Why Were the 1977 SouthSide Hitmen Not a Hit on 1978 Kellogg's Baseball Cards?

The 1977 White Sox had a fun team.  The SouthSide Hitmen bashed 192 home runs, which helped them to a 90-win season.  It wasn’t enough to make the playoffs and things changed quickly after the season ended.

 1978 Kellogg’s cards were impacted by the changes to the team.  At least that is my guess.  Three White Sox cards are included in this Kellogg’s set, but the player selection is surprising.

Eric Soderholm had a big season hitting 25 homers.  Having his card in the set makes sense.

Ralph Garr is included.  This isn’t his first Kellogg’s card, so this isn’t a big surprise.  Garr was a .306 career hitter.  That’s pretty good for a guy whose card is in commons boxes.

Alan Bannister played more than 100 games at any position only once in his career.  This was 1977 with the White Sox.  He didn’t do much else to get himself on a card, so I checked the 1977 White Sox statistics to see how he was selected.Bannister was quite a utility player.  In his career he played over 100 games at second base, shortstop and in the outfield.  More on his amateur career in a future post.

Steve Stone was 15-12 but he was passed over until he won a Cy Young Award.  Now I think I’m getting somewhere. 

The top two home run hitters on the team were Oscar Gamble and Richie Zisk who both hit 30+ homers.  Both rent-a-players were gone as free agents after the season.  Kellogg’s probably had two spots for them but since they were free agents into November, Kellogg’s went ahead with other players.

My guess would be that Garr and Bannister were the replacements.  Zisk got on a Kellogg’s card with three teams anyway.  The disappointments were that (a) Gamble didn’t get on a card and (b) no one got to see the 1977 White Sox wearing their softball uniform shorts. 

I am adept at Photoshop but I don’t have free time now.  If I could request some homemade card, a Zisk and Gamble in the dark blue jerseys would be high on the list.