#410 Dave Kingman

Card thoughts: Dave Kingman was not known for his sunny demeanor, so I’m guessing that is a smirk and not a smile on his face. Kingman, along with Bill Buckner, were my “Favorite” players as a five year old. So says the vague mist of my Bruner Street memories.

The player: Kingman was nicknamed “Kong” because his titanic home runs, especially at Wrigley Field. He legendarily hit a ball out of the stadium 550 feet, landing on a porch three doors down from Waveland on Kenmore Avenue.

A tall, gangly man, Kingman was not much of a fielder, runner, or hitter, other than home runs. With a long, looping, uppercut swing, Kingman generally would only hit home runs or singles, but he often struck out too, which led to low RBI countsand batting averages, despite the home runs.

As a kid, Kingman moved around a lot, as the family followed the patriarch in his career as a United Airlines executive, eventually ending up in Chicago. In high school (not surprising due to his lean, tall frame) Kingman lettered in basketball, but was not known as a baseball player (although he did play American Legion ball).

At USC, he began as a pitcher in 1969, but switched to the outfield a year later, hitting .355 and slugging .702. This led to him being drafted in the first round by the Giants. Assigned to AA Amarillo, Kingman slugged 15 home runs in just 210 at bats. Moving up to Phoenix the next year, he apparently got the nickname “The Hammer” while leading the PCL in home runs with 29.

Believe it or not, the lanky Kingman began his major league career as a third baseman.  Called up near the end of ’71 season, he hit his first “moon shot” off of a parked car in the lot outside Shea Stadium. He also suffered through a bout of appendicitis, leading to emergency surgery.

In 1972, he started at third, but his fielding was so atrocious, Steve Ontiveros had to take over after about 60 games. Reduced a utility role the following season, Kingman continued to hit for low average, and field terribly. The only tool her really had was his power . . . but that was mega-plus tool, as his slugging percentage was consistently 200 points higher than his batting average.

The power wasn’t enough for the Giants however, and he was sold to the Mets in 1974. This is where Kingman really blossomed, hitting 36 home runs in 1975, and another 39 in 1976, where he was named the starting rightfielder in the All-Star game. In 1977, everything fell apart for Kingman, as he eventually played for four teams (the Mets, Padres, Angels, and Yankees). Among all the stops, Kingman managed to hit 26 home runs and drive in 78.

Kingman became a star again for the Cubs in 1978, where he would have his best seasons. Kingman and Wrigley Field was a match made in heaven, especially when the wind was blowing out. Kingman hit above .250 for the first time all three years he spent with the Cubs, which led to his monstrous 1979 season, where he led the majors in home runs (48) and slugging percentage. He also twice hit three home runs in a game, and hit five home runs in two games.

Kingman once again went from hero to goat in 1980, as he was injured most of the year, and he dumped a bucket of ice on a reporter. Perhaps Kingman was jealous. His nearly unreadable (ghost-written) column ran for a time in the Chicago Tribune, prompting famous writer Mike Royko to write a parody column with the byline “Dave Dingdong.” A private person, Kingman asked his teammates not to comment on his private life, and stated he didn’t think about baseball after the game was over.

The Cubs tired of his surly attitude, and he was sent back to the Mets for Steve Henderson. New owner Nelson Doubleday was reacquiring all of the stars they traded away in the 70s (unfortunately, all were well past their prime). Kingman proved to be unpopular in his return, and dubiously led the league in home runs in 1982 while hitting just .204, less than Cy Young award winner #120 Steve Carlton.

With the arrival of Keith Hernandez, Kingman played sparingly at the end of 1983. He was gone to the American League by 1984, in his Natural role as designated hitter, one he would fill the rest of his career with Oakland. He hit over 30 home runs each of the three years he played with the A’s, his best season being 1984 when he hit .268 with 35 home runs and 118 RBIs. 1987 was his last year, despite hitting 35 home runs and driving in 94 (but hitting .210).

With a career total of 442 home runs, Kingman was the first person with over 400 home runs not to make the Hall of Fame (steroid-era players will probably break that mark). Part of the problem was his 1800 or so strikeouts, fourth all time when he retired, and .236 career average. His home run total, however, is really impressive when you consider he played in a low home run era.

Rear guard: Miscut! Highlights of Kingman's 1985 season include hitting his 400th home run on August 10th against Seattle. The blast came off of Matt Young. 

#378 Bruce Bochte

Card thoughts: Squint hard. This card looks almost identical to the #271 Dave Collins card, especially since the players look similar, the picture was taken at the same place, and they are both emerging from the same dugout. As for the glasses, Bochte rarely wore them until the 80s on his baseball cards.

