1980 San Francisco Giants (5th): 75-86, 17GB

After watching the 1980 San Francisco Giants team video (click here to see it) I made note of a few things for this blog entry:

1. Hearing Al Michaels voice with Disco Music (aka the Village People) in the background can be a bit unsetting
2. The Giants were a team that had ballplayers that were better known for what they did while playing for other teams (Vida Blue) or in different eras (Willie McCovey)
3. There was a neat piece on Giant history and a salute to Stretch, who called 1980 his final season.  Stretch retired to “make room for the young players”.  As one pundit said, “No one needs to make room for players like Rich Murray (Eddie’s less talented brother) or Mike Ivie”.
4. The highlight of the season was when “they clawed their way back to 4 games under .500, just after the All-Star break”.  Granted they did reach the .500 mark at one point before fading, but they never seriously contended as the video leads you to believe “The Giants were 5.5 games out of 1st in early August after sweeping the Reds in Riverfront…”
5. Lindsay Nelson was their principle announcer.  Met fans just thought he retired when he left New York the season before.

So to sum things up, this was a Giants team that was 9 years removed from it’s last post season appearance.  They had a mixture of players that were not destined to have a winning record.  It was cold watching night games at Candlestick, but it was interesting watching where fly balls would bounce after it hit that chain link fence that surrounded the outfield.

What were the highlights of this forgettable season for Bay Area fans ?  Jack Clark (.284-22-84) emerged as a true power hitting superstar.  Al Michaels said, “The word is out, Jack Clark can throw”, which explained to us why runners weren’t running on Clark’s arm in right.  I got to see him play RF at Yankee Stadium a decade later and he threw a runner out at second from deep right, so I have to attest that Al “Can you believe in Miracles” might have been right.  Clark broke his hand in late August when he got beaned at Shea and the team went from mediocre to horrible.

Darrell Evans also hit 20 homers, but after that no one else hit even 10.  In fact, no one really hit on this team.  Terry Whitfield led the team with a .296 average, but he had just 4 homers.  Bill North played center in between Whitfield and Clark and he hit just .251.  He did manage to swipe 45 bases, but he was caught stealing almost half the time.  The outfield hit a combined total of 27 homers, with 22 of them coming from Clark.  You can’t when you don’t get at least 25 homers or 150 stolen bases from your outfield.

Vida Blue (14-10, 2.97) was the ace of the staff.  The rest of the starters were horrible.  Ed Whitson (11-13, 3.10) looked to be a hard luck loser on the surface, but if you knew anything about this guy you’d know that he found ways to be just a bit worse than his opposing number on the hill.  The pen was quite good.  In fact it might have had the most depth in the league and if manager Dave Bristol used it like modern managers he might have actually won 10-15 more games…but this was 1980 and relievers weren’t yet the specialists that Tony Larussa would make them later on in the decade.

18 new cards were created to finish the set.

The highlight of this bunch, for me at least, is my colorization for the Jeff Stember card.  A forgettable player with an unforgettable card.  That’s the kind of work that I major in !  I love the pose of Rich Murray on his card.  He has his index finger pressed up against his lips.  I can almost see the caption, “Shush, don’t keep telling them I’m Eddie’s brother, because when they see my stats they won’t believe you”.  Some day I’ll find that illusive color photo of Bill Bodley !  Until then we will have to live with a grainy B&W shot.  Got to love the look on Jim Wohlford’s face.  By this point in his career he had to be thinking to himself, “I can’t even get to play regular in an outfield that hit a combined 27 homers…how bad am I ?”

1980 San Diego Padres (6th): 73-89, 19.5GB

The Friars started out the season 3-0 and hung around the .500 mark until early June.  After that, it was a slow but sure drop to the basement like usual.  Their offseason blockbuster deal that saw them send future HOF'er Gaylord Perry and Tucker Ashford to Texas for Willie Montanez turned out to be a bust.  Ozzie Smith's 621 assists by a shortstop was a major league record.  Still the Padre brass worried that the skinny kid with the good glove would never hit enough.  Dave Winfield, baseballs all around best athlete hit .276 with 20 homers and 87 RBI.  Catcher Gene Tenace was the only other Friar in double figures for homers.  This was a powerless team that had good speed.  Smith stole 57 bags.  LF'er Gene Richards swiped 61 and CF'er Jerry Mumphrey, who was acquired in the offseason from Cleveland for the immortal Bob Owchinko, swiped 52.  Winny, who was their one true power threat stole 20, which put him in the 20-20 club at a time where that meant something.  1976 Cy Young Award winner Randy Jones (5-13, 3.91) took a huge step back.  John Curtis (10-8, 3.51) was the only starter with double digit wins.  Rollie Fingers, who was wasting his talent on this last place team, managed to save 23, while throwing 103 innings.  He also sported an 11-9 (2.80) record.  Gary Lucas (5-8, 3.24, 3sv) and Bob Shirley (11-12, 3.55, 7sv) also saw a lot of action in relief of a very pedestrian starting staff.

22 new cards were made to complete the set.

