Broderick Perkins also makes a cameo in the Joe Lefebvre card, staring from the on deck circle like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on. He’s just standing there, leaning on his bat. Shouldn’t he be warming up to hit?

He’s actually 1 of just 310* players since 1921, to have both a .352 SLG (or lower) & .313 OBP (or lower) in a minimum of 1300 plate appearances. Most of those 310 players were shortstops and players who were so good defensively that they were worth keeping around (Mario Mendoza, Mark Belanger, etc).

Brod Perkins on the other hand, played a position that doesn’t really require a great glove and is usually reserved for power hitters—first base.

The only time he ever had an OBP over .325 was in 1980, when he somehow managed a .423 OBP over 111 plate appearances. He also smacked out a .520 SLG. But like I said, that was in just 111 PA’s.

When ’82 started, the Padres must’ve been hopin’ his 1981 season was just a big slump and that he’d return to his 1980 swing, ’cause they had him play in 125 games.

To me, the most interesting statistic he put up in 1982 deals with how he hit the starting pitcher the 1st time at bat compared with the 2nd time he sees the pitcher.

How do you do that? I mean… the 2nd time you see a pitcher, you have a better idea what he’s dealing that day. the 1st time you see him, you’d have less idea what’s coming and have a harder time against him. Yet, in 1982, Broderick Perkins managed to have less of an idea how to hit a pitcher after he knew what was coming.

I mean, that’s not just a small dropoff in hitting ability, that’s a mammoth difference.

Of course, this got me curious to see if his whole career was like this. It turns out, that he hit like this in every season except 1980 and ’84. Remember, ’80 was the 1 year he showed All-Star potential. In ’84, he just didn’t seem to be able to hit a pitcher the 1st time he saw them either…not just the 2nd.

So I suspect he was just going up there guessing or expecting a first pitch strike & swinging at it. That’s not how to stay in the major leagues, and that’s why his career was so short and why he hit so poorly. It makes me wonder… if Broderick Perkins would’ve learned to outsmart a pitcher, he might’ve become one of the great hitters of all time. Perhaps if the Padres had a hitting coach who noticed this, Brod might’ve developed into a perennial All-Star, if not a Hall of Famer. Maybe.

* – 1,810 players from 1921-2009 accumulated 1,300+ PA’s. This means that 310 is 16.78% of those players. I started the count in ’21, to exclude the deadball era hitters.

1982 was an up and down season for Joe though. Just 6 days after that game, he strikes out 3 times in San Francisco. He went from his best game of the season to his worst, in less than a week.

His splits tell a tale of his ups and downs. That season he was a far far better hitter in home games than the road, his BA was about 80 points better at home and his OBP was 98 points better. His BABIP against lefties was .233, but 60 points higher against righties.

For the whole season, he posted a slim 77 OPS+. The next year he’d have a 150 OPS+. The year before, he had a 135 OPS+. Pretty up and down even across his seasons too.

His season really turned around on August 1 though. If we split his season on that date, it makes me wonder why the Padres didn’t send him down to AAA by the All-Star break.

He carried that late season momentum into ’83, when he was traded to Philadelphia and hit very well for the NL Champion Phillies, .310/.388/.543. That was his last hurrah though, as he fell back to being a below average hitter in ’84 and slipped out of the majors after ’86.

Now let’s talk for a moment about what game was being played in this photo. Here’s our clues—

• The catcher is in a striped home uniform, with red “band” on sleeve.
• It’s during daylight
• An African-American player is on the on-deck circle waiting to bat

There’s only 2 games that could possibly fit, May 2 or the 1st game of the doubleheader on May 3, 1981 in Shea Stadium. Can’t be sure which day, but it’s definitely from either May 2 or 3. Either way, this means the catcher is Alex Trevino & the player waiting to bat is Broderick Perkins.

That picture fits this card so well, because he’s become one of the most curious and mysterious players I’ve come across. He had a short major league career spanning 1977-1981, with the Cardinals and Padres. Then never pitched again, as far as I can find. After being released by the Padres on March 26, 1982, there’s no record of him appearing in any major league or minor league games.

I mean, who posts a 2.39 ERA from the bullpen for a sub-.500 team and then just vanishes? That was good for a 137 ERA+, which you’d think would give him a chance the following season to prove he can’t repeat it before dropping him. It was definitely his best season. In 18 2/3 combined innings against the Phillies, Expos, Astros, and Giants, he didn’t allow a single run to score. The Mets, Cardinals, and Braves, only managed to score 1 run a piece on him in 16 more innings. He was also pretty nasty in home games, posting a 1.73 ERA. The Padre Encyclopedia says he even “established a Padre mark for right-handers by hurling 20 consecutive scoreless innings”. Entering September 1981, his ERA was 0.95 in 38 IP. That’s a stopper. So why did he suddenly disappear?

I almost thought I found a clue that he might’ve suffered a career ending arm injury late in the ’81 season. His ERA in Sepember & October that year, was over 7. Yet, looking closer, I see his last 5 appearances he didn’t allow a single run. So that kinda blew my theory out of the water. In fact, he simply had a stretch of 4 bad appearances, which is a slump any pitcher could have.

John Urrea, if you happen to stumble on this after Googling yourself, let me know whatever became of you….I’m really curious why your career suddenly just, stopped.