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.

He didn’t just sneak in because of his reputation like some guys who weren’t having very good years in ’81. Carlton Fisk was an asset to the pitching staff and a deterrent to base thieves when he was behind the plate, and was hitting well when he was at the plate.

By the end of the first half of the season, he had a strong .395 OBP, and his batting average was better than it had been in four years.

When the strike hit, he was leading his team in OBP, RBI, HBP, was 2nd in HR’s, and tied for 2nd in doubles.

Before the All-Star game could happen though, there was that two month mid-season strike that muddled up the whole 1981 season. Carlton made good use of the time though, spending it with his kid back in New Hampshire.

When the mid-summer classic finally happened, Carlton was a part of the American League’s three-run 6th inning. He left the game, having scored the run that put his team up 4-2.

When the season got rolling again, he picked up where he left off, batting .321 with a .400 OBP, and only striking out once, over 66 PA’s.

All I know is that the Pirates “asked waivers on Gary Alexander for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release”. The way that’s worded, sounds like they were doing the man a favor.

What kind of favor could they have been doing? Why did’t he ever come back? Truth is, the Pirates were probably doing themselves a favor, but making it sound much nicer.

When ’81 rolled around, Pittsburgh was deep in the catcher position. So Gary didn’t much playing time throughout the year.

Used mostly as a backup, he was a horrible hitter after a great 4 RBI game on April 29th. When I say horrible, I mean he hit .182/.217/.273 for the rest of the season.

So it’s really no surprise that the Pirates let him go, just days before the ’82 season started up. They probably didn’t like what they saw throughout spring training, and realized they’d get more of the same they got from him the year before.

Don’t get me wrong, Gary had a decent career overall. He played in seven seasons, working out a 99 OPS+ due to a pair of good years in the late 70′s.

Boston actually had a shot at a playoff spot in ’81 until an ugly 8th inning in Cleveland on October 2nd tore that dream to shreds.

When the following season started, they were seen as a mediocre team just trying to hang in there with Milwaukee, Detroit, Baltimore, and New York. The only reason the Red Sox would avoid fading into a rebuilding era during the 80′s, is thanks to future stars like Wade Boggs, Oil Can Boyd, Marty Barrett, Bob Ojeda, and Rich Gedman.

Of course, none of them appear on this card, making the card a bit of a disappointment. Sometimes I just don’t understand what Topps guidelines were for these future stars cards.

In early April ’82, just before the season officially got underway, Ed tore his rotator cuff and was out for the year. Sudden stop. He played a few minor league games in ’83 and ’84, but he never really made a comeback of it.

So back on October 2, 1981, he and the rest of the baseball world had no idea that his one out single that moved Bobby Grich to second base would be Ed’s final major league at-bat.

He’d been a solid backstop for half a decade leading up to the injury. He’d also just re-signed with the Angels, and was getting ready to split the catching duties with newly acquired all-star catcher Bob Boone.

Ed had been an outfielder who converted to catcher, ’cause the Pirates organization was full of outfielders at the time he came up from the minors. Although he was a light hitter, he worked hard to do better behind the plate. He even practiced blocking the plate during infield practice, which some scouts never saw any catcher do before.

Maybe his hard work ethic came from feelin’ like he needed to catch up with other catchers abilities. I couldn’t find exactly how his injury happened, but I’m pretty sure rotator cuff’s usually tear during a throw. However it happened, in the end, I like to think it’s a testament to Ed’s hard work attitude to be the best catcher he could possibly be.

Keith had played parts of four seasons for the Phillies as a backup player to Bob Boone, totally just 439 PA’s through ’81. Then he was traded to the Cubs in December, and found himself getting to the plate more times in 1982 than he had in his career before the season.

This paid off immediately for the Cubs, with Keith driving in 2 runs on opening day against the “perennially tough Reds”, leading the Cubs to a 3-2 victory. On May 8, he smacks 2 homers and drives in 7 runs against Houston. The Astros only scored 6, so Moreland was a real pain in their side.

Through May 21st, he was batting like a hall of famer, going .356/.389/.575 with 8 home runs and 33 RBI’s in just 39 games as he played catcher and corner outfield spots regularly.

Unfortunately that didn’t last, and Keith slumped down to a mere Mendoza-like .218/.299/.321 with just 7 home runs and only 35 RBI’s for the rest of the year.

