My First Cards

By 1982, Ron Cey had cemented his legacy as a Dodger. He was a six-time All-Star, who’d just played in his 4th World Series.

Before all that though, back in 1968 when people were dodging the draft, Ron was drafted by the Dodgers and began his climb through the minor league ranks. He spent the rest of the summer with the Tri-City Atoms, slapping 76 hits in 74 games, and slugged .480.

The following summer he got better, batting .331/.419/.569 including 22 homers and 12 steals in 14 attempts, earning him a promotion to the Albuquerque Dodgers in the AA Texas League, where he also played well in 1970.

His major league debut happened on September 3, 1971, after slugging .588 in AAA all year. Although, he struck out in his only two plate appearances for Los Angeles.

The Dodgers felt he wasn’t quite ready for the show, so they sent him back to AAA for 1972. This is the year he started becoming the Ron Cey we all know and love, as he hit .329/.455/.546, drew 117 walks, in 142 games in Albuquerque. Of course, he was recalled in September to Los Angeles, but this time he went 2-for-3 in his first ever major league start.

He would never play another minor league game.

He received 4% of the Rookie of the Year votes in ’73, coming in 6th (tied with fellow Dodger infielder Davey Lopes). If the baseball fans back then knew anything about WAR, they probably would’ve felt Ron didn’t get enough love in the voting, as he posted the 2nd best WAR (3.6) among all the rookies who received votes.

The American League’s first taste of Ron Cey came in the 1974 All-Star game, the first of six consecutive All-Star appearances for the Dodger third baseman. In his first plate appearance, he smacked a run producing double off future Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry to give the NL a 1-0 lead in the 2nd inning. By the way, the player who scored off the hit, was fellow Dodger infielder Steve Garvey, who was also playing in his first All-Star game.

At the end of ’74, he murdered Pittsburgh in the NL Championship series with a .313/.421/.688 batting line, but then struggled against the A’s in the World Series.

Perhaps he reached his peak in 1975 through 1976, when he earned 6.4 WAR each season, but it was in 1977 when he really grabbed everyone’s attention by posting his first (and only) 30 HR season and driving in 110 runs.

As if that wasn’t enough, as the back of this card says, he “whalloped a grand slam” against the Phillies in the 7th inning of the opening game of the playoffs that season. Before he did that, the Dodgers were losing 5-1 and it looked rather hopeless. Some say that grand slam changed the tone of that series and helped catapult the team.

In both ’77 and ’78, his Dodgers made it past the Phillies to the World Series and faced the Yankees. Ron was great in the NL playoffs, but he struggled every time he made it to the world championship series.

The next season, the Dodgers failed to make the playoffs, ending up 11 1/2 games out in 3rd place, but Ron posted his highest OBP (.389) and SLG (.499) of his career. He led the whole team in those categories as well as OPS+ (142) and tied for the lead in HR’s at 28 with Garvey and Lopes.

In 1980, Cey came through on the final day of the regular season with a two-run homer into the left-centerfield pavilion in the bottom of the 8th inning off a 3-2 pitch to force a one-game playoff against Houston. The Dodgers had just faced elimination 3 straight days, and won each time against the division leading Astros.

Unfortunately, Cey as well as a couple other Dodgers couldn’t play in that extra game (injury), and L.A. had a mere 7 game winner on the mound for it. The Dodgers lost the game, but if they’d won, they’d have gone on to play the Phillies again and Ron owned that team in the post-season. It’s possible that the whole 1980 Phillies championship owes a little debt to Ron Cey’s injury.

1981 would be different though. Ron tied his career high 143 OPS+, while leading the team again in OPS+, HR’s (13), OBP (.372), and SLG (.474), leading the team back into the post-season. A tougher post-season than ever before, as they had to climb through 2 teams if they wanted to make it back the World Series.

Ron didn’t get to play in the first round against Houston, and fortunately the team won that series 3 games to 2. That’s when things got a little off pattern. Remember how Ron was typically a great hitter in the NL Championship Series but then struggled in the World Series? Well that switched.

Against the Expos in the 1981 NLCS, his power was gone, slugging just .333. He could still get on base, posting a good .381 OBP during that series, but he had a tough time gettin’ hits and hittin’ for power.

The Dodgers still managed to win, getting them another shot at the Yankees – 3rd time in the past 5 seasons.

This time, Ron drove in 6 RBI’s and posted a batting line of .350/.458/.500, including a three-run homer with two outs in game 3, and then later scored the go-ahead run, helping Los Angeles to a 5-4 victory.

Ron was easily the turning point in that 1981 World Series. If the Yankees had won game 3, the Dodgers would’ve been down 3 games to 0, but instead, they were now down just 2 games to 1, and they didn’t lose another game.

After that, Ron was ok, but was on the downside of his career. After one more season in Los Angeles, he was traded to the Cubs, whom he helped lead to the playoffs in 1984 against former teammate Steve Garvey’s Padres. The Cubs nearly had themselves in the World Series for the first time in almost 40 years, but they fell apart one game short.

Eventually Ron was traded to Oakland, finishing his career as a DH against the Brewers on July 12, 1987. His final base hit had come four days earlier against the Tigers, driving in 1987 Rookie of the Year Mark McGwire.

PS. Trying to figure out what game this card shows, but I’m not 100% on it yet. The player on deck is obviously not Pedro Guerrero and the dugout gives me the impression this photo was at Shea stadium, which would mean that this, like the Johnny Bench in action card, is a 1980 photo. I think that’s Rick Monday waiting on deck…