He was an All-Star in ’78 and won the ’79 AL Cy Young, but, he posted ERA’s over 4.00 in 3 of the past 4 seasons, and 1981 was his worst.

His first 7 starts of ’82 seemed to fit that mold too, as he went 2-5 with a 4.67 ERA. And true to the inconsistency of him, one of those victories was a shutout.

Most managers of a team expecting to make the playoffs would probably have benched him, thrown him in the bullpen, or traded him. Earl Weaver knew better though, and stuck with Mike in the rotation.

It paid off. From May 21 – September 19, Mike went 14-6 with a 3.32 ERA, while holding batters to a .297 OBP by inducing lots of groundballs.

His last 3 appearances were dreadful though, dragging his season stats down. He didn’t last more than 4 innings in any of them, compiling a 15.95 ERA, allowing a .543 OBP, and an .806 SLG.

Nevertheless, he won 15 games & posted an ERA under 4.00. A slight improvement over his past couple seasons. The following year, he’d do even better, and help his team win the World Series.

Random Career Facts & Stats

• 3.52 ERA when pitching in a dome
• 17-7, 2.68 ERA vs Blue Jays
• 175 strikeouts vs Tigers
• 8.00 SO/BB in extra-innings (22 IP)
• 57% of HR allowed, were solo shots.
• 100 ERA+

Every single one of the guys on this card had the exact same amount of wins in ’81, with 14. That’s got to be the weirdest thing about it. I mean, all 5? That’s got to be pretty unusual.

Probably even weirder, is that they were all tied at 13 too. Yep, at the end of play on September 22, 1981, these five pitchers along with Fernando Valenzuela, were tied with 13 wins a piece. The difference between them in the end, was what happened afterwards—

McCatty, Vuckovich, & Valenzuela pitched the best but their teams had trouble scoring for them. In fact, Fernando’s final start was 1-0 loss to the 39-68 Padres with Fred Kuhaulua on the mound?

Other than Fernando, the only N.L. pitcher to just miss the big tie in the end, was Steve Carlton. He’d won most of his games earlier in the year, going 9-1 on a 2.80 ERA before the strike.

Strangely, his Phillies had trouble scoring for him after the strike was over. His second half ERA of 1.93 would normally be enough to pull off the 5 wins he needed. Unfortunately, he only went 4-3. He didn’t reach the tie at 13 or 14.

As for the American League pitchers, Pete Vuckovich actually had a blown save, which balloons his ERA in the above table. So it’s notable that in his final 2 starts, he gave up just 1 run in 15 2/3, but still couldn’t get credit for a win in either start. He was incredibly hot, but seemed to suffer the same problem as Carlton & Valenzuela.

Jack Morris’s ERA, BB/9, and HR/9 easily make him look bad, but he’s probably the most interesting story of the bunch here. He won his 14th, against Scott McGregor who was looking for his 13th. Since Scott won his next start, this game effectively kept Scott from being on this card.

Jack faced up against Pete Vuckovich a few days later, with both the pitchers sitting at 14 W’s, hoping to pass each other. Neither of them won it, but if either of them had, then one of them wouldn’t have been on this card.

Besides Scott McGregor, there was another A.L. hurler who just missed out on being pictured here, was Kansas City’s Dennis Leonard. From September 8 onward, he went 6-1, with a 1.39 ERA.

Dennis had been having a rough year up to that point, but he would’ve appeared on this card if he didn’t get a no decision on Aug 25th when he faced Jack Morris, or on Aug 10th when he faced Dennis Martinez, or the loss he got when he matched up against Pete Vuckovich in June.

Dennis is the reason though, why McCatty isn’t the sole American Leaguer on this card. October 2nd, they faced off in a wonderful pitchers duel in Oakland. Steve was lookin’ for his 15th win, which would’ve put him on this card alone with Tom Seaver.

Both pitchers went the distance, but Dennis came out on top with a 2-0 victory, effectively sticking McCatty at 14 wins.

