#19 Dennis Eckersley
Ouch, this was a poor picture I took. The back of the card isn't blurry. I just hurried my work on this. All I can tell from the card back is that Eckersley had long hair, played one year for the Indians and Kellogg's wrote a lot about him.
From a cleaner card back - he had a 13-7 record and 2.60 ERA as a rookie. That was the third lowest ERA in the AL. He was a "baseball, football and basketball enthusiast in high school."
#20 Bill Madlock
Another bad shot by me. And this is one of my favorite Cubs. That's an impressive career average for his first 279 career games - .336.
Not on the card - he repeated as batting champ in 1976 and was promptly traded for Bobby Murcer and Steve Ontiveros. He won two more batting titles for Pittsburgh in the early 1980s. His career average was .305.
#21 George Scott
My failures to take a picture continue. Scott led the league in RBIs and shared the HR title with Reggie Jackson.
Not on the card - how does a guy lead the league in the two categories above as well as total bases, win a Gold Glove and still finish only 8th in the MVP voting? Remember this was 1975 - Fred Lynn and Jim Rice dominated headlines and finished 1st and 3rd respectively in the voting. Pitchers Jim Palmer and Rollie Fingers finished ahead of him as did John Mayberry, Reggie Jackson and Thurman Munson. Tough break for George C. Scott, Jr.
Took me years before I discovered that Eck had another rookie card outside of his Topps issue. I love it. Any idea how many other Kellogg's cards are out there that feature players who had rookie cards issued the same year?
ReplyDeleteI think I've read something about that before. Tony Horton had a long career for someone who never had a Topps card. Mark Fidrych had a Kellogg's card and his Topps rookie card in the same year. More after I check this out.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up. I'm gonna need to track down a Fidrych. Just discovered that Eddie Murray's has a 1978 Kellogg's and a 1978 Topps card. Adding that one to my list too.
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