#617 - Jesse Gonder After an eight season big league career, Gonder last played a major league game on June 17, 1967. He played 91 games in 1968 in AAA. His 1969 action was limited to 27 games with the the Giants' AAA team in Phoenix. So why did he get a card?
#618 - Ramon Webster Webster split the season between the A's and AAA. For Oakland, he played in 64 games and hit .260. His career would end two years later with a 16 game stint with the Cubs.
#619 - Royals Rookies Butler made the Royals and spent his rookie season in their starting rotation. He was 9-10 in 29 starts. Pat Kelly was known most as the brother of Cleveland Brown's running back Leroy Kelly. Pat was able to make a name for himself with a 15 season career. He played in 112 games for the '69 Royals. Though spending the entire season with the Royals, 1969 would be Juan Rios' only year in the majors. He hit .224 in 87 games. He would hang on in the minors through 1974.
#620 - Dean Chance Topps has Chance in an Angels' uniform, though he had been with the Twins since 1967. In 1968 he was 16-16, starting 39 games. I would guess he was running into arm trouble because he started only 15 games in 1969 and was 5-4.
#621 - Bill Voss The hatless Voss in shown in the pinstripes of the White Sox, who traded him to the Angels in January, 1969. His first season with the Angels would be the only season of his career when he was a starter. He hit .261 as the right fielder, and then spent the rest of his career back on the bench.
#622 - Dan Osinski Yuk! Our third hatless player in a row. He is pictured at Fenway Park, as you can see the scoreboard in the Green Monster behind him. Osinski spent all of 1968 in AAA after spending the previous six seasons with four American League teams. Expansion created more roster spots and gave a player like him another shot at the majors. A native of NW suburban Barrington, the White Sox brought him home and signed him as a free agent in April. He spent the rest of the season on the south side, going 5-5. That's not to bad considering the Sox were 68-94 that season.
#623 - Hank Allen Richie Allen's little brother had the best season of his career in 1969. He played in 109 games and hit .277. He would eventually join his brother with the White Sox in 1972-1973. Gee, I wonder who suggested that the Sox sign him??
#624 - National League Rookies We've got three players who had back-up careers that lasted at least ten seasons. Chaney played in 91 games as a 21 year-old rookie for the Reds. He would spend his 11 year career in a utility role. Duffy Dyer was a '69 Met. Harmon played in 87 games in 1969, which turned out to be the most in his ten year career.
#625 - Mack Jones He was the 4th pick in the NL expansion draft, so the Expos must have thought highly of him. He spent the season as the Expos' starting left fielder. Jones smacked 22 home runs and drove in 79 runs, second to Rusty Staub in both categories.
Overall Set Totals (player cards only)
Hall of Famers - 43
Hatless - 138
Airbrush - 96
Cubs (includes past, present, or future) - 91
Pat Kelly had a pretty good career and was the brother of Leroy Kelly of the NFL.
ReplyDeleteI just saw a post on Gonder on another blog. It said there that Gonder never even played for the Padres, and wasn't drafted by them in the expansion draft. Weird.
ReplyDeleteGonder: I guess Topps thought that Gonder would surely beat out Chris Cannizarro!
ReplyDeleteGonder was a hero of San Diego in the PCL in the early sixties. A newspaper quote from early 1969: "Gomez will be going with a minor league catcher unless Jesse Gonder, here on a look-see basis, is kept." The Padres also signed former Met Bobby Klaus as he was a PCL San Diego regular for three years. They pulled former Cub Chris Krug out of retirement for awhile since he was a local and they were desperate for catchers.
ReplyDelete