This card might be from the first pack of baseball cards
I ever opened - I have no way of knowing now. I know that it was a
pack of 1974 Topps. And I bought it at a 7-Eleven. I think the packs
had 10 cards for 9 cents. My first experience with inflation was when
packs jumped to a dime for 9 cards the following year. The idea of
cards costing more than a penny a piece was preposterous - although I
probably didn't have the world PREPOSTEROUS in
my vocab back then.
1974 Topps #173 Randy Jones (RC)
Randy
Jones is one of the non-Phils stars that I remember from my youth. He
was a pitcher who I briefly grouped with Seaver and Carlton. Turns out Randy Jones had more of meteor ride then a career. He
had an All-Star season in 1975 and won the Cy Young Award
in 76, unfortunately he was injured in his final start of
the season, afterward he was never really the same. Nobody has thrown 25 or more
complete games in an NL seasons since Randy Jones reached that number
during that 1976 season - Rick Langford had 28 for Oakland in 1980.
Jones persevered for the remainder of the 70s but was done in 1982 at the age of 32. According
to his wikipedia page Randy Jones is the only Cy Young Award winner with a career losing record. Indeed he finished 23 games under .500 at 100-123.
Post Career
Jones #35 uniform has been retired by the San Diego Padres. Once
again, I would think Randy Jones likely has one of the worst Win-Loss
records among starting pitchers with retired numbers. Regardless
his peak seasons of 1975-76 make Randy Jones jersey retiring worthy.
In addition to his on field accomplishments Jones has had a good post
career in San Diego serving the team in an ambassador capacity. He also
runs a sports bar in San Diego that appears
to have a solid craft beer selection.
For The Collector
The
above card is from my legacy collection of my childhood - thus it's
rather rough condition. I am sure if you didn't care about the wrinkles and the corners you could find this card in a dime box.
It was unknown where the Padres would play in
1974 and many of their cards can be found with NAT'L
LEA as the team name rather than Padres. For under $3.00 you can pick
either the Padres or the NL variation of a RC of a Cy Young Award
winner.
1974 Topps #173 Randy Jones (RC b-side)
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