If you’re a regular reader of other card blogs, you’ve probably already read about him at the 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, & 1980 blogs. There’s not much I can say about his career, that they didn’t cover so well already, so I’ll just touch on how it ended.

John started 1980 hittin’ like he had a few years left in him. Through May 27th, he was hitting .328 and had a fine .375 OBP.

From the next day through the end of 1981 though, he batted just .179 and got on base at an anorexic .240 pace. After 11 1/2 seasons of being good enough for the majors, he finally hit the slump he couldn’t come out of.

His final time on base, came on October 2, 1981, his next to last game. He came up to bat with 1 out & Billy Sample on 2nd. John slapped an RBI single into right field off Geoff Zahn, to tie the game in the bottom of the 8th. The Rangers went on to win it in the 10th.

Even though he went hitless the next day in his final major league game, he’s gotta feel good that his final hit was an important one for his team.

A pair of future Hall of Famers dominate this card. Even when this card hit the public in ’82, we all knew these guys would be or at least could be in Cooperstown someday.

Of the two, Eddie Murray had the easier time winning his league’s RBI title, even though it was close. Although it was only close because he had a bad first half.

Through the All-Star break, Eddie was hittin’ just .259/.303/.442 with a mere 26 RBI’s. Fortunately for him the leader in the AL, Buddy Bell, wasn’t that far ahead of him with 42.

Contrast that with his 2nd half hitting — .331/.417/.635 and 52 RBI. He passed Buddy Bell on September 11, with only Ben Oglivie & Tony Armas ahead of him.

His 5 RBI night on September 19th helped him pass Oglivie, and left him just 2 behind Armas.

Eddie’s next big day was September 28th, when he drove in 4 runs against the visiting Tigers. His last RBI of the game put him past Armas.

That was that in the A.L.

Mike Schmidt didn’t have quite as easy a time winning the NL RBI title. When games resumed after the All-Star game, George Foster was leading the league in RBI’s, and Mike was a full 8 behind him and 3 behind Dave Concepcion.

He passed Davey within a week though, and from there (August 15), it was Mike vs George. Although, problem was, Foster had now extended his lead over Schmidt to 10 RBI’s.

Mike managed to chip only 1 RBI off that lead through the next week, before Mike suddenly got hotter than the astroturf at the Vet on a hot July afternoon. In the three games of August 22, 23, & 24th, Schmidty drove in 10 runs. That put them in a tie for the RBI lead.

Meanwhile, over in Cincinnati, Foster started a slump that would last him into the beginning of September where he’d hit an awful .122/.178/.324 with just 4 RBI’s over 11 games.

The fat lady wasn’t singin’ yet though, as Mikey didn’t stay hot either, and Georgey caught up with him again on September 2nd at 65 RBI.

This was perfect timing too, ’cause the Reds came to Philly for a four game series starting the next day. The teams split the series, but Foster came out with 6 RBI and Schmidt only 2.

George hung onto that slim RBI lead and widened the gap a little here and there over the next 2 weeks, giving him a 7 RBI lead on September 22. Foster 80, Schmidt 73.

But see, you could never count Mike Schmidt out. With the season winding down, they both got a bit hot starting on Sep 23th. For the next 5 days, both guys would hit over .400, get on base even better, and continue to prove their reputations as premiere sluggers. Schmidt managed to trim 3 RBI’s off Foster’s lead even though Foster drove in 5 runs in his 4 games.

When October started, there were less than a hand full of games & George Foster still had a 2 RBI lead. After Oct 2, Schmidt had his 2nd straight 3 RBI game, putting him 1 RBI ahead of Foster.

The next day, Schmidt drove in 3 more, but so did Foster. So, going into the final day of the season, Schmidt had 91 and Foster 90. Schmidt got the day off (in preparation for the playoffs), so it was all in Foster’s hands… but he couldn’t deliver.

Aaahhh ’81 was an awesome season for RBI races.

Obviously, this is one of the coolest cards in the set when you’re an eight year old and I dubbed it “the card of five stars”. You’ve got 5 of the best players AND they’re the home run leaders!

