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)

Alex posted a pithetic 74 OPS+ and slugged a junkie .318 over 120 games in his first season with the Reds. This is part of why the Reds lost 101 games the year after they led the NL in wins. Simply put, when you get 401 plate appearances and only 14 extra base hits, it doesn’t help your team much.

There were 2 highlights in his season though. The first came against his old team the Mets on September 5, when he went 4 for 4. The 2nd, was on September 14, when he finally hit his first major league home run! It was a top of the 2nd, 2 out, solo shot off Atlee Hammaker. Although, the Reds lost both those games anyway.

Looking into his situational stats though, show he still had the ability when his team needed him to show it. With runners in scoring position, he had a .410 OBP. Also, the more outs there were in an inning, the better he got on base. In fact, when there were 2 outs, he batted .320 and got on base at a .416 pace and only K’d 5 times in 113 PA’s.

The team he liked facing most in ’82, were the Cardinals. He batted .360/.385/.520 over 10 games. Which is kind of funny, considering that the Cardinals won the World Series but they couldn’t hold down the light hitting Alex Trevino.

Mistake on the back. Card says he caught 45 base stealers in 1980. Looking up his stats on Baseball Reference though, shows he caught 47 stealing that year. Apparently Topps made a small adding mistake or something has been corrected over the years.

PS. Alex Trevino makes a cameo in Joe Lefebvre’s card in this set, from a game on May 2nd or 3rd, 1981.

Leading up to 1982, the Giants had produced only 3 winning seasons in their past 10 years. They were 1 game over .500 in ’81, but they were an aging team. In 1982, 5 of the 9 Giants to play in 100+ games, were 31 years old or older. They needed to get younger, and they had a load of talent in their AAA club in Phoenix to bring into San Francisco.

Almost the entire roster of the 1981 Phoenix Giants made it to the major leagues at some point in their career. Which makes me wonder… were there any “future stars” who had better careers than Bob Brenly, Chili Davis, or Bob Tufts?

Let’s see now, Bob Brenly was 28 in ’82, pretty old for a “future star”. He became the regular catcher for the Giants through much of the 80′s and posted a career 106 OPS+ over his 2,995 PA’s in 9 seasons. He was definitely a future star, even if he was already old for a rookie There was only 1 non-pitcher on the team who’d go on to have longer career and not played significant time in the majors yet. That other player, is the next guy on this card—

Chili Davis. He went on to be a star in the majors. For his career, he hit .274/.360/.451 and posted a 120 OPS+, winning 2 World Series rings, one with the ’91 Twins and the other with the ’99 Yankees. Oh, and he was a 4 time All-Star and smacked 350 HR’s and drove in 1,372 RBI’s. I call that a nice career. He was 120% future star in ’82.

How about Bob Tufts? Well, his ’81 record in AAA was 9-2, 1.70 ERA. There wasn’t a better pitcher on the team under 36. None of the pitchers, including Bob Tufts, really had anything resembling a decent career in the majors. So I guess he was really the only other option for Topps to put on this card. Tufts did help San Francisco improve though, as he was part of a trade for Atlee Hammaker just before the ’82 season began. Atlee played for over a decade in the big leagues, mostly for the Giants.

The lack of future stars in the Giants farm system quickly became apparent after ’82. San Francisco wouldn’t see another .500 season ’til 1986, including enduring a 100 loss season. The Giants couldn’t even get anything from the draft. When they chose future major leaguers Barry Bonds, Pete Incaviglia, & Jody Reed, in the June ’82 draft, neither signed.

By the end of the 1980′s though, the Giants were a force to be reckoned with in the NL West. From ’86-’90, the Giants would put together 5 consecutive winning seasons, including division titles in ’87 & ’89, and a trip to the ’89 World Series.

But you probably knew all that already plus more, ’cause he’s a Hall of Fame catcher who won a ring with the ’86 Mets.

What you might not have known, is that in 1982 was easily his best offensive season and it could’ve been much better (I’ll explain this at the end).

That year, his batting average was about 30 points higher than his career average up to that point, and his OBP was almost 50 points higher than his career up to this point. He produced 107 runs created, which was 17 more than any other major league catcher & 21 more than any AL catcher. His slugging almost matched his previous career high. All this gave him his best single season OPS (.890). All while continuing to backup his reputation as a great defensive catcher…winning his 3rd consecutive gold glove.

