No April Fool's Joke Today

I don't have anything odd to mention about April's Fools Day.  It is the birthday of two players with Kellogg's cards - Phil Niekro and Willie Montanez.  Niekro allegedly played April Fools on every batter he faced in his long career.

Who was the winner in the battle between Niekro and Montanez?  Montanez had 74 plate appearances against Niekro.  He was only 14-for-63 with 10 walks and 1 HBP.  That's a .222 average for a guy who hit .275 in 14 seasons.  He had no homers and only 6 RBIs against the knuckeballer.

What Else Did Kellogg's Say on the Back of Its 1981 Cards - #45 - #37

Not every card has interesting comments on the back.  Some stick to the basic stats and facts.


#45 Ron Guidry - threw Louisiana Lightnin' which Kellogg's seems to be calling his fastball.  He was mentioned to be a late bloomer since he joined the starting rotation at age 26.  Not on the card - websites list Louisiana Lightning as his nickname.


#44 Phil Garner - 12-for-24 in the World Series which was one hit shy of the record.

#43 Larry Bowa - career MLB fielding percentage leader with .981.  He also has the season best percentage with .991.  Not on the card - Wikipedia notes that he never made his high school baseball team.  Bowa is currently ninth all-time in fielding percent as a shortstop with .980.  Troy Tulowitzki leads at .985.

#42 Terry Puhl - his hobby is listed as winter sports.  He was rejected by the Expos at a special tryout camp in Canada.  Not on the card - it's easy to see that he grew up in Canada, eh.  (Three Canadian players Got a Kellogg's card)


#41 Rich Gossage - was a starter for the White Sox at age 19.  Went through the minors with Bucky Dent.

#40 Fred Lynn - the card mentions his trade to California and the broken toe that affected his 1980 stats.

#39 Ken Singleton - nothing interesting is mentioned.

#38 Tom Seaver - lists bridge as a hobby.  He's 12 K's short of 3,000 which will make him the fifth pitcher to do so.  Not on the card - I can't imagine a player today listing bridge as a hobby.

#37 Tug McGraw - bats right and throws left.  Only 14 players on Kellogg's cards do that and the only non-pitchers are Cleon Jones and Rickey Henderson.

Here is a Gold Glove Question for Everyone

I was looking at which players won the most Gold Gloves from 1969 -1982.  Ten players earned more than five Gold Glove Awards during those years.

Can you name the 10 players?  Hint: one of the 10 didn't get a Kellogg's card at all.  He ended up with eight Gold Gloves.  The leaders during these years earned nine Gold Gloves in 14 years.

Players who won five awards during these years who are just outside of the top ten are listed below.

Dwight Evans - won eight in his career.

Bob Gibson - won nine, all in consecutive seasons.

Doug Rader - won five, all in consecutive seasons.

Joe Morgan - won five, all in consecutive seasons.

Cesar Cedeno - won five, all in consecutive seasons.

Keith Hernandez - won 11 in his career.

Dave Concepcion - won five in his career.

1981 Kellogg's Card Backs #54 - #46 Lots of Text Even for a Guy Who Played 20 Years

Lots more writing to talk about on the 1981 Kellogg's card backs.  It is really small print for someone my age.  Another reason that more writing is included - the cards are larger than other years as the 1981s are standard baseball card size (3.5 x 2.5).

Kellogg's still managed lots of text for guys who played a long time.  Topps didn't always do that, skipping text when there were lots of years of stats.

#54 Joe Charboneau  Less than a month into the season he had a nickname (Super Joe) and a few months later a song ((Go Go Charboneau) that was #1 on the charts in Cleveland.  He quit in 1977 while in the minors due to lack of playing time but he returned in 1978.  Not on the card - the odd things he did and the fizzle of his career due to injuries.

#53 Paul Molitor - Rookie of the Year in 1978.  His lifetime average is .300 after three seasons.    

#52 Tommy John - won 43 games in the previous two years, the most in MLB.  He's called "The Bionic Man" because hit left elbow had to be rebuilt due to injury.  The doctor told him in 1974 that he'd never pitch again.   Not on the card - cool that the procedure is named for him instead of Dr. Frank Jobe.