It all starts with Mike Schmidt, who led the National League in homers for the fifth time in his career. His 31 HR’s might sound like an unimpressive number, but he did it in only 102 games played as the Phillies played just 106 that year.

Just doin’ a rough estimate, 31 HR’s in about 2/3 the usual amount of games, means Mike was on pace for about 45 homers. Even if he slumped a little, he probably would’ve reached 40 for the second straight year.

At the mid-season break though, he was stuck in a three way tie that included George Foster and Dave Kingman. Another dangerous slugger and fellow future Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, was just 1 homer shy of them.

Mike wedged out a little breathing room after the All-Star game, smacking 9 HR’s in late August. He had a 4 HR lead over Andre & Dave when September began.

As this card tells us, Dawson and Kingman faded in the end while Schmidt left them all in the dust the rest of the season.

The A.L. race for the home run lead was a much more rabid affair. Actually, it was kind of like the A.L. batting race, with a pair of sluggers coming from behind.

Stormin’ Gorman Thomas led the major leagues with 15 HR’s at the break. Only two behind him in the A.L., were Tony Armas, Dwight Evans, and Gary Gray.

Gary Gray? Yeah, that’s right. A uniquely named nobody was finally getting some playing time in Seattle and making a run at being noticed.

Well, Gary Gray returned to being Gary Gray after the break, and didn’t hit another homer all year.

Meanwhile, after the break, three stars named Bobby Grich, Eddie Murray, and Greg Luzinski were heating up. By September 35, Gorman and Tony were leading the A.L. with 21 HR’s a piece.

It was really anybody’s to have, but Gorman just kept staying one step ahead of the pack. At the time, many figured he was going to end up with the most HR’s in the league. After all, he did it just two years earlier with 45.

But just like in the A.L. batting race, which was Richie Zisk’s to lose, this was Gorman Thomas’s to lose — and he did. He didn’t hit another homer for the rest of the season. He wouldn’t hit another home run til game 5 of the playoffs (the division series against the Yankees).

Greg Luzinski would only smack a pair before the season finished, and that just wouldn’t be enough in this race.

Now, I really should mention how hot Bobby Grich was. From September 20 – October 2, he hit .409/.449/.727 with 4 HR’s. He was just on fire. The 4th homer in that hot stretch came on October 2, and made Bobby the first to reach the 22 homer plateau in ’81. Oh yeah, it was an exciting one too, being a 1st inning 3 run blast.

The next night in Kansas City, Tony Armas joined him at 22, with a 2-run homer in the 6th.

With a day left to the season after that, both Tony & Bobby must’ve been thinkin’ they could win the HR title. The last day of the season though, neither of them would sneak ahead.

That last day of the season, at about the same time of the afternoon, Eddie Murray joined them with a 3rd inning blast and Dwight Evans hit his 21st.

You’d think that would be the end of it, but no. Dwight hits another homer in the 8th inning of his game, to make a four way tie atop the leaderboard!

Thus, Dwight gave birth to the awesome “card of 5 stars”.

This is one of the few times we see a major league player lookin’ more like a fan on his living room couch enjoyin’ the game, than lookin’ like a player. You could even mistake his expression for a little beer buzz. He was definitely enjoying life in the major leagues.

John loved to play too though. He didn’t want to sit around on the bench and just watch the games, do the occasional pinch hit or defensive substitute thing.

In fact, John wanted out of the Angels organization in ’82, ’cause he felt he wouldn’t be able to get playing time in the big leagues with the team they were building.

So maybe the photo in this card was just a result of John trying to cope with so much bench time. Maybe he liked it at first. Who Wouldn’t love a decent salary with a great view of baseball games, and some chances to play once in a while?

The team tried to accomodate him, sending him down to AAA Spokane where he could get some more playing time than he would up in California.

He never made it back to the majors, but played professional baseball into the mid-1980′s. He wasn’t with the Angels though, he found himself in the Reds and Tigers organizations after that one year in Spokane.

