1976 Topps #104 - Cincinnati Reds

• 
  The Reds were my favorite team when I was growing up. I really liked watching Bench, Rose, Morgan, Concepcion, etc. play. I remember really being ticked off when the Big Red Machine started to break up in the late 70s. It was unbelieveable that they'd trade Tony Perez and let Pete Rose sign with another team. I also couldn't believe that they could actually fire Sparky Anderson!
• A fun thing to try with these team cards is to enlarge them and see how many players can be identified without looking up uniform numbers.

• Sparky had a great record as a manager. From 1970-1988 he had only one sub-.500 season (1971--.488). His later years with the Tigers were up and down, but he still definitely deserved induction to the Hall of Fame.

• Here is Sparky's Hall of Fame page. Sparky retired with the third-highest win total in history (only behind Connie Mack and John McGraw). Bobby Cox and Tony LaRussa have passed him, and Joe Torre is only four wins away, but they all took more seasons to do it.

A baseball manager is a necessary evil.
Baseball is a simple game. If you have good players and if you keep them in the right frame of mind then the manager is a success.
Just give me 25 guys on the last year of their contracts; I'll win a pennant every year.

1976 Topps #103 - Biff Pocoroba

• 
  I used to make fun of his name until I found out that my father's nickname as a kid was Biff. Whoops.

• Was this picture taken at a school?

• I also used to think the feathers on the sleeves were fish.

• Biff Pocoroba played for the Atlanta Braves from 1975-1984. He made one All-Star team (1978), but a rotator cuff injury slowed him down and he didn't do a whole lot after that.

• Biff played in the Braves organization from 1971-1974. He earned a promotion in 1975 after batting .311 for Savannah as a 20-year-0ld. Biff threw out 11 straight would-be base stealers during spring training. Unfortunately, he would only throw out 12 runners (out of 72 attempts) during the 1975 season. Pocoroba batted .255 in 188 at bats during the season with one home run.

• He had a similar year in 1976, batting .241 with no homers in 174 at bats. Biff's breakout season was in 1977 when be batted .290 with eight homers in 321 at bats.

• He made his only all-star appearence in 1978--he caught the 9th inning for the NL. He batted .242 with six home runs in 289 at bats that year.

• Pocoroba tore his rotator cuff in 1979 and was never the same player. He only had 38 at bats in 1979 and 83 at bats in 1980. The Braves tried him at 3B in 1981 and 1982. In 1981 Biff batted only .180 in 122 at bats. He rebounded to .275 in 120 at bats in 1982, but he was only a part-time player. Biff batted .267 in 120 at bats in 1983. He was released in April 1984 after making four pinch hitting appearances.

• Biff is now in the restaurant supply business (Sausage World) in the Atlanta area.
  

1976 Topps #102 - Jim Willoughby

Jim Willoughby pitched mostly out of the bullpen for the Giants, Red Sox, and White Sox between 1971 and 1978

• Jim started in the San Francisco Giants organization in 1967. He bounced around a lot between the parent San Francisco team and the AAA Phoenix Giants. I probably saw him pitch a few times, but I probably was too young to remember it. He was mostly a starter with Phoenix, although the parent club used him mostly as a reliever.
• After a cup of coffee in 1971, Jim had a pretty good year for the Giants in 1972. He was 6-4 with a 2.36 ERA in 11 starts. Willoughby didn't fare as well in 1973 (4-5, 4.68 in 39 games) or 1974 (1-4, 4.65 in 18 games). He was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Tom Heintzelman after the 1974 season. Jim spent the beginning of the '75 season pitching for AA Tulsa, then the Cards traded him to the Boston Red Sox for Mario Guerrero on July 4. Jim went 5-2 with a 3.54 ERA in 24 games for the Red Sox. Jim took the loss in game 2 of the 1975 World Series on an unearned run in the bottom of the 10th inning.
• Jim went 3-12, got 10 saves in 1976 and had a 2.82 ERA in 54 games in 1976.
• Jim was part of the "Buffalo Heads" in Boston during the mid to late 1970s. His SABR baseball biography page has more information about that.
• He went 6-2 with a 4.84 ERA in 1977 and then was purchased by the Chicago White Sox after the season.
• In his last season (1978), Jim was 1-6 with a 3.86 ERA for the White Sox. He pitched for two AAA clubs in 1979 but never made it back to the majors. Unknown to him at the time, he was pitching with type 1 diabetes.
• Jim had problems with alcohol and drugs during his career and after his career. Here is his website (there isn't much on there right now).

