5 Baseball Cards Built for Speed
Gentlemen, start your wax packs!
Today marks the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500.
There aren’t many events here in central Indiana that come with such fanfare and build-up.
A Peyton Manning sighting a the local Hook’s Drug Store, maybe.
Or the first rhubarb pickings of the summer.
Otherwise, this is pretty much the pinnacle.
And the 500 is all about speed.
So is today’s cardboard menu…
(Stats culled from baseball-reference.com)
1972 Topps Darcy Fast (#457)
Derrel Thomas and Mike Ivie you know, at least if you were a collector in the 1970s and 1980s.
Darcy Fast?
Well, you had to look fast or you’d miss him.
He made 8 appearances for the Cubs in 1968, striking out 10 in 10 innings.
I don’t know what kind of stuff he had, but a K per inning usually means there’s some heat involved.
Fast was just 21 years old that summer and had made a fast ascent to the majors after Chicago drafted him in the 6th round in 1967.
He never made it back to the show, and he was gone from the pros by 1970.
Fast left almost as fast as he showed up.
So fast, even his rookie card was two four years — or two, depending on your perspective — late.
1977 Topps Randy Jones (#550)
Jones was so fast, he blew his Padres cap off in this pic taken during his Cy Young season in 1976.
Almost blew his hair off, too.
But he wasn’t fast like that.
Nah, Jones struck out just 2.7 batters per 9 innings during his award-winning summer and topped 5 just once (1974).
But he did have a reputation for working quickly. And when he and Jim Kaat faced off on May 4, 1977, they were done before Ray Kroc’s french fries could even get cold.
A 9-inning game done in an hour and 29 minutes.
Fast.
1978 Topps Bobby Cox (#93)
You know Bobby Cox as the legendary manager of all those Atlanta Braves teams that won a couple dozen division titles during the 1990s.
But did you know …
Oh, crap, I have to end this section here.
Cox got ejected again.
You never knew when he would be gone, and it could happen fast.
1986 Topps Buddy Bell (#285)
This one’s maybe a bit unjustified, at least as far as the stats are concerned.
After all, Bell managed 56 triples and 55 stolen bases during his 18-year career.
And, when Bell came to the Reds in 1985, he became one of my favorite players.
It was a real thrill to see him play live in 1986 at Riverfront.
But watching Bell run the bases at age 34 was sort of like watching a school bus navigate a motorcycle course.
My dad christened him a sarcastic “Flash” that night, and Bell’s two stolen bases in ten attempts that season seem to fit the bill.
1988 Topps Tommy Lasorda (#74)
We had to get one car on our list this raceway day, right?
Here we have Tom(my) Lasorda taking a break from “driving” around the diamond to shoot the breeze and mug for the camera.
Durocher may have been Leo the Lip, but Lasorda had a pretty fast tongue of his own.
—
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go listen to go dust off the old Huffy.
Me and the other neighborhood kids are revving up for our annual race day bike race around the country block.
The gravel is fresh, and my knees have almost healed up from last year’s tilt.
And my yellow two-wheeler? The one with the black pinstripes?
It’s fast.
Thanks for reading, and remember that Reds cards don’t belong in your spokes.
—Adam