Whatever the case, he must’ve enjoyed ’82. He got the playing time even if it wasn’t in the majors, and he helped his team win the 2nd half PCL North title. They went on to beat the Tacoma Tigers in the first round of playoffs before losing a six game series to the Albuquerque Dukes.

So, is he eatin’ pop rocks or what?

When the strike hit, he was batting .330/.389/.421, riding a 14 game hitting streak, and on the verge of breaking the all-time NL hit record.

About a week after baseball had the pause button on, Pete got a base hit in a charity softball game, and stayed sharp by taking batting practice regularly. His attitude was classic Rose, “If it’s a long way (until the strike is settled), I want to come out smoking, like at the beginning (of the season).”

The next major league game was the midsummer classic which could be called the late summer classic in 1981. Sure enough, he came out smoking, slapping a hit off Jack Morris to start the game. Unfortunately his teammates couldn’t drive him in, as Jack Morris also started the game off sharply, striking out two of the next three batters.

After the game, good ol’ Charlie Hustle kept smokin’, going 42-for-123 (.341) and drawing 13 walks in the next month. Unfortunately the rest of his teammates weren’t doin’ so good and the Phillies went just 12-17 during that span.

Plus, you gotta love the “oooooooo, a watermelon!” expression on his face. From the angle he’s swinging, I imagine he’s about to smack a line drive… maybe a double?

He was right in the midst of his prime years when ’82 rolled around, and that year, Eddie continued powering the Orioles offense with 32 round trippers, 110 RBI’s, and averages of .316/.391/.549.

As if that wasn’t enough, he won his first gold glove.

The only thing that kept him from being the American League MVP, was the otherworldly season Robin Yount was having up in Milwaukee.

Looking through Eddie’s season, I found two games that instantly stand out as highlights— The opening day grand slam off Dennis Leonard, and his 3-for-4 two homer night (including another grand slam) against the Blue Jays on August 26th.

Exactly half the runs he drove in, were driven in due to home runs. So these weren’t just a bunch of solo shots. In fact, 18 of his 32 HR’s came with runners on base.

All season he turned it up a notch with men on base. Eddie batted .297/.355/.502 when the bases were empty, which isn’t bad, but he hit a hot .336/.424/.598 when guys got on in front of him. He thrived on the situation, like a piranha smelling blood… upping his batting average 40 points, increasing his on-base by 70 points, and adding almost a full 100 points of slugging!

Eddie was a major reason the Orioles nearly overtook the Brewers for the division title. August 20th started with Baltimore barely over .500 at just 61-57, not to mention 7½ GB in 4th place. In their next 43 games though, they’d go 33-10, powered by Murray‘s .407 OBP and .631 SLG. It would bring them into a tie for the AL East lead, with only their final game of the season against the Brewers left to play. Winner takes the division.

That great stretch started off with a bang—a bang by Eddie Murray. A 475 foot 2-run 12th inning bang to be precise.

Six days later came that two homer game against Toronto that I mentioned earlier.

Then a few days after that, he slapped a pair of run scoring singles, to help beat the Rangers by 1 run.

Not so long after that, in Cleveland, he smacked a 2-out 13th inning homer to keep the birds from having a 3 game losing streak.

Four days after those dramatics, he doubles in the go-ahead run in the 6th, against the Yankees.

A couple weeks later, he slams a 3-run homer in the 1st inning of a very important matchup against the division leading Brewers.

Eddie was hot in the heat of the pennant race. Every few days he was either contributing a couple key hits for the win, or willing his Orioles to victory. The Orioles wouldn’t have sniffed the playoffs if not for his heroics throughout the year, which, I’ll remind you, started with a grand slam off Dennis Leonard.

Here we see him in the batters box, in the classic Johnny Bench stance. It would’ve been nice if this card showed him catching, but this was at the point in his career where he was playing a lot more first base than catcher.

As a catcher, he threw out 33% of runners attempting to steal on him during his career. He’d led the league three times in catching runners, twice catching base stealers 57% of the time!