It’s tough to pick one game that stands out in his season. I’m stuck between three games—

• 4/18, Expos @ Mets. Goes 3 for 3 (HR & 2B), drew 2 walks, while driving in 3 runs
• 5/28, Reds @ Expos. Goes 1 for 1, drawing 3 walks. Oh, and that one hit was a 3 run HR.
• 8/26, Astros @ Expos. Smacked a pair of 2 run homers, giving his team a 5-3 win.

But I have to share the most surprising fact I found about his ’82. Check this out—

Unfortunately he played his home games on artificial turf in Montreal. He probably would’ve been the 1982 NL MVP if he played his home games on a grass field, like Atlanta.

I find it cool that Topps chose pitching trivia for the back of a catchers card. Topps used the exact same back info for the 1982 Squirt set Carter card, though they used a different photo of Carter for the front.

By 1982, the Minnesota Twins had to look to the future. The previous season was their worst since 1957, when they were the Washington Senators. If that wasn’t worrisome enough, they started ’82 going 15-52 (.224 Winning %). The franchise had been crumbling slowly since 1975, when stars Tony Oliva retired and Harmon Killebrew was released. The Twins tried to hang on, only to remain a mediocre team for the remainder of the 1970′s, trying to keep their head above water (also known as .500).

Behind the scenes, while they were trying to stave off losing seasons, they were busy selecting their future Championship team in the amateur drafts. In 1978 they selected both Lenny Faedo and homegrown Minnesotoan Kent Hrbek. The next year, they signed Randy Bush, Gary Gaetti, & Tim Laudner. In 1980, they’d select Jim Reed and Jim Eisenreich. 1981 saw the Twins grab Frank Viola & Steve Lombardozzi. In ’82, the Twinkies found Kirby Puckett.

Most of these draft picks played an important part in the Twins 1987 championship season. Even Jim Reed, who wasn’t a Twin for the ’87 season, was part of a trade for Jeff Reardon in February ’87.

But in 1982, the first season in the Metrodome, that championship season didn’t happen yet and nobody knew if it would ever happen. They had to look at their young future stars as their hope for the future, and their biggest hopes at the time were the three players on this card—Lenny Faedo, Kent Hrbek, and Tim Laudner. They’d all played a little before 1981 but it wasn’t until May 29, 1982 that they would all play together in the same major league game.

Shortstop Lenny Faedo turned out to be the least talented of the three. He only played ’til April 22, 1984 in Minnesota, before wandering 2 more years in the minors for 5 different organizations. 1982 was the only season he didn’t spend any time in the minor leagues. Defensively he was a -7.3 total fielding runs above average. I’m not too familiar with that stat, but that does not sound good at all. On September 19 in the Metrodome against the Royals, he had a fine 3 for 4 day, scoring a run in a Twins victory.

First Baseman Kent Hrbek is the star of this card. Not just because his last name starts off with the abbreviation for “home run” (HR), but because he was one of the best Twins ever to play the game. This card is actually known as his rookie card because of that. He had a career OPS+ of 128 over 14 seasons, playing a key role for 2 Championship teams, and produced a career batting line of .282/.367/.481/.848. He was a star from day one, being 2nd to Cal Ripken Jr in the 1982 Rookie of The Year voting but could’ve easily won it. Hrbek’s numbers were significantly better than Ripken’s in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, and BB’s. Cal held a slight edge in R’s (+8), HR’s (+5), and RBI’s (+1), while playing a full 20 games more for a team with a lot better offense around him. What was probably most important to Hrbek after all was said and done though, was that he helped his hometown team win championships.

As for Tim Laudner, he was one of the Twins main catchers for almost a decade. He played in all 7 games of the 1987 World Series and hit great off the Cardinals pitching. He smacked a HR, drove in 4 runs, and got on base at a .444 pace. The highlight of his 1982 season would probably be a trip to Boston just before the All-Star break. On July 10-11, he went 6 for 8 and scored 4 runs.

The back of the card isn’t all that interesting—

In this photo, Dave Roberts looks very focused, very deep in thought, very intense, like he’s determined to reach some goal or maybe feeling sad and dissapointed. Whatever’s on his mind we can only guess, but I suspect he’s reflecting on his past and hoping to recapture his potential.

Whatever he’s thinking there, Dave Roberts has an interesting & unique story behind those eyes. It started on June 7, ten years earlier, the day of the Amateur draft. The San Diego Padres picked Dave as the first overall selection. Instead of slipping him into their minor league system, they immediately brought him to San Diego, and by immediately, I mean the same day of the draft. So he played as a Padre the same day he was drafted. Which is the beginning of an unusual series of events peppering his career.

