Yeah, marvel at his reaction for a moment.

Despite this being a ridiculous looking photo, he was a budding star coming off his breakout season where he batted .328/.369/.479, and seemed to have a ton of potential greatness in his future.

That greatness would have to wait though, ’cause about half way through ’82, his season ended with an early July injury.

Up to that point though, he was struggling a bit anyway. Maybe he was playing through an injury for a while… which wouldn’t be surprising, considering the attitude he had. He was hardcore player, playing baseball with a football mentality.

He flashed his potential before the injury killed his year. One example is May 14th against the Twins. That day he went 5-for-6, including a walk off 2-run homer!

As if that wasn’t enough, on July 1st he lined a walk off double against the Red Sox. He was 3-for-5 that day, driving in 3 of the Tigers 5 runs.

On April 19th, he slammed a 2-run shot off Dan Quisenberry in the bottom of the 8th, giving the Tigers a 3-2 lead that they didn’t relinquish. To be fair, ’82 was a tough year for Quiz, he only managed a mere 159 ERA+. Yeah, Quiz was that good, and Gibson still rawwked him.

June 2nd, Kirk smacked another 8th inning 2-run blast to put his team up by 1 run.

It was games like these, that helped build the suspense when the 9th inning of game 1 for the 1988 World Series rolled around. Kirk was an exciting, never-give-up kind of player from day 1, and that potential greatness eventually spilled out all over baseball history. It was just bound to.

So it’s quite fitting, that the back of this baseball card, notes his first career walk-off home run…. which, came against the team that lost to the Dodgers in the 1981 Series.

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.

He had 562 PA’s, due to a combination of his playing skill and the teams he played for. All these teams, except for the Expos, were above .500 clubs. Those Expos, weren’t hurting for offensive but for pitching. So none of these teams really had a solid place for Stan to play.

“Doctor” Stan finished his career with Tigers, as a backup infielder during ’80 and ’81. His final play was striking out as a pinch hitter in the 8th inning with his team down 4-0 and two guys on.

A couple months later, a leak to the press revealed the Tigers thought very little of Stan’s ability. This killed their chances to trade him, and they ended up releasing him outright, a month later.

Well, they put him on waivers for $1, and nobody was interested. Not much of a difference from being released outright.

In March though, the White Sox were talkin’ with Stan, but it never came to anything. He just leaves baseball. He probably still could’ve been a good defensive replacement in a game for many teams, at the least.

By April 1987, Stan was a delivery man for a bakery in his hometown of Fresno, California. Part of his delivery route took him to Rudy May’s store elsewhere in town. Small world.

I sometimes wonder if he’s still doing that job, or climbed up the ladder. I wonder what he thought of all his former teams having so much success throughout the 1980′s. I wonder if everytime Big Papi steps up to the plate in Fenway, if he tells whoever’s with him, “yeah, but he wasn’t the first Papi to play in Boston.”

Sometimes I wonder about Stan Papi… the guy with the big wad of gum in his mouth lookin’ cool when I was a kid.

He was pretty consistent along the way, with a 6-5 home record, a 6-5 road record, a 6-5 record in the first half of the season, and 6-5 after the break. His ERA before the All-Star break was 3.62, and after the break it was 3.63. Even by month, his ERA was 3-something every month except one.

Something Sparky probably liked even better than the consistency, was that Milt was doin’ his job great against the best teams in the division (Milwaukee, Baltimore, and Boston), going 5-3 on the strength of a 3.49 ERA. Detroit was only 9-22 against those three teams when Milt wasn’t pitching.

Even the Royals, who were a 90 win team in the AL West, had their troubles hitting Milt Wilcox in 1982. On April 20th, he tosses a 1 hit shutout against them. Later in the summer, he throws another 5 shutout innings against them.

That means that against four of the elite American League clubs that season, Milt Wilcox posted a 2.90 ERA and went 7-3 (.700) with just 1 no decision. That’s really really good. What makes those number even crazier, is that when it wasn’t 1982, his numbers against these same four clubs were downright awful— 4.79 ERA, 23-38 (.377), and 30 no decisions.

It was just that kind of rare season. He was consistent as they come, but also out of whack with his career stats, and somehow managed to beat some of the league’s best lineups….that couldn’t normally beat.

The next season, Milt Wilcox would nearly throw a perfect game on April 15 against the White Sox. He only had to get 1 more out, when pinch hitter Jerry Hairston singled to center.

Not long after that, Milt’s skills began a slow fade off into the sunset. Maybe they were already fading in ’82, but after that season his ERA fell below average for the rest of his career. Even in 1984 when he won 17 games and helped lead the Tigers to a World Championship, his ERA was a fat 4.00.