In 1975, he caught over 1000 innings, without allowing a single passed ball. Johnny was arguably the best catcher of his generation.

He was also a great batter, and the best hitting catcher this side of Mike Piazza. In the early 70′s, Johnny led the National League in HR’s twice and RBI’s three times. One year, he led the league in Total Bases. how often do you find a catcher doin’ that, eh?

On July 15, 1980, Johnny passed Yogi Berra for the career home run record for catchers; A record he’d hold for another 10 years and a couple months.

When Carlton Fisk broke the record in 1990, Johnny flashed a great sense of humor, saying “I was thinking about making a comeback until I pulled a muscle—vacuuming”.

In overall value, Johnny Bench was worth 683 RAR (Runs Above Replacement) and a fat 71.3 WAR (Wins Above Replacement) during his career. I couldn’t find out if his RAR is a record for catchers, but that WAR is still a record (as of 2010) for anyone spending 50% of their career behind the plate.

I don’t think I need to say much more about his career, so I’m going to dive into the photo itself now, ’cause we can actually determine what game this photo is showing us, based on the fact that—

• Reds are wearing the road uniform
• The stadium has a blue edged dugout
• It’s a day game.
• we can kind of see who’s batting after him

In 1981, Johnny played road games in Pittsburgh, St Louis, Philadelphia, Houston, San Diego, Montreal, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. I’m pretty sure the only stadiums among those that had a blue edged dugout and sunshine would be Atlanta Fulton County Stadium & Dodger Stadium.

That leaves us with just five possible games, but in one of those, Ken Griffey batted after Johnny Bench, so we can rule that game out automatically since the waiting batter is clearly white or latino on the card.

Thanks to a newspaper search, I found that only one of the four remaining games was played during the day. That leaves Saturday September 19, 1981 in Dodger Stadium, as the game that fits.

Although, there’s more to this story. As pointed out in the comments, Johnny Bench’s 1981 record breaker card looks as if it was taken in the same place, perhaps the same game. That ’81 card’s photo clearly shows Dave Concepcion waiting in the on deck circle. The player in the on-deck circle of this ’82 card, appears to be a blurry Dave Concepcion, which means the photo in this ’82 card, would most likely be a photo of an afternoon game played on Sunday July 27, 1980 at Shea Stadium.

Although, I’m not sure the crowd looks like the same people in both cards. Any ideas?

As the ’81 season approached, everybody knew Pete was about to own the National League hits record. He only trailed Hammerin’ Hank Aaron by 43, and Stan “The Man” Musial by 73 hits. An intriguing twist to the story, was that in Stan’s final game, he banged out 2 hits while playing Pete’s Reds. Pete out hit him that day 3 hits to 2, and was now about to out hit him for his career too.

The only thing that might slow it down, was the looming possibility of the players strike if things didn’t get worked out in time. So the media began to follow this as a bit of a race against time, to see if he could do it before the strike, which was originally set to go on May 29.

Several days before the strike was to begin though, May 19, in Los Angeles, Pete passed Hank for 2nd place in NL history, with an RBI single off Bob Welch in the 1st inning. Now only Musial was ahead of him.

He was right on track. Before the season, Pete had calculated he’d set the new NL mark during the mid-June series against the Reds. Pete had also been quoted as saying he expect the players and owners to work things out and avoid a strike, so he wasn’t all that concerned….as long as the Phillies kept winning.

The strike date was moved back, to June 11, which helped Pete get a few more hits. Still not enough though, as the strike began with him just one hit away from the record, and 4 days before the Reds series.

So then everybody waited.

…and waited.

…and waited some more, for the strike to end.

Finally, on August 9th, play resumed with the All-Star game. The next day, the Phillies were hosting the Cardinals. In Pete’s first at-bat, he reached on the error. In the 3rd inning, he was thrown out on a hit that went straight back to the pitcher. In the 5th, he grounded out to 2nd.

Things just weren’t lookin’ good, ’til the 8th inning when Pete slapped a leadoff single to leftfield off an inside fastball thrown by Mark Littell. The chase was over.

