Who is the man: Dave Duncan was coming off his most successful season to date when this card came out of packs. He appeared in a career-high 86 games and hit .259, the first time his average had made it above .200.
Can ya dig it: At some point the simple "A" on Oakland's caps must have bothered someone, because they have been wearing the now-familar "A's" caps for a long time.
Right on: That target that Duncan is setting is so low that it's almost out of the frame.
You see this cat Duncan is a bad mother: During Duncan's long career as a pitching coach with the White Sox, A's and Cardinals, he oversaw four Cy Young Award winners. LaMarr Hoyt, Bob Welch, Dennis Eckersley and Chris Carpenter.
Shut your mouth: Duncan was a key figure in manager John McNamara getting fired after the 1970 season. Duncan said some unpleasant things about owner Charlie Finley and also roomed with coach Charlie Lau. Finley saw both of these as no-nos and axed the lenient McNamara in part for not keeping Duncan in line.
No one understands him but his woman: Duncan was the youngest player in the American League when he made is debut as an 18-year-old in May of 1964. After 25 games that year, he wouldn't appear in the majors again until 1967.
(A word about the back): You can practically hear the giddiness in the biographer's writing as he can finally write something worthwhile about the player who at last cracked the .200 mark.
You ever notice how similar his '68, '69, '71, and '72 cards are? For a long time I thought Topps recycled the same picture, which they were know to do. But they were different but similar catching poses like this one.
ReplyDeleteEven his '74 and '76 cards with new teams were in the same pose which I suppose was typical of reserve catchers.
In which "loop" was Modesto in 1966?
ReplyDelete