6 Baseball Cards That Finished Strong
Or at least finished at the very end
Welcome to the last day of the season (non-Braves/Mets Division)!
Is your team moving on? Did your favorite player(s) have the kind of summer you hoped for?
Most of all, are you ready for whatever sort of history and memorable moments this happy-sad day will bring?
To get you in the mood, here are five baseball cards from the early part of my own fandom, each forever tied to an unforgettable Last Day.
1983 Topps Carl Yastrzemski Super Veteran (#551)
Well before the end of the 1983 season, I knew my Reds were going to have a long winter. And all of the division races were well in the bag before the last games were played on October 2, too.
One of those “last games” had special meaning, though, as Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski stepped on the diamond for the final time as an active player. In that afternoon game at Fenway Park against the Indians, Yaz went 1-for-3 with a walk while staring in left field (where else?!).
With 3400+ hits, 450+ home runs, a Triple Crown, and enough memories to cover the Green Monster on both sides, Yastrzemski was a no-doubt Hall of Famer. And you could see every one of his 23 years in the bigs on the time-lapse canvas of his 1983 Topps Super Veteran card.
There would be cardboard tributes to Yaz in 1984, too, but those were shared with other living legends who had hung up their spikes in 1983.
Alas, each of Johnny Bench, Gaylord Perry, and Fergie Jenkins had already played his last game before October ever seized hold of the calendar.
1985 Donruss “Two for the Title” (#651)
I’ve written about this card and its origins in detail before, like here.
For our purposes here today, though, “Two for the title” plops me down in the middle of the first heart-thumping baseball race I ever witnessed.
Coming into the season, I knew Dave Winfield as a huge athlete with a powerful swing who could drive in runs with the best of them. Batting average wasn’t his forte.
Coming into the season, I knew Don Mattingly as…uh…as nothing, really. I had noticed his rookie cards in my wax packs, mostly because of the last name I’d never seen before. Same as George Bjorkman.
But then Winfield caught fire in June and ended the month leading all A.L. hitters with a .368 batting average. Could the big man actually win a batting title?
And who was this Mattingly guy who was pushing the top of the rankings at .344? Another Yankee, you say?
The race was on, and it would stay on all summer long and into the early fall — until the last day of the season on September 30, in fact.
Donnie Baseball had a field day 40 years ago tomorrow to nab the title, and we all got a deliciously 1980s baseball card from Donruss in 1985 to warm our old-man hearts on cold, baseball-less winters in the 2020s.
1985 Fleer Mike Witt SSS (#643)
Mike Witt tends to be mostly forgotten by modern fans and even fans of a certain age, but the 6’7” right-hander was the Angels’ staff ace for most of the mid-to-late 1980s. And in 1986 when they came within a Dave Henderson of the World Series, Witt just might have been California’s best player overall.
Before that, though, he stamped his mark on the 1984 season in stunning fashion.
On the last day of the campaign, the Angels traveled to Texas with a chance to salvage a .500 record after having been eliminated in the old American League West earlier in the season.
There in Arlington, while Mattingly and Winfield were duking it out in the Bronx, Witt faced off against 103-year-old knuckleballer Charlie Hough. The Rangers’ oldster went the distance, giving up just one run on seven hits and three walks.
The bad news for the Texas faithful was that Witt was perfect in recording his 15th win of the season.
The next spring, Fleer gave Witt top billing on a Super Star Special honoring his gem, along with David Palmer’s five-inning perfecto and Jack Morris’ April no-hitter.
1985 Donruss Highlights Phil Niekro (#50)
If Hough was 103 on the last day of the 1984 season, then fellow knuckler Phil Niekro must have been pushing 120 when the next campaign wrapped up, on October 6, 1985.
That afternoon, Niekro took the mound for the Yankees against the division-champion Toronto Blue Jays. Getting ready for their showdown with the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship series, Toronto manager Bobby Cox rested most of his starters.
Niekro feasted like a hungry lion stumbling into a barnful of sleeping piglets.
The ancient one pitched all nine innings, allowing just seven baserunners (four hits, three walks) and no runs while striking out five. In so doing, Niekro
Won his 16th game of the season.
Notched his 300th career victory.
Became the oldest pitcher to throw a shutout.
The record book says Niekro was 46 years, six months, and five days old, though baseball fans of the time know he was older than that when he was born.
At any rate, his “official” age made him oldest ever to hurl a shutout, topping the record Satchel Paige set in 1952. Jamie Moyer raised the bar by nearly a year when he tossed his final shutout in May of 2010.
1987 Topps Larry Herndon (#298) and Frank Tanana (#726)
On Saturday, September 26, 1987, the Tigers lost to the Blue Jays in Toronto to fall 3.5 games behind the Jays in the American League East race…with just eight games left in the season.
Six days later, on Friday, the Tigers beat the Blue Jays in the first game of a season-ending series in Detroit. It was the Tigers’ fourth win (against two losses) since the L on the 26th. More importantly, it was the Jays’ fifth straight loss.
The two teams were tied with two games left.
The Tigers won Saturday’s game on Alan Trammell’s walkoff single in the 12th. That put them up by one game with one to play. Win on Sunday, and Detroit would face off against the Twins in the ALCS. Lose, and it was on to game 163, Tigers v. Jays for the East marbles.
Toronto sent ace Jimmy Key to the mound on Sunday, and Sparky Anderson countered with Frank Tanana. Both pitchers went the distance, and both were amazing.
Key gave up three hits and three walks while striking out eight.
Tanana gave up six hits and three walks while striking out nine.
The difference? Tanana bent but never broke, allowing two runners to reach third, but none to score.
On the other hand, Key made one mistake — Larry Herndon took him deep with one out and no one on in the second inning. It held up, and the Tigers won the East by two games.
This was the first last-week division race that ever made my heart race on a daily basis, but it really heated up back in August when the Tigers traded John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander.
Alexander went a ridiculous 9-0 for the Tigers, who won all 11 of his starts — including two that fateful last week. I still get all verklempt thinking about it even today.
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So what are some of your favorite last-day memories? I’d love to hear them, and dredging them up will help you get warmed up for the long winter ahead.
Here’s hoping that your team can help you hold off a bit on that date with the hot stove, though. Mine’s already loaded with kindling and starting to pop.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
That Niekro game was something. I remember watching it on Channel 11. He only gave up 4 hits that day. Mattingly and Pagliarulo had homers but the big guy was Yankee legend Henry Cotto. He had a homer and 4 RBI's that day. The one moment of relatively recent memory was Albert Belle's final at bat when he homered off of El Duque. That was a shot and a half.