Today we take at 1966 Outfield Topps Cup Selection Ron Swoboda
Year | HR | Mets Rookie |
1962 | 13 | Jim Hickman |
1965 | 19 | Ron Swoboda |
1983 | 26 | Darryl Strawberry |
2019 | 53 | Pete Alonso |
Today we take at 1966 Outfield Topps Cup Selection Ron Swoboda
Year | HR | Mets Rookie |
1962 | 13 | Jim Hickman |
1965 | 19 | Ron Swoboda |
1983 | 26 | Darryl Strawberry |
2019 | 53 | Pete Alonso |
We are down to the PostSeason final 4 we are going to take this opportunity to look back on some cards representing the remaining contenders.
This is our second column in our series dedicated to Joey Votto's 2009 All-Star Rookie Cup Card.
Today we are going to try and Game Date the Photo. For those of you that weren't with us last week you can go here to see the original posting - for purposes of this column here is a reminder of the card:
Game Dated Card*
I am opening with minor asterisk here by noting I am not positive on this one. The evidence we find in baseball-ref while not conclusive does appear to point to a specific at-bat. That likely plate appearance was in the fourth inning of a Reds game at Shea Stadium on May 10th 2008.
How did we arrive here?
1) This appears to be Shea Stadium in it's closing season of 2008. Within Getty Images we were unable to find the picture on the card, However there was this series of photos of Votto that were all taken on May 10th
2) This is a big one - According to baseball_reference Joey Votto played only 2 games at Shea Stadium. Those two games were on the proposed May 10th date and the following day May 11.
Now that we are down to 2 games we can look at the details.
3) Now we switch over to retrosheet because their play by play is a tad more descriptive and we find this within the May 10th game:
Bonus Evidence
4) This is all just supplementary evidence that doesn't prove anything but does support the case we made in points 1-3 above
We return to Getty Images and find a photo from the other game (May 11th)
There is one other photo from May 10 which is from the first base angle and it also shows black bat.
Now this doesn't mean that Votto didn't have an AB with a black bat May 11 but so far every AB on May 10 is black bat and the only AB on May 11th is natural
Looking Back
In last weeks column we discussed that Joey Votto had 8700 PAs without a sacrifice, well he wasn't sacrificing here either. Votto was leading off the inning so this was not a sacrifice attempt. It was likely a good strategic move, Votto a Left Handed Hitter was leading off facing the tough Southpaw Johan Santana on the mound. Right Handed Slugger Edwin Encarnacion was on deck and in fact did hit a Home Run off Santana.
Sources and Links
Cincinnati Reds Legend and Fan Favorite Joey Votto announced his retirement recently. Amongst active position players he was the longest tenured member of the Topps All-Star Rookie Cup. That baton has now been passed on to Giancarlo Stanton and Andrew McCutchen who were both named as outfielders to the TASR team in 2011. Justin Verlander (Class of 2007) remains the elder statesman among all active players.
2009 Topps #390 Joey Votto
This is not Joey Votto's Rookie card, he was in the 2008 Topps base set, it is his 2nd Topps flagship card. Couple of quick Notes on the card:
-The memorial patch that we can get a glimpse of is for Reds one time young phenom and announcer Joe Nuxhall.
-Joey Votto is not sacrificing here, well at least not successfully. In 8746 career Plate Appearances Joey Votto did not have one Sacrifice Hit. That is the fifth highest number of PAs for a Zero SH player. Carlos Santana has a good chance of passing Votto by the end of the season.
2008 Season and ROY
Joey Votto had his first full season in 2008 and it was a very productive one (.297/24/84 3.3 WAR) which was good enough to earn him the Rookie Cup at first base. The nearest competitor was Chris Davis (.285/17/55 1.1 WAR)
In fact Votto's year was so good he was also in the running for NL Rookie of the Year. He finished 2nd in the voting to Cubs Catcher Geovany Soto (.285/23/86 3.3 WAR). Those numbers are very similar but Soto received 31 of 32 first place votes. He had the edge on Votto for two reasons 1) Playing catcher rather than first base 2) Soto's Cubs won the NL Central finishing 23.5 games in front of the Reds.
Overall the 2009 Rookie Cup Team ended up being a solid class that included Votto's longtime teammate Jay Bruce, Evan Longoria, Denard Span and Alexei Ramirez. Clearly the best players were now fellow 2023 retiree Longoria and Votto. Both have very similar offensive numbers with Votto edging out Longoria due to many more walks (1365 vs 730). Of course Longoria played the more challenging position of 3rd Base and has a more significant postseason resume.