Keith Moreland’s best times were still ahead of him when ’82 came to a close. In fact, in ’83, he came in 7th in the NL batting race. In ’84 he helped the Cubs to their first post-season appearance since 1945. In ’85, he drove in 106 RBI’s, placing him 4th in the NL in RBI’s. In ’87, he’d smack 27 homers (of course, everybody hit HR’s that year).

Before Mitch Moreland was called up to the major leagues in July 2010, Keith Moreland was the sole Moreland to play major league baseball. I tried to find out if they were related, but couldn’t find anything saying so… so I guess they probably weren’t.

Epic.

“Epic”, just says it all. I’ve never seen another card that just makes me want to drop everything and go play baseball the way this one does. It always had that effect. How can it not? It has to be my favorite baseball card of all time, featuring one of the best action moments ever by a future Hall of Famer, and it’s not some glossy overproduced lookin’ thing, but a classic rustic sort of feel.

Carlton Fisk, as you probably know, was also part of another epic shot, when he smacked one of the most memorable walk-off home runs ever, forcing a game 7 in the 1975 World Series.

I was too young to have seen that when it happened, so to me, this card shaped how I viewed him—a hard playing catcher who just did whatever he had to, to make the play. When I was 8 and 9, whenever I’d wear my plastic White Sox batting helmet and swing my whiffle ball bat, I was Carlton Fisk. I would turn the hat backwards, toss a ball up in the air and dive to catch it. I was Carlton Fisk.

This was probably the first card that made me wonder “when did this happen?”. I specifically remember standing in my backyard sandbox one day, wondering that, and with the help of the internet, I was finally able to narrow it down to two very possible games—April 3rd and April 7th, 1981, both against the Pirates in Bradenton, Florida, at (pre-renovated) McKechnie Field. How?

First, Carlton’s wearing Chicago’s ’81 road uniform. Second, the players in the dugout are wearing yellow or orange colored caps (possibly pillbox style), white uniforms, and black jackets. That rules out every American League team, so this had to be a spring training game against the Astros or Pirates, which would also explain Fisk wearing long sleeves.

Turns out, the White Sox played as the road team against the Pirates on April 3 & April 7, 1981. They didn’t play the Astros after Carlton joined the team in late March. The Pirates usually wore black caps with their white uniforms back then, but thanks to Jason Thompson’s ’81 Topps traded card, we can see the Pirates wore the exact combination we see in the dugout on this card, at least once during that year.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find boxscores or play-by-play descriptions in any newspaper articles that said much about those two games. This is a crucial point, ’cause White Sox apparently played two different teams on Friday April 3 (Cardinals & Pirates), so it’s possible Fisk didn’t play the Pirates that day but only on April 7th.

All this, makes the card all the more amazing, because it shows that Carlton Fisk was giving his best effort in a game that wouldn’t even matter in the season standings. He was playin’ his hardest even when he wasn’t trying to earn a roster spot or trying to earn a big money contract. He was just playin’ hard for all the right reasons .…for the love of the game.

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?

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.

The record had been set 66 years earlier in 1916 by Hall of Fame catcher Ray Shalk. The closest any catcher had gotten during that time was John Stearns of the Mets, with 25 swipes in 1978.

John’s achievement is even more amazing to me, after I found out that he fractured his ankle on July 5th of the season and spent 5 weeks on the DL. Yet still managed to break the record with more than a month to go and finish the season with 36.

He almost led the team in stolen bases too, but leadoff man Willie Wilson managed to steal his 37th base in the final week of 1982.

The following year, John did an encore by stealing another 28. Through 2009, those 28 steals are still the most any catcher has stolen since he broke the record himself.

John Wathan’s final appearance in the major leagues, was as a pinch runner in the bottom of the 9th of game 6 of the 1985 World Series. The Royals won the game, and the World Series. Nice way to finish a career.

In one of the coolest coincidences ever, Topps added a Larry Gura trivia note to the back of John’s ’82 card. Larry Gura ended up being the winning pitcher of the game in which John broke the steals record.

Random John Wathan facts and stats—

• Drafted by Royals, and played entire career with the team
• Total of 79 steals as a catcher
• Stolen base percentage was 76% as a catcher
• .363 OBP against the White Sox
• Slugged 40 points higher against lefties than he did against righties
• Slugged best when he was batting 4th in the lineup
• Stole 40 bases when was in the #2 slot
• Managed the Royals ’87-’91, to a 287-270 record (.515)