The player: One of the few good players on the early Mariners teams, Bochte’s career reminds me of Mark Grace’s. Both players were high-contact hitters, who sprayed line drives consistently all over the field, hit a ton of doubles, and drove in a lot of runs, despite not hitting a lot of home runs.

A second round draft pick out of Santa Clara University, Bochte made it to the majors in just three years, having hit over .300 at every minor league stop. A below average defender at first, nonetheless Bochte started the majority of games there for the Angels in 1975, due to his superior bat.

After that season, Bochte was a man without a regular position in his remaining time with the Angels, also seeing time in leftfield, rightfield, and designated hitter.  A good hitter with little pop (he never had a slugging percentage above .400, despite hitting near .300 most years), he was eventually traded in early 1977 to the Indians for Dave LaRoche and Dave Shuler. The Indians were a terrible, broke team in those days, so they were unable to keep Bochte, their starting leftfielder, when free agency beckoned.

Signing with the Mariners, Bochte became the team’s first star hitter. The Kingdome was known as a favorable power hitter’s park, and Bochte took advantage in 1978, hitting a career high 11 home runs. But he really turned it on in ’77, when he hit 38 doubles and drove in 100 runs, raising his OPS above .800. Bochte even got a chance to play in his first all star game, in front of the hometown fans.

He remained an integral part of the heart of the Mariners order until 1983, when he refused to play as a personal protest against rising player salaries. Strangely enough, he returned without explanation in 1984, signing with the A’s. After a year to shake off the rust (he hit just .264 and slugged just .345), he had returned to form during the season shown on this card. But Bochte’s unease with the baseball business never really abated, and he ended up retiring after 1986, to replaced by Mark McGwire.

In retirement, Bochte has devoted himself to the ecology movement, and has completely cut himself off from his baseball past, except for talks with former teammate Dusty Baker for some reason. He is the executive director of the Center for the Story of the Universe, which is interested in religious cosmology, or an attempt to explain creation without the existence of God (agnostic). The Center is the research arm of the California Institute of Integral Studies, which seems like a new age college. I'm going to give him credit: At least he's not running a baseball "school."

Rear guard: The fact that there is no "club" listed in 1983 is a dead giveaway that something strange was up.

#353 Keith Atherton

Card thoughts: This picture is nearly identical to his card in 1985, except he's looking in a different direction. But nothing looks worse than his cards in 1989, where he was sporting some seriously ugly glasses (and, on this traded card, was wearing eye black beneath them for some reason).

The player: Atherton was one of those workhorse middle relievers so common in the 70s and 80s. Although he never pitched over 60 games a year, he frequently went over 100 innings of work.

Judging by his minor league record, Atherton was a slow learner as he generally spent two years at each level. Despite being a starter in the minors, Atherton made his debut as a reliever in July of 1983, and would never start a game in the majors. For the next few years, Atherton inhabited the largely anonymous role of the  middle reliever, where his ERAs were generally above four, which was high for the time. In fact, his nickname in Oakland was “Boom Boom” because of all the home runs he gave up (by year: 7 in 1983, 13 in 1984, and 17 in 1985). Finally, after exhibiting a 5.87 ERA over 15 innings in 1986, Atherton was traded to the Twins for a bat and a bag of balls (actually, pitcher Eric Broersma, a 26 year old minor league veteran). With the Twins, he would have the best several months of his career in 1986, when he saved 10 games (tops on the team) and had a 3.75 ERA.

The next season, the Twins acquired reliever #35 Jeff Reardon, and Atheron was relegated to the middle relief role he was so accustomed to, and provided average work in the Twins World Series winning 1987 campaign, with his ERA just above league average and his WAR 0.1. With this example of mediocrity, Atherton was rarely used in either the ALCS or World Series, with Kelly preferring to go with 

more reliable relievers #47 Juan Berenguer and #324 Dan Schatzeder. After another year in the Twins pen, Atherton was traded to the Indians for pinch hitter Carmelo Castillo. Atherton was released soon after his final major league game, when he pitched a third of an inning and gave up three earned runs on four hits and a walk. 

Signed by the Tigers a few days later to a minor league contract, he pitched 6 games at Toledo but none in the majors. He signed another contract with the Expos in December, but he never made it out of spring training. 

Rear guard: Atherton's first win came after he relieved the unfortunately named Gorman Heimueller who had given up 5 runs to the Red Sox in just 3 2/3 innings of work. Atherton pitched the last 5 1/3 innings, and benefitted when the A's scored 7 runs off Bob Stanley.

