5 Baseball Cards that Won Big...but Not a Plaque
Maybe they flossed between innings?
Welcome to the winter! You know, according to the baseball calendar.
To kick things off (and mix our sports metaphors), the late Bob Welch was born 68 years ago. Half those years ago, in November of 1990, Welch was about to land the American League Cy Young Award after going 27-6 with a 2.95 ERA to help the A’s win their third straight pennant.
Welch had been a star for years before that, and had a couple of OK seasons left in the tank, but he fell short of Hall of Fame status.
To celebrate and remember his late-career breakout, here are five baseball cards of hurlers who notched at least 25 wins in a season but couldn’t quite make the Cooperstown cut.
(I’m leaving 1971 Mickey Lolich out of this rundown because I just talked about him here.)
1956 Topps Don Newcombe (#235)
Newcombe made it to the National League (and won Rookie of the Year!) at age 23 in 1949 after three seasons in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league system and two before that with the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League. He won 17, 19, and 20 games his first three summers in Brooklyn before spending all of the 1952 and 1953 seasons in the military.
There was some rust when he came back in 1954 (9-8, 4.55 ERA), but he won 20 games in 1955 as the Dodgers finally got off the championship snide.
It all came together for Newcombe in 1956 at age 30, when he posted a stunning campaign to accompany his classic baseball card. That summer, he led the majors with 27 wins and pitched to a career-best 3.06 ERA. The Dodgers won another pennant before losing the World Series in seven games to the Yankees (who else?!), but Newcombe won both the Cy Young (one award covered both leagues) and National League MVP awards.
The rest of his thirties were tough for Newcombe, and he never won more than 13 games in four more seasons. He pitched his last major league game, for the Indians, in October of 1960 at age 34.
1982 Topps Kmart Denny McLain (#13)
Most fans and collectors know that McLain became the last (so far) 30-game winner in the majors during the “Year of the Pitcher” in 1968. The numbers he posted that summer look pretty unreal: 31-6, 1.96 ERA, 41 starts, 336 innings pitched, 28 complete games. He led the Tigers to the World Series, where he was a more mortal 1-2 with a 3.24 ERA — Detroit still won the title thanks to Mickey Lolich’s mound heroics (and some heavy hitting).
The regular-season heroics were enough to make McLain an easy choice as both the American League Cy Young and MVP winner. It also set up his 1968 Topps burlap issue for hobby royalty, securing a spot in the 1982 Kmart set celebrating MVP winners back through 1962.
McLain wasn’t a one-hit wonder, though. He won 20 games in 1966 and followed up his historic season with 24 victories in 1969.
Alas, gambling issues led to a lengthy suspension in 1970 and a rapid downfall afterwards. McLain was done in the majors by September of 1972, at the age of 28.
1978 Topps Ron Guidry (#135)
One of my favorite pitching seasons ever was Guidry’s 1985. That summer, at age 34, Louisiana Lightning went 22-6 with a 3.27 ERA, good enough to land him second billing behind Bret Saberhagen for the American League Cy Young Award.
Part of the reason that performance resonated with me was because he was coming off a down year in 1984 and had sort of been an afterthought in discussions of “great pitchers” since I started following the game in 1983 (though he was pretty darn stellar that year, too).
Mostly, watching Guidry’s win totals spiral upwards in 1985 felt like stepping into a time machine. His 1978 run with the Yankees was legendary — 25-3, 1.74 ERA, nine shutouts, Cy Young, second place in MVP voting, a World Series ring.
And, oh yeah, a classic pinstripes-in-the-sunshine, crowd-on-your-shoulders baseball card that somehow feels dynastic even today.
Boo-hiss to aging bodies, though, as Guidry pitched just three more seasons after his 1985 resurgence, never won ten games again, and fell short of Hall standards (though arguably above some who are enshrined).
1980 Topps Steve Stone (#688)
Before Steve Stone became Harry Caray’s straight man, he used his 1980 Topps card to audition for the part of Michael Stivic during a Rob Reiner contract dispute. When that didn’t pan out, Stone returned to the Orioles for a second season.
At 32, Stone managed to fit right in with Scott McGregor, Mike Flanagan, and Jim Palmer to form one of the top rotations in baseball. Heck, Stoney more than fit in — he became “next up” when it came to Orioles Cy Young winners.
Stone’s gaudy 25-7 record helped him win a super tight race with Mike Norris (22-9) — both received 13 first-place votes — despite Norris’ advantage in innings pitched (about 30 more) and ERA (2.53 v. 3.23).
But after throwing a career-high 250.2 innings at such an advanced (baseball) age, Stone battled shoulder issues in 1981 and retired after that season. With just 107 career victories, Stone would have to find another path to Cooperstown. Think he found a good one?
1990 Topps Bob Welch (#475)
And we end where we began — sort of like the Bash Brothers A’s, who lost the first World Series they were supposed to win (1988), won the second (1989), and were swept out of the Fall Classic forever (so far, at least) by my Reds in 1990.
The mound ace of those teams (aside from closer Dennis Eckersley) was Dave Stewart, who won 20 games or more each season from 1987 through 1990. Stew never snagged a Cy Young Award, though, primarily because he kept running into guys who had better overall individual seasons each year.
That probably wasn’t the case for Welch, who pitched to a 2.95 ERA in 1990, compared to Stewart’s 2.56, and who also pitched 29 fewer innings. But dude won 27 games, and it was tough for voters to NOT hand the hardware to a pitcher with that many victories.
And so they did.
Even that hardware can’t save Welch’s 1990 Topps cards from commons-bin Junk Wax status, but it’s still a pretty solid exemplar of the era and of that amazing season, in particular.
Welch went on to pitch four more seasons for Oakland, but he never won more than 12 games in any of them, and his combined ERA from 1991 through 1994 was 4.80. He did end up with 211 victories, which would look like a miracle for just about any pitcher today.
Pretty ho-hum for late 20th century pitchers, though, at least for those who might have had designs on the Hall of Fame.
—
This year (2024), the leader in both major leagues notched 18 wins. It’s now been five years since the American League had a 20-game winner, though National League leaders met or exceeded that mark each year from 2021 through 2023.
Obviously, the way pitchers are used today looks a lot different than it did when Welch was pushing toward 30 wins. (Get off my lawn!)
Think we’ll ever see 25 in a season again?
For most of us, at least we can be glad we don’t have to wonder if our favorite teams can win 25 games in a season. For White Sox fans…well, at least you have the venerable Will Venable to shoulder the load of trying to stop making low-end history now.
And Venable is a boon for old-time collectors, too. I mean, how can you hear/read his name and not think of his pop?
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
Just made a post about today's pitching a few days before this: Funny you say that Tony Clark....a player in the 1990's. Here lies within the problem..... clubs pay pitchers $100-200 million and are scared to death their arms will give out. It is money vs. benefit. I was lucky enough to see pitchers such as Nolan Ryan, Jim Palmer, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, and Fergie Jenkins who tossed 300 innings, 20 complete games year in-year out. Rich Gossage and Bruce Sutter would pitch three innings to close out a game. Not buying it Tony.... when you see a pitcher being gassed after throwing 160 innings....or two days in a row.... that goes back to the teams and their pitching coach. Analytics has ruined baseball.