#51 Alan Trammell - made the All-Star team.  He was mentioned as a likely permanent fixture on that team.  Not on the card - Not a bad call since he did make five more All-Star teams.

#50 Steve Carlton - won his third Cy Young Award tying him for the most all-time.  He is now the career leader in strikeouts for a lefty and he's got six career one-hitters.  Not on the card - he never threw a no-hitter but he was quite a hitter.  He hit 13 homers and batted .201 for his career.

#49 Rick Burleson - named the team MVP the Red Sox in 1979 and 1980.  A trade to California is mentioned.


#48 Carl Yastrzemski - he had 100 hits for 20 straight seasons.  Only Cobb and Aaron can join him in that category.  Not on the card - Pete Rose ended up with 23 staight seasons of 100+ hits while Yaz and Cobb had 20 in a row.

#47 Dave Kingman - missed lots of games after being injured crossing home plate.  This also led to his newspaper column being canceled in Chicago.  Not on the card - Chicago newspaper writer Mike Royko parodied Kingman's column in a rival paper.

#46 Lee Mazzilli - he stole 41 bases in 1980 and now has 122 in his Met career.  The Mets are so poor in the SB department that he already has a club record.  Not on the card - I didn't look up which record he held, but he only finished with 152 as a Met and Jose Reyes had 370.  Lee played nine more seasons and never surpassed 17 steals

I Don't Have any Dairy Queen Cards But There is a Good Story

On a hot summer day a Dairy Queen large shake sure hit the spot after a long day of caddying.  After getting the shake the ride home was almost two miles.  My shake never lasted the entire bike ride.  I wouldn't want to get home with it since someone would want me to share it with them.

A story today about one of my brothers sounded funny at first until I thought about the untold part of the story.  The story is true, but since I'm not sure when it happened, I'm going to do my best to come up with the rest of the story using an actual box score.

My brother is a big White Sox fan.  In 1993 the Sox made the playoffs only to lose to Toronto.  Another brother passed along the Dairy Queen incident today and I thought it would be more fun to create the story rather than wait for the truth.  Plus, the truth could possibly be a story without players who have appeared on a Kellogg's card.

On June 13, 1993 the White Sox played a Sunday afternoon game against the Royals in Kansas City.  The White Sox scored in the top of the ninth inning to tie the game.  In the 10th inning George Brett doubled and later scored when pitcher Donn Pall gave up another hit.

My brother, remembering that Donn Pall grew up within a few blocks of that Dairy Queen was quite frustrated by the outcome.  So what did he do?  He ran out of the house and threw his XL DQ shake into the street.  As the story was told to me, my brother's violent heave went sailing over my older brother's 1961 convertible that went by the name of "Flash".  Why was it called that?  When he bought it, the name was cheaply spray-painted on the side and my brother never painted over it.  The doors also didn't open but we didn't mind.

Why would he do that?  Did Pall's family own the DQ? How far did he throw it?  Why wasn't YouTube around yet?  I promise to update this story in the future unless it is too boring.

Two more questions arose from hearing this story today.  First, how did my brother get all the way home from DQ without finishing his shake?  He must have gotten a ride.  Back in my day we rode our bike or walked the 3.5 miles home from the golf course.  The younger generation was certainly soft.

Another question came to mind as well.  How was my brother already watching a White Sox day game on a Sunday?  This is the biggest day to make money as a caddie.  The only way I got home that early on a Sunday was if there was a flood or lightning.  Did I mention that this younger generation was soft?

I await answers to my questions.  Stay tuned.

Wow, the 1981 Kellogg's Set Has Lots of Player Write-Ups on the Back

I'm finally going to start looking at the back of the Kellogg's cards for this blog.  I started with the 1981 Kellogg's set since I've got more of these cards than any other year.  I bought a lot of them in two purchases a few years ago.

I found lots to write about from reading the backs so today I will only talk about cards #55 - #66. Subsequent posts will cover nine cards at a time as they are displayed on standard 9-pocket pages.

#66 Mike Hargrove - didn't play baseball in high school since his school didn't have a team.  After playing at Northwestern Oklahoma State University the Rangers took at chance on him in the 25th round of the draft.  Two years later he won the AL Rookie of the Year Award in what his Kellogg's card calls a "Cinderella Story".  Not on the card - This card did come out a year after Caddyshack.  Did they steal Carl Spacker's Cinderella Story line?