I never realized when I was a kid, that there were almost more players for this card ’til I started lookin’ into it a couple months ago. Now it fascinates me how intertwined this all was.

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”.

Unfortunately that’s not the direction his story goes. Just six months after he was awarded the Cy, he found himself in pain throughout a game. Something wasn’t right with his elbow.

Even then, there was hope. Arm troubles happen all the time, and advances in the medical field could fix a pitcher’s problems. It was only a couple years earlier that Tommy John had his now famous surgery. So nobody knew that Steve would throw his last major league pitch, exactly one year after he won that 25th game in ’80.

It turned out to be tendonitis in his right forearm, but he wouldn’t pitch again for over three months. He wasn’t even ready when the Orioles began playing again, after the strike finished.

When he finally returned, he wasn’t doing very well, inconsistent at best. He flashed some brilliance at the start of September though. In back to back starts on a west coast trip, highlighted by 7 1/3 innings of shutout ball in the Kingdome. Even then, he said that 98 pitches felt more like 198.

He never even played a game in ’82 — minors or majors. He ended up on the Orioles disabled list before spring training was out and couldn’t recover. When June rolled around, Steve decided it was time to retire and get into something new. That something new, was doin’ the talkin’ thing in the broadcast booth for games.

Random Steve Stone Facts & Stats—

• From May 9 – Aug 23, 1980, Steve posted a 2.67 ERA, while going 19-1.
• Had a 3.11 ERA and 14-1 record vs his division in 1980.
• Had a friendly rivalry with Thurman Munson.
• Career 98 ERA+

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.

After 17 seasons in Baltimore, Mark Belanger signed with the Dodgers in December ’81, to backup Bill Russell at SS. The Dodgers really wanted Ozzie Smith, but Padres manager Dick Williams wanted 3 players in return for The Wizard, and Los Angeles just wasn’t willing to do that.

Mark didn’t have a great ’82, but that was expected. He was known for his glove (8 gold gloves), but at 38 years old, even your best skills will be fading away. His fielding % of .953 in 1982, was the lowest he’d had since 1967, when he was still trying to break into the majors and appeared in 38 games at short (310 innings).

His final appearance on a professional baseball diamond came on October 2, 1982 in the top of the 8th of a blowout game, Dodgers were leading 12-2. Ironically, despite being known as a terrible hitter, he gets a single in his final career plate appearance and drive in the last run of the game. A half inning later, he catches a pop fly for his final play of his career.

I think the most surprising thing about Mark though, is that he smoked. He smoked cigarettes and still ran around playing SS all those years at a high level. It really makes me wonder just how good he might’ve become if he quit smoking. Better lungs = better athlete.

Sadly, the smoking caught up with him a lot more later, killing him in October ’98 at just 54 years old. Cancer.

Random Mark Belanger Facts & Stats—

• .421 BA/.542/.579 vs Goose Gossage
• .357 OBP vs Nolan Ryan
• .346 BA & .433 OBP vs Bert Blyleven
• His .977 fielding % is best career mark for a shortstop

In 1982, the Orioles were still in the midst of their glory years. They’d spent the past 20 years winning 5 AL Pennants, 2 World Series, always being in the top class of the American League even when they weren’t winning a pennant, and still had many solid pieces for another championship run and some good young prospects in AAA.

I have to be honest though, I think I hate this card. First off, Cal Ripken Jr should’ve had his own card in ’82. He was the biggest prospect with the biggest potential and he’d already slipped into the Orioles roster the previous year. Everyone knew he’d be good, and he was already in Baltimore, so he deserved a card of his own.

That being said, I guess it makes sense he’s on the future stars card, since he was just starting out and Topps knew he’d be a star soon. I’m sure everyone reading this knows Cal was the ’82 Rookie of the Year and the ’83 MVP, so I won’t delve much more into him.