He eventually wound up in Seattle, finishing his career as he finished the June 12, 1986 game for the Mariners against the White Sox. Ironically, the last batter he faced in his career and the last batter he got out, was Jerry Hairston.

When Jack entered the Tigers training camp in ’82 though, he tied for the AL lead in wins the previous year & looked to build on his success. Manager Sparky Anderson must’ve felt good about his chances at a playoff spot. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way.

Jack’s overall stats were average in 1982, and he wasn’t even the best pitcher in the Tigers rotation. He had the lowest ERA+ at 100, gave up more hits per 9 IP, and nearly the highest HR’s allowed rate at 1.3. He did lead the team in wins with 17, but he also led it in losses too. In fact, his 16 losses mean he lost more games than any of the other pitchers won.

If we look at the strength of his opponents though, we can see exactly what his problem was—

Essentially, Jack Morris was a Cy Young candidate against bad teams, but he couldn’t even compete against good teams. I mean, the good teams didn’t just beat Morris in ’82, they slaughtered him.

Further, when Morris allowed 2 runs or less, he was 12-1, with 1 no decision. Of those 14 starts though, he only faced 1 team over .500, which makes for a pretty weak 12-1. His record in the other 23 starts, was 5-15 with 3 no decisions. So fortunately for Jack & Detroit, Morris got to face weak teams almost twice as often as strong teams. That covers over the fact that his year was even worse than the 17-16 record, 4.06 ERA, and 100 ERA+ suggest.

For his career, Jack Morris won 62% of his victories by beating inferior lineups. This amazes me.

That’s 92 games over .500 in his career against bad teams, 24 games UNDER .500 when he faced good teams, and his ERA was very different in the two situations. That kind of ruins the whole myth about him being a big game pitcher.

I also can’t help but notice that his 3.57 ERA against sub-.500 teams, is higher than Dave Stieb’s and Bob Welch’s entire career ERA’s (facing good and bad lineups).

That being said, Morris was still a premier pitcher in his day. At his peak, from ’83-’87, he had a 120 ERA+, 3.38 ERA, .635 winning percentage, and 70 CG.

Kemp was the 1st pick of the 1st round of the 1976 amateur draft. The Tigers brought him to the major leagues after only 125 games in the minors. It’s pretty surprising to me that Kemp didn’t get a single vote for Rookie of the Year in 1977 after he swatted 18 homers, drove in 88 RBI’s, slugged .422, and scored 75 runs. Compare that to Bump Wills who got four 1st place votes whacking just 9 HR’s, 62 RBI’s, and slugged .410. Steve Kemp should’ve gotten a little more attention from the start.

From 1977-1981, he was one of baseball brightest young stars. In fact, for players under age 27 during that period who had more than 2000 plate appearances, Kemp had the 9th highest OPS+ and 3rd highest RBI total, behind only Jim Rice and Eddie Murray. He also had a talent for drawing walks more than striking out, helping him to a .376 OBP.

Detroit probably thought he was fading since he only knocked in 9 HR’s in 105 games in 1981, because on November 27, Kemp was traded to the Chicago White Sox for another young star, Chet Lemon. Kemp went on to have a very good season in Chicago, his only year there.

The first full month of that season he hit .300/.388/.420, but couldn’t find his home run swing, collecting only 3. Another month passes and he still only added 1 more home run to his total. When the All-Star break hit, he only had 8 HR’s, but he had driven in 51 while scoring 35 more himself (minus the HR’s that counted as RBI’s).

His slugging rose 20 points in the second half of the season, to help him reach 19 home runs after the second game of a double header at Comiskey Park against the Mariners on Sept 27. He also drove in his 98th run that day. There were five games left, and Steve Kemp looked sure to pull off his 3rd season of 20+ HR’s and 100+ RBI’s. In those last five games though, he only hit .118 with 4 walks and struck out 5 times, falling short of the 20 HR/100 RBI mark.

After 1982, he moved on to the Yankees for a couple years and then faded out. My personal memory of Kemp is from the ’83 season, and watching him smack a big home run into the Yankees right field upper deck. I immediately went out to my backyard with my Yankees hat on and started pretending to be Steve Kemp for the rest of the afternoon. My memory might be a bit off though, because I couldn’t find a game from that year where Kemp hit a home run in the afternoon in Yankee Stadium, assuming only the weekend games were afternoon ones. So maybe it was 1984, or maybe the Yanks played a rare afternoon game during a weekday that summer.

Three impessive Steve Kemp career stats…

• 96 PA’s as a pinch hitter, he posted a .406 OBP
• When the bases were loaded, he drew 7 walks, batted .333, slugged .531
• In 531 PA’s in the 6th inning… 21 Hr’s, 73 RBI’s, .299/.380/.489