The Padres nearly had two Dave Roberts on the team in 1972. San Diego had pulled a pitcher named Dave Roberts from the Pirates organization in the 1968 expansion draft, but traded him to Houston before the ’72 season (12/3/1971). Even though it would’ve been very unusual to have two players on the same roster with the same name, this trade set up an even more unusual event. On June 27, 1972 in the bottom of the first inning in San Diego, just three weeks after our Dave Wayne Roberts debuted in the major leagues, he came up to bat against the other Dave Roberts. So Dave Roberts was pitching to… Dave Roberts, for the first time.

The first plate appearance turned into a double play, the second was a lineout, but the third time was a charm. With a runner on 1st, Dave Roberts slapped a single to centerfield off Dave Roberts. They’d go on to face each other 24 times in their careers, with Dave Roberts only batting .174 against the pitcher with the same name.

If we go back to 1973 for a moment, he was having a pretty good season, hitting 21 home runs and looking like the future star that a #1 pick should become. One has to think that his success was on the mind of the Padres brass when the Padres drafted future Hall of Famer Dave Winfield in ’73. The Padres were desperate to win, and in the days before free agency, they certainly had to be happy about young players developing quickly. So Dave Roberts career influenced Dave Winfield’s, in a small but important way.

He had another interesting quirk to his career too. It occurred in his final major league game on September 18, 1982. It may not have seemed unusual when he struck out in a home game against the Pirates for his last career plate appearance, but it really was. Why? Because back on June 7, 1972, he struck out in his very first career plate appearance…in a home game against the same team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Talk about symmetry.

Is it just me, or does it also seem odd that both of those Dave Roberts would start as Padres and later be traded to the Astros? What are the chances of that? Even more unusual, is that there was another Dave Roberts, who played in Houston in the 1960′s. Yet another Dave Roberts played in San Diego in 2005-2006, but he never got to be an Astro. It’s enough to make you wonder if the Padres or Astros are trying to collect all the Dave Roberts they can possibly collect.

He was the first New York Yankee card I ever got, which is pretty important to an eight year old kid growing up in New York state. The only Yankees I knew about at that point were Babe Ruth, Bucky Dent, Reggie Jackson, and Ron Guidry. Suddenly I knew another, and his name was Dennis Werth.

Sometime in early May 1982, my older sister Amy and I went to the store. Out of the blue I decided to buy a pack of baseball cards. I liked playing baseball in the backyard and at the park, but I never watched it and didn’t think all that much about it. I knew that my grandfather nearly played for the Yankees in the 1930′s, which was my main reason to like the Yankees. So that sunny afternoon, I think it was a Saturday, I wanted a pack of baseball cards so I could satisfy two curiosities—To see if I’d get a Yankees card, and to taste the gum.

That’s the only two reasons I wanted a pack. I don’t remember who else was in the pack besides Dennis Werth, but I do remember staring at his card as I was crossing the street on my way back home. I wondered how good he was, assuming he was great because he was a Yankee.

I quickly became fascinated by the different team uniforms and logos, team colors, and the different action shots on the cards. The backs were curious to me. It all made me want more, and thus I began to collect cards and turn into a die hard baseball fan. During that summer, I learned from the neighborhood kids how to read the statistics on the back of the cards, and I realized that Dennis Werth, wasn’t one of the great players after all.

Didn’t matter though. He was still “my Dennis Werth” who smacked a 3 run homer against the Indians one day. To me he became awesome in his own way. He was my first Yankee card. He was part of a life altering moment for me.

In ’82, he wasn’t even a Yankee anymore but I didn’t know that at the time. Dennis was actually playing in Kansas City in what turned out to be his final major league season. He’d only played parts of 4 seasons in the majors and could probably be classified as one of those AAAA players. Maybe I’m still looking at him through an eight year old’s eyes who is sure he must be great in some way, but over the course of eleven minor league seasons he had a fine .373 OBP, eight of those being in AAA.

He was at his best though in 1980 for the Yankees, posting a .308/.416/.492 line with a 151 OPS+ over 39 games. He was in New York some more in 1981 but didn’t hit well and spent the strike in AAA Columbus, killing International League pitching with an OPS of 1.063. Ultimately though, his career never quite found it’s way back to 1980.

A few random Dennis Werth facts—

• Is the step father of Jayson Werth.
• Played in his first major league game 30 years & 1 day before I started this blog.
• Earned his first big league hit and scored his first run (in Cleveland), 30 years to the day before I wrote this article.
• Best hitting came when he was 2nd or 5th in the batting order.
• In 47 PA’s with RISP, Dennis had a .422 career OBP.