   (I told you Fergie was following me around.)
The batting average was a bit lower, but still a good amount of hits for Johnny...
.265 average, 18 hits, 3 2B, 2 HR and 11 RBI while striking out 12 times and walking just 3.

These 3 cards were close to each other in the pile.   Think of the speed in this outfield if the three of them were together.   78 steals for LeFlore.  16 for Collins in less than 400 ABs (Collins would steal 60 bases a few seasons down the road for the Jays).  Wilson led the AL with 83 steals. 

I found a pretty solid infield as well.  No Angels in the outfield this time.

Here's a couple of guys that I wish I could have watched more during their careers.  I got to see Al Oliver during his final season as a Blue Jay in 1985.  I surfed around on Al's website a couple of weeks ago and there's some interesting stuff on there.  

I knew that Yaz had played a long time in the bigs, but I was not aware that he is 2nd all time in games played at 3308, only trailing Pete Rose who played in 3562.  I wish I could remember more of him during his playing days...

That's just 15 cards from a great stack, but they brought me back to my early days of baseball memories with a lot of legendary names.  

Thank you for the cards Matt!!

thanks for reading, Robert