 |
 |
Beginning in 1961, Topps started including league leader cards in its sets and there are 12 league leaders cards kicking off the 1965 Topps set.
July 8, 2020 from Cincinnati, OH - Card #116
In need of some cardboard therapy as we approached the four month anniversary of the start of our social distancing, I went on a mini eBay binge the first week of July. We had a vacation planned for the last week of June, first week of July, and that vacation had been unceremoniously cancelled at some point in April. Major League Baseball was showing signs of coming back, the Black Lives Matter movement was finally gaining momentum, the pandemic showed no signs of going away any time soon and a complete lack of intelligent national leadership wasn't helping anything or anybody. I needed some old baseball cards.
17 cards arrived on July 8th, including this pitching leaders card purchased from Dean's Cards for $10.50. I browsed the Dean's Cards eBay store, setting a reasonable budget and determined to click Buy It Now on 10 cards. Another group of 7 cards were won in eBay auctions from Greg Morris Cards on the same day. The 17 cards added put us just over the 20% completion point for our 1965 Topps set.
 |
 |
 |
I've always wondered why Topps labelled these cards "Pitching Leaders" and not "Victory Leaders" since they were showcasing the pitchers with the most wins? Admittedly, I'm way more familiar with Juan Marichal (#50) than I am with either Larry Jackson (#420) or Ray Sadecki (#230), and Jackson even played for the Phillies for three seasons.
1964 was Jackson's best season statistically speaking, as he went 24-11 with a 3.14 ERA, finishing second in the Cy Young voting behind the Angels' Dean Chance (#140). He would have won the award if it had been split between leagues at the time, but Major League Baseball didn't start awarding two Cy Young Awards - one for each league - until 1967. Jackson had never won 20 games before in his career, and he wouldn't repeat the feat again. He won 14 games for the Cubs in 1965 and was a 15-game winner with the Phillies in 1966. His 24 wins are even more impressive when measured against the Cubs performance for the entire year. The Cubs won 76 games in 1964, with Jackson winning almost a third of those games.
Future Hall of Famer Marichal won 21 games in 1964 and he'd reach the 20-win plateau in six of his 16 seasons in the majors. Marichal topped the league in wins in 1963 with 25 and 1968 with 26. This was Sadecki's only 20-win season and while he'd pitch until 1977 he'd never win more than 12 in a season again. Sadecki's 20th win came on September 29th, and if not for that win there would have been a five-way tie for third place in the N.L. victories category.
Previous Card: #9 1964 A.L. Pitching Leaders
Next Card: #11 1964 A.L. Strikeout Leaders
Yet on the card backs, they always said "Victory Leaders".
ReplyDelete