#304 Mike Gallego

Card thoughts: Gallego looks like he's 14 in this picture.

The player: Gallego’s career was shows the value of being a good fielding utility infielder: Hang around long enough, and you might get a starting job. A very small man by baseball standards (standing just 5’8” and weighing in at 160 lbs), Gallego had a hard time driving the ball until later in his career.

Gallego was just starting his major league career when this card was issued. But he almost didn’t make it, as he was diagnosed with testicular cancer as a 22-year-old minor leaguer. At this point in his career, he generally appeared in the late innings at shortstop or second base. He only played 10 entire games in 1985, all at second. The reason was probably his lack of extra base power and .208 average.

That average kept him in the minors for most of the following season, but his .701 OPS got him back to the majors for good by 1987. As part of the A’s dynasty of the late 80s/early 90s, Gallego’s role was generally to sacrifice guys over, or make productive outs, so the big RBI men on the club (Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire) could knock them in. He gained his first starting role in 1989, as he supplanted Walt Weiss at the position while the latter worked through his sophomore jinx.  Manager Tony LaRussa started him in the ALCS, but opted for Weiss in the World Series. Gallego hit .273 in the ALCS.

With Weiss back starting at short the following year, Gallego shifted back to a utility role, although he led the league with 17 sacrifice hits. With the collection of veterans the A’s had been starting at second the previous few years gone by 1991, Gallego was named starter at that position and he had his best season, reaching highs in games (159), runs (67), hits (119), home runs (12), and OPS (.712).

On the strength of that season, he signed a big three-year contract with the Yankees for over $5 million. But other than the 1993 season, when he set a career high with 51 RBIs, he never came close to 1991 again.  A broken wrist after being hit by a pitch in 1992 limited him to around 50 games, and he lost playing time to Randy Velarde in 1994.

After a year back with his original team (Oakland), Gallego signed with the Cardinals for the 1996 season. He set a dubious record that year, as he had the most straight hits without an extra base hit as a non-pitcher in the modern era.

Gallego played his last game July 23, 1997. He is currently the third base coach for the A’s, and can be found on twitter.

Rear guard: All the highlights are from the season just ended when this card was issued. Gallego broke camp with the A's, and made his debut subbing for Alfredo Griffin at short in the late innings in a blowout. Notice it would be another 4 months before he drove anyone in (it was Steve Henderson, and came in the 8th inning after he entered the game, once again, as a defensive replacement for Alfredo Griffin.) 

#281 Steve Mura

Card thoughts: I really like the lighting on some of these A’s cards. The dark green of the A’s name really matches the dark coloring of these photos. Also: this is another card and player I have no recollection of. Who is Steve Mura?

The player: Well, this would be Steve Mura’s last Topps card, which is probably why I don’t remember him. Mura was a journeyman pitcher who pitched with the Padres, Cardinals, White Sox, and A’s in his seven year major league career, only making a positive mark on the World Champion 1982 Cardinals.

Mura was no great shakes in the minors, as he was an innings eater, but tended to walk a ton of guys and sport high ERAs. And although he won in double digits, he also lost at the same rate.

There must have been something abut his arm that the Padres liked, because he was brought up in a bit in 1978, and a lot more in 1979 where he was effective. mostly out of the bullpen, where he had a 3.08 ERA with 2 saves in 73 innings.

Unfortunately, the Padres attempted to make him a starter and after a decent 1980 season,  he was horrific in the 1981 season, leading the league in losses and only winning 5 games.

Mura was part of a huge deal to the Cardinals that also included recent post subject #278 Sixto Lezcano (this was the deal where the main players were #90 Garry Templeton and Ozzie Smith). He would have his best season in 1982, going 12-11. But at closer glance, Mura benefitted more by having a more potent offense and defense behind him rather than any better pitching (although Mura credited the turnaround to ditching a slider in favor of a curve-cutter combination). His ERA and WHIP were similar to the previous season, when he lost 14 games, and he actually had a worse strikeout-to-walk  ratio (80 walks, 84 strikeouts). This led to Mura being left off the post season roster, so although he got a World Series ring, he didn’t contribute in the series.

In a transaction you don’t see anymore, Mura was chosen as the “free agent compensation pick.”  Initially, the White Sox picked Rudy May from the Yankees, but he was ineligible. Mura was compensation for the White Sox losing Steve Kemp to that team.  When informed about the loss of Mura, Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog reportedly shrugged and said “big deal.”

Well, Whitey was right, and Mura barely contributed to the White Sox division crown. In a scant 12 innings, he threw 5 wild pitches and walked 6. For this, he was banished to minors. Despite this evidence of his ineffectiveness, Mura criticized manager Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan for not using him in the starting rotation. Once demoted to AAA Denver, matters didn’t improve as he lost 11 games. 