Slip pickens when it came to those 3 rookie panel card offerings that I used.  Couldn’t find useable photos large enough to fit a regular card.  That Eichelberger card is quite interesting.  Not too often does a pitcher pose on his knees in an on deck batter type look, plus he’s not even looking into the camera.  Looks like an unsolved mystery here.  I still like that Barry Evans photo that came from the 1979 yearbook.  What a classic.  Who can forget Randy Bass, start of the Nippon leagues?

NL West

So we are headed down the home stretch with this project, so today we will focus on the NL “Wild West”.  For most of the season 3 teams battled for the flag.  Defending divisional champs, the Cincinnati Reds, hung tight until the latter part of the summer then began to lose ground and eventually fade away.  The real race came down to the upstart Houston Astros, who in their 19 year (to this point) history never visited the post season and the LA Dodgers, who were perennial contenders.  During the season the divisional lead changed hands 7 times between these two team.  With the Astros up by 3 games heading into a 3 game showdown with the Dodgers the schedule maker couldn’t have drawn things up much better.  Houston needed to win 1 in 3 and the NL West Flag was theirs.  On Friday October 2nd they did battle in Chavez Ravine with Ken Forsch and Don Sutton fighting to a 2-2 stalemate that went to extra innings.  A dramatic walk off homer by Joe Ferguson gave the Dodgers the win and another day of life.  Sutton, who left after 8 innings did not get the win.  A chubby kid from Mexico that no one knew much about, named Fernando Valenzuela was the winner.  The following night Jerry Reuss outduelled the great Nolan Ryan for a 2-1 victory to cut Houston’s lead to 1 game with 1 left.  The ‘Stros needed to close out the Dodgers or we head to a 1 game playoff game on Monday.  Houston jumped out to a 3-0 lead and chased Dodger starter Burt Hooton from the hill.  Manager Tom Lasorda was forced to go deep into his pen.  Luckily for him it was September and the roster was at 40.  LA chipped away with runs in the 5th and the 7th to make it a 1 run game, but time was beginning to run out.  In the bottom of the 8th Steve Garvey’s hot smash ate up Enos Cabell and the Dodger All-Star firstbaseman reached first on an error.  Ron Cey followed with one of the biggest homers of his career to put LA up by 1.  The normally reserved Dodger crowd, which more often than not left games by the 7th inning, sounded more like a Brooklyn crowd 3 decades earlier.  Steve Howe and the Dodgers hung on for the win and so we head to a winner take all game 163 on Monday.  After 3 consecutive 1 run wins the Dodgers battled back from 3 games down to force this one game playoff.  The drama lines were set, but the script that was written was not up to par for Hollywood.  The Astros scored early and often and chased Dodger starter Dave Goltz from the hill, after 3 innings, then beat up on a young Rick Sutcliffe for some insurance.  All the while Joe Niekro and his knuckleball were keeping the Dodgers hitters tied up.  After three hours and ten minutes of pain and suffering for the 51,000+ fans the Astros were finally crowned Divisional Champs.  Niekro’s 20th win would be his biggest win ever.  An exhausted Astros team had little time to celebrate before facing the NL East Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

1980 Kansas City Royals (1st): 97-65, 14Up

The Royals had their way with the West and won this thing in a cakewalk.  Before the summer hit they had served notice that they were the class of the division.  Manager Jim Frey did a masterful job keeping his team sharp and on edge despite the fact that they really didn't have much to play for.  The biggest excitement for the team was watching future HOF'er George Brett (.390-24-118) flirt with .400.  I'd have to bet that even Ted Williams was rooting for Brett to get over the .400 mark, because Brett was his type of player.  KC had 6 guys, including Brett who stole more than 10 bases.  No one struck out 100 times, so KC flat out exhausted opposing pitchers.  Even the bench was formidable.  27 year old Dan Quisenberry, who bounced around the minors for a long time, emerged as an All-Star closer saving 33 games and posting a 1-7 (3.09) record in 128 innings on the hill.  When he tired Marty Pattin (4-0, 3.64, 4SV) stepped up.  All 5 Royals starters had a winning record.  Dennis Leonard (20-11, 3.79) and Larry GUra (18-10, 2.94) were co-aces.  Paul Splittorff won 14 and Rich Gale won 13.  Fifth Starter Renie Martin (10-10, 4.39) was a winner as well.  The high point of the season had to be the ALCS sweep of the Evil Empire, which might not have avenged the 3 consecutive ALCS loses in the 70's, but it sure created euphoria as the Royals won their first pennant in the franchise's 12th season in existence.

I had a lot of fun colorizing the Rawly Eastwick photo for his card.  That guy was sure well traveled after he had his great two seasons in Cincy.  That Omaha Bob Detherage card is scary.  He does look a little grim reaper-ish.  Tough to believe Rusty Torres story, but the witnesses didn’t lie.  I felt a bit of contempt for him and didn’t do more than a simple airbrush and color change for his headshot.  Ken Phelps looks a bit goofy in his photo.  Maybe he was looking into his crystal ball and couldn’t believe Steinbrenner would eventually trade Jay Buhner for him, just like Frank Costanza couldn’t believe it.