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.

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. This photo is probably from that same weekend series, as you can see Padres caps in the visiting dugout beyond Alex.

When he was 27, he posted a 2.75 ERA for the AAA Rochester Red Wings. Of course, Baltimore was filled with excellent pitching, so they just left him there in the minor leagues. They had no room for him on the major league roster.

When he was 28, he trimmed that ERA down a little to 2.70. Just like the previous season though, he was left in AAA ’cause there was no room for another good pitcher in Baltimore.

When he was 29, in 1975, he spends 2 full months in AAA, putting up a 5-0 record with a slim 2.20 ERA and finally gets called up in June. He proceeds to prove he belongs in the American League by posting a 2.72 ERA in 46 IP. After 7 1/2 seasons in the minors, he finally gets his shot that should’ve come sooner. He made good use of it.

He was a good relief pitcher for most of his career, except for a short stretch with Toronto in 1979 when he was smacked around for a 10.57 ERA. He bounced back in 1980 with a 1.93 ERA. Interestingly, he never got any Cy Young votes, as he was never the closer or the starter… just the middle man.

1979 was weird for him. He played for the Angels, Blue Jays, and the Expos AAA club in Denver. He pitched GREAT in Denver (which we know is a tough trick), tossing a 1.80 ERA in limited innings. But here’s the oddity—When did he pitch in Denver? According to Miller’s Baseball Reference page, he wasn’t sent to the Expos organization until October 24, 1979. I’m sure the AAA season was finished by then.

His final major league season was 1981, playing for the Mets. Interestingly, he seems to have been the pitcher on the mound when the photo for Junior Kennedy‘s card was shot. I doubt this photo was from the same game, because it’s unlikely a pitcher would be wearing a long sleeve undershirt in August.

After ’81, he apparently didn’t pitch anywhere during 1982, but suddenly shows up in the Cardinals organization pitching in Louisville in 1983. He didn’t do so well in his two seasons there. Since then, he’s done some managing and been a pitching coach. Currently (2009), he’s the Cardinals minor league pitching coordinator.

A few random Dyar Miller facts—

• Career 113 ERA+ (he was 13% better than the average pitcher during his time)
• He threw more innings against the Brewers than any other team
• He had a 2.49 ERA against the Brewers
• Robin Yount had the most PA’s (22) against Miller, and only hit a .200 OBP
• So did Jim Rice (20 PA’s)
• Carlton Fisk couldn’t hit him either, only having a .267 OBP in 15 PA’s