He spent the entire 1984 season at AAA Portland where was once again pretty crappy. But a good start to the season at Tacoma, the A’s top farm club, convinced them to bring him up and have his picture taken for this card. Mura is an odd choice for a card in this set, as he only ended up pitching 48 innings. Perhaps it’s because rookie Tim Birtsas refused to sign a contract for a Topps card that season, and Mura was the last minute substitution. At any rate, this season would be the end of his professional career.

Rear guard: Bert "Campy" Campanaris (airbrushed as a Ranger on the card representing this season) rose to prominance in the 70s by being an integral part of the A's dynasty. He led the league in steals 6 times, and his 54 steals in 1976 were the most since 1969. Campanaris actually only stole one base the day cited in the "Talkin' Baseball" box. The five steals actually came on May 24th of that year against the White Sox. 

With 649 career stolen bases, he has stolen the 14th most bases in history.

#271 Dave Collins

Card thoughts: The huge wire-rimmed glasses just scream 1985 (I had a similar pair that year). Collins is either determined to get a pinch hit at Tiger Stadium, or he’s lining up his bat to whack a batting helmet off the dugout rail. If anyone can tell me who sleepy is sitting on the bench behind Collins, please do.

The player: Switch-hitting Dave Collins had a long career as a fourth outfielder/occasional starter but he never remained with a team for very long. He had one plus tool: blazing fast speed. And that was enough to keep him employed for 16 years.

Collins was drafted by the Angels in the first round of the 1972 draft and made his debut three years later. He split time as the primary left fielder and leadoff hitter with Morris Nettles. Despite his speed, Collins was not a particularly effective leadoff hitter as he rarely walked. 

After two years in a platoon situation, Collins was drafted by the Mariners in the 1976 expansion draft. He was the first batter in Mariners history, and also scored the franchise’s first ever run. Despite these feats, Collins hit poorly, only .239, and he was being caught stealing almost 30% of the time. 

Shipped to the Reds for Shane Rawley after just one season, Collins was essentially the Reds designated runner in 1978, having the same number of games (102) as at bats. The lack of playing time affected his numbers, and he only stole 7 bases and hit a meager .217. But the Reds decided lack of at bats, rather than talent, was the problem and he got more regular playing time in 1979 and he hit .318. Incumbent starting centerfielder Cesar Geronimo and Collins swapped roles the next year, and Collins responded with his best year to date, making the top ten in batting average (.303), runs scored (94), and steals (79). 

Moved to right field in 1981, Collins fielding wasn’t the best. With the acquisition of #224 Cesar Cedeno, there was no longer a place for him, and he signed with the Yankees as a free agent. After hitting a mediocre .253 and being caught stealing about half the time, Collins was involved in one of the many of terrible trades the Yankees made in the 80s. Along with future star Fred McGriff (then a minor leaguer) and Mike Morgan, he was traded to the Blue Jays for Tom Dodd (never pitched in the majors for the Yankees) and Dale Murray (4.73 ERA in the pinstripes).

Installed as the starting left fielder, Collins improved his base stealing percentage and hit .271. His best Blue Jay season was in 1984 when he led the league in triples with 15 (despite having never again, or before, having double digits in triples). His 24 doubles and 44 runs batted in were also career highs.

But the Blue Jays had an ever better left fielder, George Bell, on the horizon, so Collins was traded with Alfredo Griffin to the team you see on this card for Bill Caudill. He could not replicate his 1984 season, and was soon shipped off again, this time to the Tigers. 1986 was the last year Collins would play in over 100 games. His speed was invaluable on a team with a bunch of aging, thumping plodders.

Collins would be on the move gain, playing three seasons as a backup outfielder for the Reds, before playing in 99 games (but with only 58 at bats!) as a reserve first baseman/outfielder for the Cardinals in 1990.

Collins had been the first base coach for the Cardinals (1991-1992), Reds (1999-2000), Rockies (2006-2009), and Marlins (2010). He’s also managed in the minors and coached high school baseball. Presently, Collins works with at risk youth through in the juvenile justice division of Lighthouse Youth Services.  

Rear guard: Collins has the same expression on his rookie card, except there a terrible fu manchu mustache surrounds his tight lipped pout. 

The game Collins got his five hits was a wild one, as the Angels beat the Rangers 12-11 in 11 innings. In a rare display of power, Collins slugged a double and a triple to go along with his three singles, one of which tied the game in the bottom of the 11th. He also stole a base and was caught once.