A bigger reason this card bothers me, is that the other two players never amounted to anything. I realize Topps couldn’t know for certain who’d be a future star and who’d be a future flop, but there were a few others to choose from the Orioles organization who could’ve been an easy choice for this card and would’ve made the card better.

See, I’d have put Mike Boddicker on it instead of Jeff Schneider. It’s very simple in hindsight, because Boddicker was a solid major league starter from ’82-’90, posting a 112 ERA+ and winning over 100 games. Meanwhile, Jeff toiled away in the minors. Yeah, seriously. Jeff made a few appearances for the Orioles in 1981 and then never made it back again. Why? Because he posted a fat 4.88 ERA in 11 appearances. Those stats won’t usually get you a rookie card, but it worked for Jeff Schneider.

Interesting trivia note… the Orioles went 1-10 in games that Jeff appeared in. The only time they won, was an extra inning game in Seattle on August 25, 1981, and even then, Jeff allowed 2 base runners before getting an out to finish with a save. The O’s were outscored 91-24 in those games.

Another thing I’d change about this card, is I’d replace Bob Bonner with John Shelby. Bob ended up playing in just 61 career big league games, while John was a regular on 2 World Series winning teams in his 11 major league seasons. Even before any of that happens though, John put up significantly better stats in ’81 than Bob. Which leaves me going “Huh? Why Topps? Why?”

Back to Ripken for a moment. If Topps had given Cal his own card in this set, who would’ve been a good choice to take Cal’s place on this future stars card? I think Floyd Rayford would’ve been a good choice. Floyd was a young base stealer with a little pop to his bat in AAA in ’81 and had a cup of tea with the O’s that year too, before going on to play almost 400 games in the majors…about 6.5 times as many games as Bob & Jeff combined.

So this card really should’ve had Mike Boddicker, Floyd Rayford, and John Shelby. Then a proper Cal Ripken card would be added to the set, which could replace some card of a random player who wasn’t very good anyway or was unlikely to play in the majors in ’82.

So that’s the skinny on why this is the one card in the set that really bothers me. I don’t think I’ve seen another future stars card with such a terrible mix of players on it. Although, it still gives me joy to own the Jeff Schneider rookie card.

PS. All 3 players on this card, played in the infamous Rochester @ Pawtucket game that went 33 innings.

The hair underneath the bill of his cap is sweaty, so he obviously was just throwing a few pitches, but still, he looks so carefree and content. I always imagine him thinking that no matter how bad things get, he’s fortunate enough to be one of the few in the major leagues, and be one of the fewer to pitch for a playoff contender and even fewer to pitch himself into the league’s elite hurlers.

Maybe he kept himself grounded that way. Maybe he constantly reminded himself that he’s one of the fortunate few to play in the major leagues and that life could always be much worse.

After all, he was pitching for a team that nearly won the 1979 World Series, finished 2nd in the AL East in 1980 even though they won 100 games, possibly would’ve made the playoffs in 1981 if the strike didn’t hit, and still had all the pieces of the puzzle together. His offense provided him 4.55 runs per 9 innings when he pitched. So even on a bad day, like May 31, 1981, when he gave up 5 runs to the Tigers in 6 IP and loses, life couldn’t be all that bad being Scott McGregor. There was still hope for the next start.

That hope kept the Oriole on the cap happy too. See him smiling? It always smiled back in those days. There were lots of things to smile about, including a young prospect named Cal Ripken Jr making his major league debut. In fact, nice little trivia here… Ripken’s first major league start was during a Scott McGregor start, the 2nd game of a double header on August 12, ’81. The future was starting to look just as bright as the past few years, maybe even brighter.

So when 1982 started, Scott McGregor was poised to be the next great Oriole pitcher in a long line of great Orioles pitchers. The year before, he’d been selected to the American League All-Star team, and had the best ERA among Orioles starters while leading the team in shutouts. Two of those shutouts coming against the AL Champion Yankees on September 25 & October 3.

To be continued…….