The game was stopped for a few minutes for a ceremony, that included Stan Musial coming onto the field and telling Pete, “I couldn’t be happier for you”. As if that wasn’t enough, after the game, president Ronald Reagan called to congratulate him too.

After that game, people began to ask if Pete could pass Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record. He’d only need to climb over Hank Aaron again, who had 3,709 total hits (remember he played in the AL at the end of his career), and Ty Cobb’s 4,191 hits. All of a sudden, it seemed like Charlie Hustle might have a real shot at what many thought was one of the unbreakable baseball records….

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.

Willie was a decorated Pirate, who’d been the ’79 NL co-MVP, 7 time all-star, helped give the city of Pittsburgh 2 World titles over Baltimore, modestly embarrassed by his power at times, played great year in year out, and rewarded teammates with stars.

I remember the kids I traded cards with, telling me he was going to be in the Hall of Fame. It was just that obvious to everybody at the time. There was simply no doubt.

There’s so much talk about Stargell’s 1979 season, that people seem to forget that he was great before that too.

Earlier in the decade, he received the Roberto Clemente award, named after his former teammate and lost friend.

As far back as 1964, he was making people stand up and notice him, earning him a trip to the All-Star game.

As if that wasn’t enough, the next season he smacked 2 HR’s off Don Drysdale in his first 2 plate appearances on June 24, in Los Angeles and added another HR later in the game after Drysdale was showering. Don had a career 2.19 ERA in Dodger Stadium.

Even when the team wasn’t able to win, he’d come up with some colorful quotes like “Getting a hit off Koufax is like try to eat soup with a fork”.

In “the year of the pitcher”, 1968, Stargell pulled the Pirates out of a 5 game losing streak with a 3 homer day against in Chicago, driving in 7 runs as the Cubs whole team only scored 6. His fourth hit, bounced back onto the field after hitting the top of the outfield railing. You can’t come any closer to a 4 homer day than that.

The following year, on August 5th, he was the first player to hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium. To date, there’s been 4 HR’s hit out, and Willie launched 2 of them.

When the Pirates opened a new stadium (Three Rivers) on July 16, 1970, Willie was the first Pirate to hit a home run there. It wasn’t just a barely over the wall variety either, he deposited the ball in the upper deck! Even though Pittsburgh lost the game, Stargell’s home run had tied the game.

The next season Willie lead the majors with 48 home runs. He also posted a 185 OPS+, a .398 OBP, drove in 125 RBI’s, scored 104 runs, was worth 8.1 WAR, and led the World Champion Pirates with 131 RC (Runs Created).

In ’72, he made the All-Majors team for the 2nd consecutive season.

Then, in ’73, he managed the first 40 double 40 homer season since 1940. Nobody did it again ’til 1995, meaning Willie was the only one to do it in a 55 year period. He led the league in doubles, HR’s, RBI’s, SLG, OPS, and OPS+.

The next season, he led the league in OPS+ for the 2nd consecutive year.

In spring of ’75, he moved to a new position—first base. Largely due to learning a new position, he spent most of the first half of the season in a slump. He still finished the year with more than 20 HR’s, 90 RBI’s, and a slugging percentage over .500.

From ’76-’78, he averaged only 101 games, 20 HR’s, and 66 RBI’s a year. He was in his late 30′s, what do you expect? With his on-the-field talent slowing down, he became more of a motivator than he had already been. He would give out “stargell stars” to teammtes when they played a great game or made a fantastic play. They nearly made it to the playoffs in ’78 and Stargell said that was the best team he’d ever played on and predicted his Pirates would win the World Series the next season.

That’s when 1979 happened. The “we are family” Pirates, led by “Pops” Stargell, are still the last Pirates team to win a playoff series. If you ever get a chance to watch game 7 of the ’79 series on the MLB Network or somewhere, don’t miss it. Willie launched a pair of home runs, to bring Pittsburgh a championship.

After that, he had a lot of knee trouble the next couple years. Once healthy, he was back in action for a farewell tour in 1982.