Who is the man: Ed Spiezio had just come off the best season of his career when this card came out. The .285 he hit in 1970 was far better than his next highest, full season average (.234). He hit .238 in nine seasons.
Can ya dig it: Spiezio played on World Series-winning teams with the Cardinals in 1964 and 1967. His son, Scott Spiezio, played on World Series-winning teams with the Angels in 2002 and the Cardinals in 2006. They became the fourth father-son team to win World Series titles when Scott won in 2002.
Right on: Spiezio delivered the first hit, scored the first run, and hit the first home run in Padres history.
You see this cat Spiezio is a bad mother: When Ed was very young, Spiezio's dad would place him in a catcher's mask, position him at the edge of the infield, and hit grounders at him as hard as he could.
Shut your mouth: Is Spiezio even holding a bat? It's difficult to tell. And if he is, up in his left hand, where is the rest of it?
No one understands him but his woman: I always feel for cards (yes, I feel for cards) that follow iconic cards like the '71 Thurman Munson. I wonder how many comments and page views ol' Ed will get?
(A word about the back): It's time I mention the one line of yearly stats. It was the first time that Topps had done this in a base set since 1962.
Both Ed and Scott played at Illinois, then played for the Cards against the Tigers in the World Series.
ReplyDeleteEd is what baseball is all about. I'd rather listen to stories from players like this, then big stars like Munson.
ReplyDeleteI second the good Captain. When I research for blogs I have more fun finding out things about the obscure players.
ReplyDeleteMy introduction to Ed Spiezio was his 1967 card. When I was researching my Cardinals team review for my 1967 blog, I learned that he wasn't the 1st guy off the bench for a backup 3rd baseman with the Cardinals. Phil Gagliano was always the one who went in to play 2B or 3B late in a game. Spiezio seemed to be mostly used for pinch-hitting, and the occasional start at 3B when Mike Shannon wasn't available.
DeleteI want to comment on the one line yearly stats from when I first saw it: Hated it. I had never seen it before in large numbers. To me it was a bizarre method of relaying information. A player could have with another team and you would know it unless some write up was made. I don't know if was the black borders or one line thing, but I didn't buy many 1971 cards. And I was a huge buyer of 1970, 1972, 1973 sets. 40 years later I do appeciate the in actions shots however.
ReplyDeleteUD always had limited stats so they didn't feel like cards for the serious collector. I've come to appreciate the 71 Topps cards, but I hated it early on. The picture on the back (which was AWESOME) wasn't quite enough to offset the one-year stats and using all lower case on the front.
ReplyDeleteCan I third the comments made by Cap and Matthew? I love the Munson card, but I like hearing about players I'm not familiar with and that was one of the best parts of the '75 blog. That tidbit about his father and the catcher's mask is great.
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