1964 Topps AL Stolen Base Leaders: Aparicio, Hinton, Wood, Snyder

In his 1st season in an Orioles uniform, Luis Aparicio continued his dominance on the base paths. For the 8th consecutive year Aparicio led the AL in stolen bases. His 40 swipes were 15 more than the second place finisher.

Chuck Hinton was an outfielder by trade but was used in every defensive position except pitcher during his career. What he lacked in the field he made up for at the plate and on the base paths. In 1963 he had 15 homers and 25 stolen bases.

Jake Wood and Russ Snyder tied for 3rd with 18 stolen bases each. For Russ Snyder, it was a career high, For Jake Wood it was his lowest total yet in his 3 years in the Majors.

1964 Topps NL Leading Firemen: McDaniel, Perranoski, Baldschun

For the first time The Sporting News awarded their Reliever of the Year award to repeat winners. Both the AL winner and the NL winner had been won the award before and coincidentally both won it on different teams. In the AL Stu Miller won for the Orioles after winning the award as a Giant in 1961. In the NL it was Lindy McDaniel of the Cubs who had won the 1960 prize as a Cardinal.

Also repeating in second place was Ron Perranoski of the Dodgers. Once again it appears that the writers' votes were based strictly on saves only as McDaniel had 22 saves and a 13-7 record for the Cubs while Perranoski had 21 saves with a 16-3 record for the Dodgers. Both pitchers had 75 K's but Perranoski had a lower ERA.

Tied for 3rd place was Jack Baldschun and Roy Face with 16 saves each. Baldschun earned his way onto this fake card by winning 11 games in 1963 compared to only 3 wins for Face.

1964 Topps AL Leading Firemen: Miller, Radatz and Dailey

In 1963 Stu Miller was named The Sporting News Fireman of the Year. This was originally said to be given to the player with the most Saves and Relief Wins but was voted on by the writers and thus subjective. In 1963 Miller led the league in saves with 27 and had 5 wins. Dick Radatz had 25 saves and 15 wins, all in relief. It appears as though the 1963 award was given to the player strictly with the most saves. Dick Radatz, the 1962 recipient of the award, had the the better overall record for a reliever. Radatz also had more strikeouts and a lower ERA. 

There were 3 pitchers tied for 3rd with 21 saves, Bill Dailey of the Twins, Hoyt Wilhelm from the White Sox, and John Wyatt of the A's. Of the 3 Bill Dailey had the best overall record at 6-3 with 72 K's and a 1.99 ERA. That was enough to earn him the 3rd spot on this fake card.

Wilhelm was 5-8 with 111 K's and a 2.64 ERA and Wyatt was 6-4 with 81 K's and a 3.13 ERA.

1977 Topps Rookies: Page, Henderson, Rozema, Bannister

After switching to a single series in 1974, Topps did a poor job of  getting star rookies onto cards their rookie season. in 1977, eight players received Rookie of the Year consideration, only 3 made it into the Topps set for that year

In my last post I created a 1977 card that never was for the AL ROY, Eddie Murray who was conspicuously missing from the set. For this post I am creating a single rookie card for 4 others who received Rookie of the Year votes but were left out by Topps. The sad truth is, other than the Hall of Famers at the top of the ballot the rest were pretty forgettable. 

I don't want to give the wrong impression, all of these players had respectable baseball careers ranging from 6-15 years. They were just, well, forgettable. Bump Wills had the notoriety of being Maury Wills' son. Floyd Bannister was the only one to play in an All Star game. Just once and it was the same year he led the league in strike outs, then followed it up in 1983 as part of the "Winning Ugly" White Sox. 

Speed apparently played a big part in ROY voting. Four ROY candidates had double-digit steals. Dawson had 21, Wills had 28, Mitchell Page had 42 and Gene Richards had 56.

The 3 players who were included in the 1977 set appeared on 2 cards. Gene Richards shared a card with the NL Rookie of the Year Andre Dawson.

Bump Wills was also included on a multiplayer rookie card.

1977 Topps Eddie Murray

 In 1977 Eddie Murray and Andre Dawson were the Rookies of the Year. Both went on to be enshrined in Cooperstown.  Its not often that both AL and NL Rookies of the Year land in the Hall of Fame. 

In 1956 it was Luis Aparicio and Frank Robinson.

In 1967 we had Rod Carew and Tom Seaver.

And the most recent is Eddie Murray and Andre Dawson in 1977. The 2001 ROY's Ichiro and Albert Pujols, look like they have a pretty good chance but that is a fairly long drought.