1976 Topps #101 - Pete LaCock

• Pete LaCock played for the Chicago Cubs (1972-1976) and the Kansas City Royals (1977-1980). He swung the bat fairly well in his first three years for the Royals, but he didn't have much power and was more known for his defense at first base.



• Pete made his major league debut on September 6, 1972 (my sixth birthday). He mostly played in the minors from 1971-1974 and finally stuck with the Cubs in 1975. He batted .306, .297, and .326 in his last three years in the minors.



• Pete had September looks in 1972, 1973, and 1974. He didn't show a whole lot during those looks. He stayed with the Cubs in 1975 and batted .229 in 249 at bats. LaCock batted .221 in 244 at bats in 1976 and then part of a three-way trade between the Cubs, Royals, and Mets. Pete ended up with the Royals.



• LaCock batted .303 in 218 at bats with Kansas City in 1977, splitting his time between 1B, DH, and the outfield. He struck out in his only at bat in the 1977 American League Championship Series.



• Pete had a similar season in 1978, batting .295 in 322 at bats as one part of a 1B platoon for the Royals. Pete had a much better ALCS in '78, batting .364 in 11 at bats.



• He played a lot of first base in 1979 and batted .277 in 408 at bats.



• Pete fell off badly in 1980, batting only .205 in 156 at bats. He didn't play in the post season. He was granted free agency after the season but didn't catch on with anyone.



• Pete did some managing and coaching in the minors after his playing career. He is currently the hitting coach for the Tucson Toros in the independent Golden Baseball League.



• Pete is the son of former Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall.

Trivia Thursday

I'm posting this because I'm on the road and can't get back to scan more cards for a bit. Post a comment if you want to give this question a shot (it was the AFLAC trivia question for a ballgame I watched a few days ago)...

Name the three players who played on a team on which their FATHERS played over 2000 games.

1976 Topps #100 - Jim Hunter

• 
  Jim Hunter had five 20-win seasons four for the Oakland A's and one for the New York Yankees. He was named to eight AL All-Star games and won the 1974 Cy Young Award. He started 35 or more games every year from 1967-1976 (which probably shortened his career).

• Jim started with the A's in 1965 and endured a few seasons with a below-average team before the new guys (Reggie, Bando, Rudi, Blue, etc.) came up. Hunter was the A's ace for most of the time he spent with them.

• Hunter was granted free agency after the 1975 season because of a goofy mistake by Charlie Finley. Jim signed with the Yankees and had two good years before arm problems shortened his career. He retired after the 1979 season.

• Jim was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1987. Here is a link to his Hall of Fame page. I can't tell from his plaque whether he went in as an Athletic or as a Yankee.

• Jim came down with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and died after a fall in 1999. Here is a Sports Illustrated article written during the last part of his life.

• Here is a 1980 Sports Illustrated article about life after retirement.

1976 Topps #99 - Lee Lacy

• 
  
  

• Lee Lacy began his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1972 and finished his career in 1987 with the Baltimore Orioles. He started playing minor league ball in the Dodgers' system in 1969 and immediately showed that he could hit the ball. His lowest minor league batting average was .293. The Dodgers brought him up in June 1972 after he was batting .372 for El Paso. He played 2B for the Dodgers in '72 and batted .259 in 60 games.

• Lee didn't do so well in 1973 (.207 in 135 AB), but did a bit better in 1974 (.282 in 73 AB as a backup infielder). Lacy had a breakout season in 1975 (.314 in 306 AB) but he was traded to the Braves in a multi-player deal that netted the Dodgers Dusty Baker. The Dodgers must have wanted Lee back--he was sent back to the Dodgers along with Elias Sosa for Mike Marshall on June 15. Lacy ended up batting .269 for the year. Lee had seasons of .266 and .261 in 1977 and 1978 while playing just about everywhere. Lacy appeared in three World Series ('74, '77, '78) with the Dodgers.

• Lacy signed with the Pirates as a free agent after the 1978 season and played on the 1979 World Championship club. He fell off a bit at at the plate (.247 in 182 AB) but was still a valuable part of the team. Lee bounced back in 1980 in a big way---he batted .335 with 20 doubles in 278 AB. He continued to be productive for the Pirates through the 1984 season.

• Lee signed with the Baltimore Orioles as a free agent after the 1984 season. He had seasons of .293, .287, and .244 in his last three seasons in the majors.

• Here is a 1980 Sports Illustrated article about the productive LF platoon of Lee Lacy and Mike Easler.
  
• I think Lee runs a baseball academy now. I saw a couple of references on TTM autograph sites about it, but I can't find anything else about it on the web.