Among the first 52 Rookie Cup Classes 2009 ranks in the top third of the years for which we have tabulated stats (1960-2011). The most prominent key number for the 2009 team is Home Runs, the squads 1475 dingers rank 13th - Votto, Longoria and Bruce combined for 1014.
Rookie Cup Team: Longest Tenured Actives
With Joey Votto's exit a struggling Anthony Rizzo has become the Rookie Cup's longest tenured first baseman*. Here is a complete list of longest tenured TASR winners
C | Travis d'Arnaud | 2015 |
1B | Anthony Rizzo | 2013 |
2B | Ian Happ | 2018 |
3B | Nolan Arenado | 2014 |
SS | Jose Iglesias | 2014 |
OF | Jayson Heyward* | 2011 |
OF | Andrew McCutchen | 2010 |
OF | Giancarlo Stanton | 2011 |
LHP | Wade Miley* | 2013 |
RHP | Justin Verlander | 2007 |
RP | Craig Kimbrel | 2012 |
DH | Miguel Sano | 2016 |
*I believe both Justin Heyward and Wade Miley have been released and are possibly retired. The Heyward slot would be succeeded by Mike Trout and Bryce Harper (both 2013, Harper was an OF on the team), 2nd in line for LHP is Carlos Rodon
Also since Bryce Harper was an outfielder on the Rookie Cup Team he remains so for this exercise, otherwise he would be tied with Rizzo for first base honors.
Extra Innings
Turns out that Joey Votto Rookie Cup card has so much going on that we will need to expand this into multiple postings. Look for some additional info next week.
Joey Votto Index
Sources and Links
This week we got the tough news that Chet Lemon has been having health issues. It's complicated - he has had blood clotting issues for a while and this has led to a series of strokes that has left the Major League outfielder in a near non-communicative state. You can read more about Chet Lemon's condition in Jeff Seidel's sad but interesting Detroit Free Press article here.
1976 was an okay year for Chet Lemon, his .245/4/38 13 SB, 0.4 WAR season beat out Ellis Valentine .279/7/39 14 SB 1.4 WAR and Jerry Turner .267/5/37 12 SB 2.1 WAR and others for cup honors.
Regardless TASR voters must have foresaw something, after that mediocre start Chet Lemon went on to a productive 16 year career where he racked up a 55.7 Career WAR, a number that ranks above fellow Centerfielder and first ballot Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett. Meanwhile Lemon got a single 10th place HOF vote.
In addition to personal accomplishments that included 3 All-Star appearances Lemon's career team highlight was being a member of the 1984 World Series Champion Detroit Tigers.
Chet Lemon 2024
The Lemon family has remained private about Chet's condition until recently. They are only coming forward now because they would like to raise awareness about his condition and they also wanted fans to be aware of Lemon's condition prior to the Detroit Tigers 40th anniversary celebration honoring the 1984 World Series team this weekend.
I hope that Chet Lemon is well enough to make the trek to Detroit this weekend and enjoy the celebration with his teammates and TIgers fans.
1977 Topps
This is the first card we have featured from the 1977 TASR class, good design that doesn't get discussed much - The Rookie Cup looks good here, it's present but out of the way.
Chet Lemon is featured here with his other team the Chicago White Sox. Note the Faux Collar Jersey worn by Lemon. This fashion detail was likely used to dress up the Shorts that Bill Veeck came up for the 1976 White Sox uniform.
One last detail I want to discuss is the facsimile signature. Chet goes with his more formal full name "Chester Earl Lemon"
Oh Canada
First off I just want to mention that there are 75 All-Stars this year YES 75. That is enough players to roster an entire third team.
Of those 75 Twenty of them are All-Star Rookie Cup Honorees including Six from the 2019 TASR Squad. Here is a complet list of tonights TASRs:
1B: Bryce Harper (PHI) | 2013 |
OF: Christian Yelich (MIL) | 2014 |
INF: Carlos Correa (MIN) | 2016 |
SS: Trea Turner (PHI) | 2017 |
OF: Aaron Judge (NYY) | 2018 |
INF: Rafael Devers (BOS) | 2018 |
OF: Juan Soto (NYY) | 2019 |
DH: Shohei Ohtani (LAD) | 2019 |
1B: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (TOR) | 2020 |
DH: Yordan Alvarez (HOU) | 2020 |
OF: Fernando Tatis Jr. (SD) | 2020 |
C: Will Smith (LAD) | 2020 |
INF: Pete Alonso (NYM) | 2020 |
OF: Bryan Reynolds (PIT) | 2020 |
INF: Willi Castro (MIN) + | 2021 |
3B: Alec Bohm (PHI) | 2021 |
RHP: Emmanuel Clase (CLE) | 2022 |
C: Adley Rutschman (BAL) | 2023 |
OF: Steven Kwan (CLE) | 2023 |
INF: Bobby Witt Jr. (KC) | 2023 |
SS: Gunnar Henderson (BAL) | 2024 |
There are 3 Phillies on the List but only Alec Bohm made the squad as a member of the Phillies.
