1977 bert blyleven

bert blyleven's facsimile autograph is slightly adjusted on his 1977 o-pee-chee card:

 here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

regarding the cartoon, james (deacon) mcguire may have played in 26 seasons from the late 19th century into the early 1900's, but in a couple of those he was a manager who put himself in the lineup once or twice.  blyleven wound up pitching for 22 seasons over 23 years (he missed 1991 due to injury), and as we all know, jamie moyer is pitching in his 25th season this year - and it could have been his 27th if he hadn't spent all of 1992 in the minors and then missed 2011 due to injury.  here's the topps back:

1977 was bert's first full season with the rangers, and his string of consecutive 200-strikeout seasons came to an end.  he went 14-12 in 30 starts and posted an era of 2.72 while leading the league in whip at 1.06.  he had 182 k's, 15 complete games, and 5 shutouts, and presumably led the league in flatulence as well.  by my estimation, there were at least four, and probably more, games that blyleven either lost or received no decision in 1977 alone that should have resulted in a win for the dutchman.  shoulda woulda coulda, but i have no doubt that bert could easily have been a 300-game winner with a bit more luck/offense/bullpen support.

blyleven's final start of the 1977 season resulted in a no-hitter against the angels, in which he faced just one batter above the minimum of 27.  in that game, blyleven gave up a lone walk with 2 outs in the 9th inning, although a rangers' error had allowed a runner earlier in the game (who was wiped out thanks to a double play).

voici à vous, 1977 bert blyleven!

1989 bert blyleven

bert blyleven, the newest hall of famer, was traded by the twins to the angels in november of 1988.  here's his 1989 o-pee-chee card:

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

i won't get into the debate about why it took a guy who retired third all-time in strikeouts (and is currently fifth all-time) so long to be voted into the hall of fame.  i will, however, note that blyleven led the league in losses in 1988 with 17 before the twins dealt him away.  for the angels in 1989, bert turned the tables on his record by winning 17 games and leading the league in shutouts with 5.  his 2.73 era was good for fourth in the league, and he earned the american league's comeback player of the year award, along with some cy young and mvp votes as a result.

congratulations bert, and voici à vous, 1989 bert blyleven!

1978 bert blyleven

bert blyleven was part of that big trade in december of 1977 involving the mets, rangers and pirates.  he went from texas to pittsburgh, and here's the proof - his 1978 o-pee-chee card

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

after 1+ seasons in texas, blyleven made his way to the national league. usually one would assume that a pitcher would benefit from such a move, but blyleven didn't.  his numbers were about the same as they had been in texas, with his era up, complete games down, and wins and strikeouts exactly the same.  his national league tenure would end after the 1980 season as bert would head to cleveland.  he did win the first of his two world championships during that time, so it wasn't all bad.

voici à vous, 1978 bert blyleven!

1981 bert blyleven

rik aalbert blyleven, better know as bert 'be home' blyleven, was traded by the pirates to the indians, along with manny sanguillen, for gary alexander, victor cruz, bob owchinko, and rafael vasquez in december of 1980.  this was just one year after bert helped the pirates to their world series win over the orioles.  here's his 1981 o-pee-chee card depicting him in transition:

not only do we get the text and team variations, along with the appropriate indians color scheme on the hat, we also get the position translation and the tiny 'o-pee-chee' text in the baseball.  maybe o-pee-chee should have gone with just 'opc' in order to fill the sweet spot a little better.

here's the topps front:

i do love how topps changed the hat style for the pirates.  that is attention to detail.  too bad they didn't do variations with the yellow hats though.

here's the o-pee-chee back:

still bright stock, although i understand that o-pee-chee did some print runs using a gray card stock which i suppose is similar to topps'.  this is the first time we see the o-pee-chee kiddie logo on the back.  it made it's front debut on the 1979 cards.  notice that the '1' is missing in the 1980 stat line.  as you can see, bert is number 294 in the set. 

here's the topps back:

it's also missing the '1'.  i guess o-pee-chee wasn't doing any quality control on the stats.  the topps card is 554 in the set. 

this was the third year in a row (and the last year) that o-pee-chee's set topped out at 374 cards.  as the blyleven card illustrates, the set was not a parallel of topps' set. 

voici à vous, 1981 bert blyleven!