1970 OPC #238 Jose Laboy (image stolen from tcdb)
Jose "Coco" Laboy had a shared Rookie card in 1969, The 1970 shown here is his first solo. I have always wanted to cover this card - There is just something cool about bat rack cards. This one is particularly interesting as Laboy is in motion, he is picking out a bat trying to find the one that with a Hit in it no doubt. None of the bats have numbered knobs, but we can clearly see Laboy's #39 on his jersey.
In addition to Rookie Cup honors Laboy was also named the Sporting News NL Rookie Player of the Year. This is a different award than the more widely recognized BBWAA ROY which went to the Dodgers Ted Sizemore. The BBWAA vote was not even that close. Sizemore tallied 14 of the 24 votes, while Laboy garned only 3. This is despite the fact that Laboy, a third baseman hit 18 HR and a rookie leading 83 RBI while second baseman Sizemore's hit a more pedestrian 4 HR and 46 RBI. Ted Sizemore did lead rookies with a 4.2 WAR - of course this was unknown to 1969 era scribes, but apparently he passed the eye test.
1970+
Coco Laboy played four additional seasons in the majors but never matched the success of his Rookie campaign. He retired as a career Expo with 420 games played 28 home runs and a -0.9 WAR.
His decline may have been due to his advanced age for a MLB rookie, he was well past his 28th birthday. Laboy's Minor League career was spent in the Giants and Cardinals organization where he racked up 138 Home Runs and a career .294 average in well over a 1000 games. Despite these impressive numbers he never got a Major League opportunity until...
Bat Rack Connection
In 1969 Coco Laboy was selected in the expansion draft by the Montreal Expos. Manager Gene Mauch picked Laboy largely due to the recommendation of Puerto Rican League teammate Tony Taylor (who played for Mauch with the Phillies)
In a trading card coincidence Tony Taylor is also a member of the 1970 Topps/OPC bat rack club.
Flip
Noticed since this is a Canada column we are using an OPC card - or course since it's 1970 we won't see much difference from Topps until we flip the card over.
1970 OPC #238 Jose Laboy (flip/tcdb)
Checking the text of the card we quickly spot the French language translations that are present on OPC. We also see Coco's long minor League career which dates back to the 1950s including a couple of 20 Home Run seasons.
Comic: Unfortunately we were unable to find any record of Laboy pitching for Springfield in Baseball-Ref.
Topps
Here is the standard Topps card. Beyond the language difference we can also see that the text on Topps is completely contained in the blue box, while OPC put this below the demographics section.
Peanut Gallery
For more on this card check Jim's column over at 1970 Topps Baseball.
Sources and Links
Coco Laboy SABR Bio (Brian Joseph)
retrosimba (Mark Tomasik)
Here's some more "bat rack" guys for you.
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Laboy is the "spine card" for my 1970 Topps binder. That Taylor was a close second. He has some great dugout shots on several of his cards.
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