My First Cards

Any good White Sox fan from the late 1970′s should remember this guy. At his peak, 1976-1980, Lamar Johnson was arguably one of the top players on the team while playing in more games than any other White Sox player not named Chet Lemon. During this time he posted a 113 OPS+, led the team in RBI’s, and was 2nd in HR’s for the club. Along the way, he wore the shorts, he wore the big bad disco style collars, he was one of the South Side Hitmen”, and he was there for disco demolition night.

His talents began to fade in 1980 though. From 1976 through May 8, 1980 he was hitting .321 with a .375 OBP, and slugging at .536, to give him a .911 OPS. Looked like he was having yet another good season for the ChiSox when ’80 started. Nobody knew it at the time, but on May 9 in a game in Texas, Lamar would go 0 for 5 and his career would never be the same. Just look at the sudden difference here, even if we include his not-so-good beginning years—

That’s a significant drop in averages there, and a big change in his home run rate slowing down. What’s weirder is that he was just 28 years old, which should be a players prime time (age 27-30ish). Makes me suspect an injury or a batting coach trying to change something about Lamar’s approach at the plate, but I couldn’t find anything to confirm that.

So when Lamar was granted free agency in November 1981, his career was limping on its last leg. In January 1982, he signed with the Rangers. For the first nine games of the season, he hit well and looked like he could be getting a second wind, batting a pretty .375/.423/.583/1.006! But after those nine games, he hit a mere .250 and only got on base at a .318 pace. He probably doesn’t remember 1982 as fondly as I do, since his career was finished that year.

One more thing. Notice on the back of Lamar’s ’82 card that one of the trivia questions is about Jim Kaat. Kaat played with Lamar on the White Sox in ’74-’75. The first time they played in the same game, Kaat won his 19th of the season, 3-1, over the A’s. Lamar provided the 2-run difference in the score by driving in the winning run and scoring one himself earlier.