My First Cards

Bob Boone was outright sold to the Angels for just $300,000 on December 6, 1981. He wasn’t traded. He wasn’t a free agent. He was just 2 years removed from being an All-Star and gold glove catcher, now being so devalued by his team that he was simply sold off for nothing in return. The Phillies just wanted to get rid of him.

The transaction had it roots in a collision at the plate in the 9th inning of a Sept 13, 1979 game in Shea Stadium, when Joel Youngblood was trying to score the tying run. That play, did some nasty work on Boone’s left knee, forcing him to undergo surgery the following Monday.

Boone had been a budding superstar up to that point, getting key hits in the ’78 & ’79 midsummer classics, as well as being the NL gold glove catcher in ’78 & ’79. He’d increased his OBP each of the last 2 seasons leading up to the injury, from .343 to .348 to .367.

The 2 seasons after the knee surgery though, he was pithetic. Those two seasons combined, he was hitting .223/.293/.324. He wasn’t catching many base stealers anymore either. In ’79, he’d thrown out 44% of runners (his 4th season out of 8 with a rate over 40%) and in ’81 he was only catching 22%. What a drop! It was more than just the surgery that was affecting him though, as he had a load on his head being a player rep during the ’81 strike. Bob had a lot going on physically and mentally during that two year slump.

Philadelphia apparently didn’t take all that into account, and figured Boone was done. It amazes me they didn’t even try to get a player in return for him. Not even a minor leaguer. They just sold him off. And they sold him for just $300,000. That was a lot more in 1981 than it is now, but it still wasn’t that much for a catcher with so much major league experience. The GM could’ve easily marketed him for a trade as “a guy who could be comeback player of the year but we want to make our team younger now so we’re willing to trade him”

So anyway, the California Angels come knocking and buy Bob. This turned out to be as big a move for the team as signing Reggie Jackson and trading for Doug DeCinces. Bob not only has his best season since ’79 at the plate, but he wins a gold glove and throws out an amazing 58% of runners trying to steal. That includes throwing out Rickey Henderson 6 times out of 12 attempts during Rickey’s record breaking season. No other catcher did that well.

It’s probably not coincidence either, that the Angels pitching staff had an ERA+ of 106 in ’82, and ranked #2 in the AL in ERA, but the year before they had Bob, they ranked 7th in ERA and the staff ERA+ was 98 (below average). It seems he made pitchers, pitch better, and there’s some evidence to support this—

During the season, starter Ken Forsch told Sports Illustrated (June 14, 1982 article “Tools of Intelligence“) that he thought Bob’s game calling made him a better pitcher, “I used to think two or three pitches ahead and get in trouble with the one I was throwing. Now I can take Boonie’s sign and concentrate on the area of the plate I’m throwing to.”

That’s not all though, Forsch added “Boonie has a knack for catching pitches outside the strike zone without moving his glove, he holds his glove on the corner, and if the ball is a little outside, he’ll catch it on the webbing or let it bounce off when the bases are empty. You get a lot of extra strikes that way.”

In the same article, reliever Don Aase was quoted as saying about Boone, “Earlier in the season I threw a couple of curves in the dirt that got by him for wild pitches. Later he came to me and said, ‘I know how your curve breaks; that won’t happen again.’ So I wasn’t afraid to keep throwing curves. That made a big difference to me.”

An Associated Press article from October ’82, “Bob Boone’s been biggest boon for California’s rising pitchers“, credits him for improving Geoff Zahn’s win total and lowered ERA. Zahn even says “Boone seems to know what pitches to call…I shake off very few of his signs.”

After ’82, Bob Boone was an All-Star one more time and won 4 more gold gloves. That last gold glove coming when he was 41. How many catchers do you know that win a gold glove after 40? How many players are even catching after 40? He wasn’t just catching, but he posted a .351 OBP (in 469 PA’s) at age 41…..only 11 players have accomplished a .350 OBP at that age or older.