My First Cards

Dave Kingman’s a very interesting player to me, especially since he possibly felt he “could have been a great player only he did not particularly want to be a great player”.

He was always known for being a great slugger who wasn’t a good hitter, and 1982 was the epitome of that, as he led the NL in homers with 37, but only posted a .285 OBP.

The home run race in ’82 was pretty exciting, and at times, appears as if Dave Kingman willed himself to be the leader that year. It started as a race between Dave, Dale Murphy, and the Pirates Jason Thompson. By May 1st, Dave led the league, but was only 1 HR ahead of Dale and Jason.

Then on May 24th, the Mets traveled to Atlanta to take on the Braves, pitting Kingman and Murph against each other for 3 games. It was the 2nd game, when Murph took the lead league with a 2nd inning blast on a 2-2 pitch over the right field wall. He now had 14 homers and Dave was still stuck on 13.

Four days later in Shea, Kingman finally hit his 14th off Houston pitcher Joe Niekro. They were tied again atop the NL leaderboard, but only until June 1 when Dale Murphy smashed another. Kingman would only hit 3 home runs from May 30 through July 3, while Murph hit 8. It looked as if Dave Kingman was just not going to keep pace.

Then Dave got hot, real hot. The next 2 weeks, he hit 8 home runs while batting .311/.380/.844, including a 2 HR game in Dodger Stadium to reach 25 homers on July 17, which was 1 more than Dale had hit. Dave Kingman not only led the NL but also the AL at this point too. Nobody else in the NL had reached 20 HR’s yet.

Dave being Kingman though, his hot streak couldn’t last. For a month following that (Jul 18-Aug 20), he only hit a pithetic .085/.214/.195, which included just 3 homers. Can you imagine hitting that for a month, and not being benched? I don’t know how the Mets kept him in the lineup. For the season as a whole, his batting average was .197 and OBP was .286. Yikes.

Meanwhile, Dale slumped at the same time. On July 28, they were both tied again at 26 round trippers each. The next night in Atlanta, Murph had a 2 homer game against the Padres, putting him 2 HR’s up on Dave. That’s how it stays until the Mets went to Pittsburgh a little more than a week later.

August 6, Kingman smacks #27 over the leftfield wall during the 6th inning of a nightcap.

August 7, Kingman smacks a 6th inning tie-breaking 2 run homer off Rick Rhoden to give the Mets a win and tie him for the league lead in home runs.

August 10, Dale Murphy regains the NL homer lead, with a 1st inning shot. So Dale had 29, and Dave had 28. It stayed this way leading into the Mets @ Braves series starting on August 20.

It was in the 2nd game of the series though, that someone finally slugged one out of the park, and it was Dave Kingman to tie Murphy yet again. Dave just wasn’t going to go away.

The next night, Murphy smacks his 30th of the season in the 7th inning, to regain the league lead yet again. Like they say though, it’s not over ’til the fat lady sings, and Kingman hadn’t heard nobody singing yet. In the top of the 9th, Dave slugs a pitch over the fence too. Tied again at 30 HR’s, Dave Kingman just wasn’t going away.

By the end of August, Murphy was leading Dave by 1 homer again, with Jason Thompson & Mike Schmidt sneaking into the picture.

By Sepember 3rd, neither Dale nor Dave hit a homer yet in the month, while Jason Thompson and Mike Schmidt each added another, putting them at 29, just 2 behind Kingman and 3 behind Murphy. The race was getting crowded and lookin’ like maybe there’d be a surprise winner to the NL home run title.

That’s when Kingman, went on a tear again. From September 4 – 17, he bashed 6 HR’s while posting a .304/.377/.761 batting line. At that point, Dave Kingman had finally gone up on Dale Murphy by 2 homers. He was no longer chasing to regain the lead, but being chased.

Nobody knew it at the time, but Dave wouldn’t hit another home run in 1982, but that he wouldn’t need to. Murph only hit 1 more homer that season, leaving him at 36, one short of Dave Kingman.