5 Triumphant Baseball Cards of Obscure Cy Young Winners

Didn't you used to be Roy Face?

Happy Roger Clemens Day!

What, you say you’ve never heard of Roger Clemens Day? Well, I don’t know what YOU were doing on November 12, 1986, but Rocket was busy becoming a unanimous Cy Young Award winner.

A few days later, he’d follow in the footsteps of Sandy Koufax, Denny McClain, and Bob Gibson as men who swept the CY vote and were also named MVP.

Later this week, on Wednesday, this year’s Cy Young Award winners will be announced. So, it seems like a fitting time to look at some cards of previous Cy Young champs, right?

Right.

But since everything is always sideways around here, I’m going to look what I’ll call “oddball” winners — either they came out of nowhere (and went back to nowhere) to snag some hardware, said hardware was ill-gotten hardware, or something else struck me about their wins or their cards as funny.

Or off.

And with that, we’re off…

1960 Topps Vern Law (#453)

Growing up (and now), I always got Vern Law confused with Elroy Face, at least in terms of their accomplishments. And I always had (have) to look them up to tell them apart.

So, Face is the guy who went 18-1 as a reliever for the 1959 Pirates but didn’t get any Cy Young love at all.

Law is the guy who went 20-9 with a majors-leading 18 complete games (tied with Warren Spahn) as a starter for the 1960 Pirates and won the Cy Young Award.

Never mind that Ernie Broglio won more games, had a lower ERA, and struck out far more batters in fewer innings. The Cardinals finished way back of the Bucs in the National League standings and behind Spahn’s Braves, too.

So Broglio had to settle for a third-place tie with teammate Lindy McDaniel in the CYA vote.

In between the Pittsburgh pennant and the Cy Young announcement, Law won two more games and helped the Pirates take an epic 7-game World Series against theYankees.

So, not an awful CYA choice, but one I still can’t keep straight.

1974 Topps Traded Mike Marshall (#73T)

Mike Marshall was a trendsetter. First, he made it fashionable to make 106 appearances and throw 208 1/3 innings in a season as a reliever.

OK, maybe not fashionable, but possible, and without dying. At least as long as you had his genetics and bulldoggedness.

Then Marshall took the Cy Young Award pretty handily from Dodgers teammate, starter Andy Messersmith, who tied with Phil Niekro for the National League lead with 20 wins.

Before Marshall, relievers just didn’t win Cy Youngs. Ask Roy Face if you don’t believe me.

Heck, only Tom Seaver in 1973 had won a CYA with fewer than 20 Ws (Marshall had 15, Seaver had 19 the year before).

But after Marshall?

Sparky Lyle won the American League Cy Young in 1978. Bruce Sutter topped the N.L. in 1979. Rollie Fingers and Willie Hernandez won the A.L. Cy Young and MVP awards in 1981 and 1984, respectively.

For his part, Marshall would log another seven years in the majors after his arm didn’t fall off in 1974. And, of course, he also got to appear on this nifty, actinium-laced Topps Traded card that you can’t store or display within 100 yards of children or pets.

1982 Topps Pete Vuckovich (#643)

So, Vuckovich didn’t really have much business winning the 1982 American League Cy Young Award.

Not when Dave Stieb was in his prime and LaMarr Hoyt was leading the league in wins for the first of two consecutive seasons, or when Geoff Zahn was basically the same pitcher as Vuckovich, but for the West-winning Angels.

But, hey, these things are subjective, and they were even more so back in the early 1980s.

So it was tough for voters to resist the mystique of Harvey’s Wallbangers and the feel-good story of the decade (up to that point, and aside from Fernando…and the 1980 Phillies…and E.T.)

Besides, Vuckovich was part of a matched set, along with Moose Haas and Gorman Thomas and Charlie Moore and Jim Gantner. And even Robin Yount, give or take a hundred pounds.

1983 Topps John Denny (#211)

We had a lot of tornadoes and other severe weather where I grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

You could always tell something bad was going to happen when the silver maple trees turned their leaves upside-down-inside-out and the sky turned 1983 Topps John Denny weird.

I still waffle back and forth when I see this card — is the sky really dark and ominous, like it feels, or is Denny just standing in front of a bank of harmless white clouds passing across an otherwise pristine band of blue, Touched By an Angel style?

At any rate, I’m pretty sure the airbrushing adds to the feeling of doom.

And also at any rate, this was the Topps card we were all stuck/blessed with as Denny unleashed the finest season of his career to help the Wheeze Kids Phillies win the old (ahem) National League East and then the pennant before losing to the Orioles in the World Series.

Denny deservingly won the Cy Young Award that fall, though it hurt to see him beat out Mario Soto.

Denny would finish his career three years later with my Reds, where that self-same Soto was struggling through the aftereffects of throwing thousands of fastballs — mostly, that consisted of trying to tie his right shoulder together with Schottzie fur before each start.

1987 Topps Steve Bedrosian (#736)

Steve Bedrosian led the major leagues in saves and specious awards in 1987, but not much else.

The problem for National League Cy Young voters was, I guess, manifold:

• Only one guy won as many as 18 games (Rick Sutcliffe).

• The guy who seemed to be the choice in many circles (Rick Reuschel) split his season between two teams and wasn’t actually all that great for his new club down the stretch.

• Nolan Ryan was otherworldly with his power pitching and led the league in ERA, but he went just 8-16.

There were other flawed candidates, too.

Today, Bob Welch might have won the award, given his big lead in WAR, but 15-9, 3.22 wasn’t too exciting in 1987.

So the voters tossed names into a hat and drew them out. Then did it again. And Again.

After 24 rounds, Bedrosian, of the fourth-place Phillies, was the champ, edging out Sutcliffe and Reuschel.

Bedrock’s 1987 Topps card is about as exciting now as it was then.

—

There are plenty of other men who fit this bill, too.

Some were before my time — 1964 Dean Chance and 1967 Mike McCormick come to mind.

Some were fully in my wheelhouse — 1981 Rollie Fingers and 1984 Willie Hernandez — but John Denny is doing fine job representing that group.

And some were recent enough, and yet still pre-Covid enough, for me to not quite grasp what happened. Like that time Justin Verlander nabbed 14 first-place votes but lost the Cy Young to Rick Porcello and his 8 first-place vote.

Thank goodness there’s no Boston bias in modern baseball.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your picks, as always.

Until next time, I’ll be sitting here in the corner with my 1982 Kmart cards, trying to figure out what the heck happened to Zoilo Versalles.

After all, the MVPs will be announced this week, too. There’s little drama to the thing since MLB announces “finalists” well ahead of time now, but I’m still hoping that a strong write-in campaign for Kurt Stillwell can at least make things interesting.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam