Today’s Lineup…
🚌 Card of the Day - All-Star Transfers
👨👦 HOF(ather and son)
📈 Rating the new year
1985 Topps Rub Downs LaMarr Hoyt - Card of the Day
As 1985 dawned, LaMarr Hoyt was at a crossroads.
The White Sox righthander had won the American League Cy Young Award in 1983 on the strength of a 24-10 record (albeit with a 3.66 ERA). He was a main cog in the Chicago team that won 99 games and the old American League West crown.
And even though it didn’t cause much stir — or garner Cy Young votes — at the time, Hoyt had also led the A.L. in wins in 1982, with 19.
But the ChiSox and their ace both crashed down to earth in 1984, with the team finishing in fifth place and Hoyt going 13-18 with a 4.47 ERA. His loss total led the majors.
Still, Hoyt had proved he could be a big-time winner in the majors, and he was always a candidate to turn up in whatever set a card company might issue.
He made the cut in the quirky 1985 Topps Rub Downs issue, which invited collectors to transfer images of players and baseball equipment onto paper, notebooks, Dad’s forehead, the TV, the cat, or any other maximum-fun locations.
That goal could be accomplished by turning one of the Rub Downs sheets facedown on said surface and rubbing the back with the edge of a coin.
There were 32 different sheets in all, each featuring three or four players, for a total of 112 baseball heroes.
As you can see above, Hoyt appeared at the heads of Nolan Ryan and Larry Parrish. Even though Ryan had not yet reached the hobby heights he would hit in the early 1990s, he was the clear star of this show, especially given Hoyt’s 1984 struggles.
Still, things were looking up for Hoyt by the time this issue hit the streets. That’s because, in December of 1984, the White Sox traded Hoyt and a couple of minor leaguers to the San Diego Padres for Ozzie Guillén, Tim Lollar, Bill Long, and Luis Salazar.
The San Diego sunshine appeared to do wonders for Hoyt, as he rebounded to 16-8 and a career-best 3.47 ERA in 1985, garnering his only All-Star nod in the process.
Alas, the happy times would not last, as Hoyt ran into off-field problems that offseason, then missed most of Spring Training in 1986 as a consequence, then tried to pitch through a torn rotator cuff that summer.
More off-field problems prompted the Pads to release Hoyt after the 1986 season. The White Sox decided to take another chance on him, but yet more (legal) troubles spelled the end of their patience, too, and the righty never made it back to the majors (or minors, for that matter).
(Dewey) LaMarr Hoyt passed away in November of 2021, which makes today a bittersweet occasion — it would have been his 69th birthday.
Happy New Year President
On January 1, 1974, former Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees executive Lee MacPhail became the new American League president, taking over for Joe Cronin.
MacPhail had helped the O’s build their 1966 championship team, including orchestrating the trade (along with Harry Dalton) that brought Frank Robinson to Baltimore from the Reds in exchange for Milt Pappas, Jack Baldschun, and Dick Simpson.
MacPhail held the president’s office until the end of 1983, during which time he:
Oversaw the expansion process that yielded the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays.
Moved the A.L. offices from Boston to New York.
Adjudicated the George Brett-Billy Martin Pine Tar Incident.
In 1998, MacPhail was elected to the Hall of Fame, just like his baseball-executive daddy, Larry MacPhail, had been in 1978.
The MacPhails remain the only father-son Hall of Famers and the potential subjects of any Cooperstown-focused baseball cards, like the HOF plaque postcards shown above.
A New Beginning that Rated
January 1 puts us at the very head of a new year (to state the obvious) and often prompts us to pause and reflect.
But a new year is also a time of new beginnings, maybe even new traditions. So today is the perfect time to look back, briefly, on a now-old hobby tradition that got started before most collectors even realized.
Here, have a look:
The punchline is at the very bottom of Steve Senteney’s rookie card: 1983 DONRUSS RATED ROOKIE.
Flipping the card over confirms the year of issue:
That’s a 1983 Donruss card, through and through.
But didn’t Rated Rookies debut in 1984? The evidence says no, but that was the first time RRs were noted on card fronts — so also the first time most of us noticed.
I wrote this up in a bit more detail on the website a while back. You can read that piece right here while you let the lie of the 1984 Donruss Joel Skinner sink in.
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Happy New Year! Enjoy the bowl games, if that’s your thing, and the family and your cards.
Another new beginning is here, as it is every morning, and pitchers and catchers report by the middle of next month.
Groovy times ahead. Party on. Thanks for reading.
—Adam