1978 Kellogg's Baseball Card Backs #37 - 39

So, I survived the marathon only to get caught up in two other big things this week - hosting our conference cross country meet and having two days of parent-teacher conferences.  Luckily, I teach at a competitive school so the conferences weren't bad at all.

As for the meet, that took up lots of my waking hours this week since the actual course is 35 miles from my school.  For the first time in four years our team won, so that made the lack of sleep this week a bit easier to tolerate. 

Back to the countdown.

#39 - Bob Bailor

He was a rookie, he hit .310 and he was a Blue Jay.  I guess that made him a good choice since no Blue Jay exceeded 19 homers or 64 RBIs.  No pitcher exceeded 13 wins or eight saves.  It shouldn't surprise anyone that the team won only 54 games.  

Lots of professional athletes were stars in other high school sports.  Bob was an all-state basketball player - you don't see a lot of 5-10 guys doing that today.  

#38 - Alan Bannister

Bannister had the same career as Bailor.  Maybe they are twins separated at birth.  Both were #1 draft picks too.

                     years      G      AB     H    AVG  HR  SB

Bailor           75-85   954   2937   775   .264   09   90

Bannister      74-85   972   3007   811   .270   19  108

I think Bannister had a great start in 1977, which got him a card in 1978.  It also helped that the stars of the 1977 Southside Hit Men, Oscar Gamble and Richie Zisk, were gone from the White Sox after 1977.  

He got to the White Sox in a trade that sent Jim Kaat to the Phillies.  

Kellogg's mentioned that Bannister didn't have any power.  19 homers in 3007 at-bats in his career proved Kellogg's to be correct.  

Jim Kaat came up in a trivia question that I got partially correct recently.  I had to come up with a batter from the 1930s who faced a pitcher while that same pitcher faced a second hitter who played past the year 2000.  I didn't get Kaat without looking at a baseball database, but without using the computer I came up with a combination of three players that went from 1940 to 2007.  I had the other two players that combined with Kaat in this odd trio.  Any ideas?

#37 - Ralph Garr

This set certainly has some interesting choices for Chicago players.  The Road Runner was fun to watch.  At this point in his career his career average was .313.  

Not on the card - he finished his career with an average of .306.   He hit .307 during the 1970s.  Can you name the other five players who hit over .300 during the 1970s with at least 4,000 at-bats?  I made up that number to rule guys out who started in 1975.  

He won an NL batting title.  He attending "football famous" Grambling.