George Foster, a Happy "SLUGGER" in the Wrong Place
Plus, a tie to greatness that he just couldn't seem to avoid
1981 Fleer George Foster (#216) - Card of the Day
My dad never had much patience for baseball and considered it sort of a wimpy sport, if he were being candid with you. He was all about football and, to some extent basketball, as long as there were big, physical men like Wilt Chamberlain involved.
Dad was and is tough, and he just didn’t see non-contact sports as tough enough to warrant his fandom.
But more than anything else, Dad is a Dad, with a capital, italicized, bold “D.” So when I embraced the diamond, Dad was right there to regale me with all the knowledge he had on the subject. And, having been a young man starting a family in central Indiana during the 1970s, much of what dad knew revolved around the Reds.
From what Dad could tell me …
Joe Morgan may have been the greatest player ever.
Pete Rose was a jerk.
Catching was killing Johnny Bench.
Dave Concepcion was definitely somebody.
But the guy whose legendary Redlegs exploits made the biggest impact on Dad was slugger George Foster.
Was he still with the Reds?
Dad wanted to know in about 1983, and I had to break the news that, no, Foster was with the New York Mets.
That was too bad, because he could hit the ball farther than anyone else. Maybe ever.
Wow! That was a crazy thought, and crazy baseball praise coming from my dad. So right then and there, George Foster became one of my all-time favorite players, and I ran to my meager but growing collection to pull all of the Foster cards I could find.
I remember two cards from that period pretty vividly …
The 1982 Topps KMart 25th Anniversary card chronicling Foster’s monstrous 1977 season that yielded a batting line of .320, 52 home runs, 149 RBI and landed Foster the National League Most Valuable Player award (and the KMart appearance).
The 1981 Fleer “Slugger” card that showed him with the biggest smile I’d ever seen on the face of a baseball player.
That Fleer card, in particular, has been one of my favorites for nearly four decades now, and it always makes me long for simpler times, but also look forward to the joys the game still has in store for me as a fan.
That card is also part of the early Fleer lore, rife with errors, variations, and what-were-they-thinkings. In particular, this card shows up with two fronts: this one, which is also the front of card #202, and one with a different picture and “Outfield” instead of “Slugger”:
So that technically makes that first card up there an error, unless it has #202 on the back. Confusing, in a delicious 1981 sort of way.
Mostly, though, these cards make me think of my dad — what doesn’t, though? — and wish that we had been able to watch Foster play in person, together.
It wasn’t a complete impossibility for us — Foster made his last major league appearance, for the White Sox, on September 6, 1986, which makes this an anniversary of sorts.
And if you want a Yahtzee-related event to stick on your calendar, Foster debuted with the Giants on September 10, 1969…a whopping 55 years ago next week!
Say Hey to Symmetry
When Foster hit 52 home runs in 1977, he became the first player to reach 50 in a season since Willie Mays also hit 52 in 1965.
But there’s an even more Foster-Mays connection, beyond the obvious that they were teammates with the Giants early in Foster’s career.
In fact, they’re paths crossed at the very beginning of Foster’s run in the big leagues. Literally.
See, Foster first stepped foot on a big league diamond, on the record, as a defensive replacement in the bottom of the eighth in Atlanta on September 10, 1969, as the Giants looked to close out an 8-4 victory over the Braves.
In a slide-’em-all-over move, Giants manager Clyde King moved Bobby Bonds from right field to center, Ken Henderson from left to right, and Foster from the bench into left field.
If you’re trying to score that at home, you might notice that there’s still an erstwhile centerfielder to account for. Yeah, it was Willie Mays, replaced by Bonds in the field and by Foster in the third slot of the lineup.
Foster didn’t come to the plate in that game, and it would be more than a week until he got his hands on some lumber in the bigs. But he’ll always go down as the man who broke into the majors by giving Mays some rest.
That’s something the hobby will never do, as Mays continues to be one of the most popular cardboard subjects of all time. Since it’s always a good time for a Say Hey card, how about a look at a sort of backdoor career-capper that celebrates maybe his one last great moment in the diamond?
You can read that one right here.
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And just like that, we’re heading into the first full weekend of September. As Foster showed us, this is a time for beginnings and endings in the game, so keep your eyes peeled.
Never know when you’ll witness the start of something big or the quiet end of something you don’t really want to see go.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
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