The showing by the 2020 class is not a surprise to TASR fans. At the time their combined WAR number was the strongest of any class ever. We will cover this in the future but 4 years later they rank 3rd - one of those more recent years, 2023, did quite well with 3 members while the other, 2024, did manage a single.
The one year missing from the 12 year span of teams 2013-24 is 2015. The most prominent players from that team are George Springer, Xander Bogaerts, The Phillies Nick Castellanos, and the potentially retired Jose Abreu.
It is also worth noting that a handful of players like Paul Skenes, Jackson Merrill and Shota Imanaga are rookies and could show up on this years Cup Squad (2025 Cards)
Cover Card
Turns out the elder statesmen of TASR players on the squad is Philadelphia's own Bryce Harper. Maybe it's because I saw Harper in the Minors when I was in my mid 40s but it is very disconcerting to me for him to be the eldest of anything. To be clear he is not the oldest player on the team, without doing any real poking around one of my guesses would be Professional Frisbee Golfer Seth Lugo at 34.242.
Enjoy the All-Star game tonight and look for your favorite TASR players who make up more than a quarter of the participants
Sources and Links
On Tuesday Night the Pirates Rookie Pitcher Paul Skenes will throw the first pitch of the All-Star game. It's a rare occurrence but so is starting your career 6-0. Skenes' name is being mentioned in the same sentence with Rookie phenoms such as Doc Gooden, Fernando Valenzuela, Mark Fidrych and Jim Nash.
Jim Nash??
The first three of those names are all folks casual fans know well and whose Rookie accomplishments are referenced frequently. However Jim Nash - well he's before my time and even though he is a member of the All-Star Rookie Cup canon I had to look into his accomplishments
1967 Topps #90 Jim Nash
Nash was the RHP representative for the 1967 TASR squad and he earned it, 12-1 with a 2.06 ERA. He led rookies in both categories (100 IP minimum). Prominent pitchers in the Rookie class included Future HoFs Don Sutton (12-12, 209K, 2.99 ERA, 3.5 WAR) and Fergie Jenkins (6-8, 3.32 ERA, 150 K, 3.3 WAR)
Flip
Two things to point out from the back, first the last line in the text mentions Nash's TASR nomination and secondly I direct you back to the first comic - I want pitchers to be awarded a trophy with a giant '%' etched on the front.Cover Boy
At roughly the same time as the above card was issued Jim Nash was also the triple cover subject for Sports Illustrated.
Yes in March of 1967 with 12 Career Wins under his belt Jim Nash made the cover of Sports Illustrated. At 22 years of age he was the staff ace for an Oakland A's staff that included a Young Catfish Hunter and Blue Moon Odom.
Phuture Phillie
Jim Nash's ended his career with 8 starts for the 1972 Philadelphia Phillies, He lost ALL 8 of those starts. The 97 Loss Phillies were really bad, however Nash's 6.27 ERA with the squad was a pretty large factor in those losses.
This looks like an airbrushed shot of Nash. Check his cap, I doubt he wore that number 23 with the Phillies. According to baseball-ref both he and Oscar Gamble wore 23 in 1972, but their tenures with the club appear to overlap so I am thinking Nash wore the other number they have listed #42.
Flip
The comic on the flipside mentions Jim Nash's rookie Win Streak. I also want to note the Weight listed as 220. That is likely Nash's Rookie number. Articles from the era mentioned the voracious appetite of "Jumbo" Jim Nash and that he had ballooned to 260 lbs at one point in his career.
Best of luck to Paul Skenes on Tuesday Night. Right now I imagine he is the front-runner to be the RHP rep on the 2024(2025 card) Topps All-Star Rookie team - hopefully if he ever becomes a Phillie he does better than 0-8.
Peanut Gallery
For more coverage of this card check out Jim's column on the 1967 Topps Blog.
Sources and Links
1967 Topps All-Star Rookie Index
Philadelphia Inquirer (1970 June 11, Sandy Padwe)