#65 Johnny Bench - it was mentioned that he'd have a good shot at 400 homers.  Not on the card - He finished with 389.

#64 Buddy Bell - the card mentions that his father (Gus) played in the majors and that his grandfather also played professionally (not in MLB).  Not on the card - Two of Buddy's boys (David, Mike) played in the majors as well.  Gus out-homered Buddy 206-201.  Buddy (5) got named to more all-star games than his dad who had four.  David added 123 homers and Mike accounted for two more.  That's a nice family total of 532.  

#63 Pete Rose - is only 74 hits from breaking Stan Musial's NL hit record.  

#62 Bruce Bochte - had 1,033 chances in a row at 1B without an error.  That was a team record.  Not on the card - The MLB record is 2,379.    

#61 Bob Horner - was labelled as the next MLB home run king.  Not on the card - He did hit 218 homers but he never stayed healthy enough to play more than 141 games in a season.  

#60 Mike Flanagan - his father and grandfather both played in the minors.  

#59 Larry Gura - it says he spent the first six years of his pro career trying to convince the world that he could pitch.  Not on the card - He never exceeded 65 innings in any of those seasons.  

#58 Steve Stone - owns a chain of restaurants.  He also had poetry published.  His college catcher was Thurman Munson.  

#57 Robin Yount - is expected to be the youngest player (age 25) to appear in 1,000 MLB games during the 1981 season.  Not on the card - He needed 12 games and since the strike was in mid-season I assume he earned that distinction.    

#56 Bruce Sutter - it took him six years to get our of the minors with the Cubs.  He is shown as a Cub in the photo but the trade to St. Louis is mentioned.   

#55 Rick Langford - he pitched 290 innings and had 28 complete games including 22 in a row, the most in a row since 1904.  Not on the card - Since 1904 only 497 times has a pitcher recorded more than 22 complete games in a season.  None have happened since 1980 and most were before WWII.  The most complete games in a season since 1981 is 21 by Ron Guidry in 1983.  

Why I Never Got A Kellogg's Card.....Part 1

By age 10 I was a tall left-handed thrower.  So that ruled out playing 2B, SS, 3B and catcher.  I never played those spots in organized games.  First base tended to be my home from age 8 to 12 since coaches liked to put tall lefties there.

There were two problems with that.  First, two or three years in a row I ended up on the team with the kid who threw the hardest in the league.  While that was good since I didn't have to bat against him, it meant that when he wasn't pitching he was throwing the ball to me from shortstop.  I just checked my hands and there seem to be no more marks from those days but I can still feel the pain of not having a first-basemen's glove that would have helped protect my hand.

The second problem - I was better at running on the field than standing still.  Every thing was okay except for one thing.  When a popup was hit directly too me I had problems catching it.

When we played baseball one-on-one at night or when no one else was around, we played behind Scottsdale Park in a game that I think was call one-on-one or fast-pitch.  A strike zone was drawn on the building and a rubber coated ball was used.  I hated this game since I was horrible at pitching.  When a pitcher gave up a hit, he had to go chase it.  Lots of chasing for me - there's another reason I became a runner.  I think there were specific markers that signified single, double, triple or homer but I can't remember that part.

So a shrewd coach decided when I was 12 to have me pitch twice.  The memories are unclear but a few things are still easy to recall.  First, I didn't retire the side and I remember being put back at first base both times.  Second, a kid that I didn't get along with got a double off of me and proceeded to heckle me quietly from second base.  I heard he went to reform school.  Should I feel good or bad about that?

Here is my best guess at my career pitching stats -

G - 2
IP - 1.0  -- hey I got a few guys out
H - 5
R - 4
BB - 0 -- everyone knew they could hit off me
K - 0 -- have you been reading this post?
ERA - 36.00
Kids sent to reform school - 1

Maybe if I struck that kid out he'd have gone to Harvard.  Maybe if I hit him with a pitch he'd have been in prison, so I guess it worked out somewhere in between.  I do know that if we have a Durkin Park Little League reunion he might want to borrow some of Barry Bonds' protective batting armor.