Beep-Beep Bye-Bye to Baseball

On this day in 1980 Ralph Garr was released by the Angels.  He played his last game a few days earlier.  Garr began playing in 1968 so he was one of those guys I grew up watching.

Lots of quizzes ask the question about final teams for a player.  I would never had known that Garr played 27 games over two seasons with the Angels.  I remember him as a batting champ for the Braves and a fine player for the White Sox in the softball shorts.  

This is one of my least favorite Kellogg's cards.  The lack of Braves logos is more apparent here than on almost any card that I can think of right now.  As one can see on the Seaver card below, Kellogg's was allowed to use team logos and Garr wasn't new to the Braves, so I don't know how they wouldn't have a photo of him to use.  What were they airbrushing over a minor league cap?  His last minor league game was in 1970.

Garr was a career .306 hitter.  Like many players in his generation his career was over at age 34.  Better conditioning year-round along with the insane money given even to bench players have resulted in players sticking around a lot longer.