Max Leon: "Hidden" Hall of Famer

And his not-so-stealthy legend of a teammate

1975 Topps Maximino Leon (#442) - Card of the Day

One of the amazing parts about this hobby, to me at least, is that even old sets continue to offer up “new” cards that seem totally unfamiliar when I run across them.

A few years ago, for example, I was shocked to stumble across the 1983 Topps Brad Mills card. Shocked because I have pored over stacks and stacks of 1983 cards since, well, 1983 and yet somehow I didn’t remember ever seeing that Mills pasteboard.

Happens to me more often than seems possible. Sort of a reverse Mandela Effect. Guess it’s bound to happen when there have been hundreds of thousands of different cards issued over the decades, but it’s still a little startling when it happens.

The 1975 Topps Maximino Leon above joined this illustrious group of cards-that-never-existed-but-actually-do while I was ticking through the list of baseball players born on this date (February 4).

The righty with the concerned expression shows up in baseball records as Max Leon, but Topps granted him a bit more ink in rolling out the full Maximino on his colorful rookie card up there.

As for the man himself, Leon began his professional baseball career at the tender age of 17, when he took the mound 27 times for the Fresnillo Mineros of the Mexican Center League in 1967. By 1972, he was producing ace-level numbers, posting a 17-7 record with a 3.22 ERA for the 1972 Charros de Jalisco in the Mexican League.

Still just 22 , Leon had caught the eye of major league franchises in the U.S. and signed as a free agent with the Braves at the end of July. He didn’t waste any time getting started on his new journey, jumping right to Double-A Savannah and posting a 4-1 record with a 2.70 ERA in six starts to wrap up the season.

Leon began 1973 with Triple-A Richmond but made his Atlanta debut in July and ended up making 12 appearances (one start) for the Brave through the end of the season. He went just 2-2 with a 5.33 ERA, which got him another Triple-A assignment to start 1974.

After five strong starts at Richmond, though, Leon was back with the big club for good. From late May through the end of the season, he went 4-7 with 2.64 ERA in 75 innings across 34 appearances (two starts). That was good enough for a return engagement in 1975 and a rookie card in Topps’ sparking new “Chiclets” set that same year.

Leon would spend all of 1976 and 1977 with the Braves — and appear on Topps cards those years, too — before splitting 1978 between Richmond and the bigs. After five late-season appearances with Atlanta, he was done in the majors. His overall record ended up at 14-18 with 3.71 ERA in 310.1 innings across 162 games, and during that span, he made 13 starts and also picked up 13 saves.

But, even though his time with the Braves was drawing to a close, Leon still had a lot of baseball left in him. Before the start of the 1979 season, Atlanta sold his rights to Durango of the Mexican League and he spent most of the next decade on mounds from Mexico City to Campeche to Yucatan to Tabasco.

Leon, who was elected to the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, turns 75 years old today. And I’m grateful to that occasion for helping me finally “discover” a pretty darn good pitcher…and his groovy baseball cards, of course.

Keeping Good Company

One of Leon’s teammates on the 1974 Braves was a fella named Hank Aaron. You might remember that Hammer had a couple of historic moments to open the season before he headed back to Milwaukee in 1975.

Not surprisingly, I’ve written about Aaron and his baseball cards several times — check out the list of posts right here.