1968 Topps AL Stolen Base Leaders: Bert Campaneris, Don Buford, Tommie Agee

This is nearly a reprint of the 1966 A.L. Stolen Base Leader card I made a while back:

Exact same players, for the exact same teams in the exact same order. And once again The A's and White Sox teams led the AL in steals. 132 for the A's and 124 for the Sox. The next closest were the Bosox with 68.

Campy led the league for the 3rd straight year with 55. Buford was 2nd with 34 but led the league in  getting caught with 21. Tommie Agee was in 3rd with 28 but was the only one to play in the 1967 All Star game. In the bottom of the 8th he came to pinch run for Don Mincher.  He advanced to 2nd on a sacrifice bunt. Unfortunately he was stranded there and never took the field. The AL lost 2-1 in 15 innings.

1967 Topps AL Stolen Base Leaders: Bert Campaneris, Don Buford, Tommie Agee

The two teams featured on this card, The Kansas City A's and the Chicago White Sox were the top two teams in stolen bases and also the bottom 2 teams in home runs in the A.L. The White Sox were also dead last in batting average while the A's were last in on base percentage. 

The A's had the leagues top base-runner in Bert Campaneris and the top closer in Jack Aker but were sub par in nearly every other category. They finished 7th in the AL.

The White Sox made up for this power shortage with pitching and speed. They had the lowest ERA in the league with 2.68 compared to the league average of 3.44. The next closest was Minnesota with a 3.13 ERA. The Sox also led the league in sacrifice bunts and stolen bases. Don Buford had a career high 51 stolen bases and led the league in sacrifice bunts. Tommie Agee was th AL Rookie of the Year. He had 41 stolen bases and earned a gold glove in center field.This managed to keep above .500 finishing 4th in the AL.