Today’s Lineup…
👨👦 Card of the Day - Like father like son
☁️ Cloudy old baseball cards
🩺 Is there a doc in the box?
1981 Topps Richard Dotson (#138) - Card of the Day
October of 1983 has featured large in this space lately, from 1983 American League Cy Young Award winner LaMarr Hoyt to the wise “old” managers who led the Phillies and Orioles to the World Series that fall.
Another guy who featured large in setting up that postseason slate was Hoyt’s rotation mate with the White Sox, righthander Richard Dotson. Though the Orioles lit him up in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, Dotson went blow-for-blow with Hoyt during the regular season.
In 35 starts that summer, Dotson posted a 22-7 record with a 3.23 ERA in 240 innings. In terms of new-school statistics, Dotson put up a 130 ERA+ and led the ChiSox with 5.1 WAR.
Overall, Dotson pitched in the majors for 12 seasons, with at least parts of 10 of those coming in a White Sox uniform. His final tally was 111-113 with a 4.23 ERA.
Several years after his playing days were done, while Dotson was in the midst of a long second act as a pitching coach, his life story took an almost unbelievable turn. One that involved another former MLB pitcher, Turk Farrell.
You can find that story several places online, but a good one to start with is this article from Dotson’s hometown Cincinnati Enquirer.
Dotson, who appeared on his 1981 Topps rookie card (above) as “Rich,” turns 65 years old today. Happy birthday!
1986 Topps Mini Leaders
Dotson didn’t lead the White Sox in any major statistical categories in 1985 and actually only made 9 appearances that summer. That didn’t stop Topps from featuring him on the “WHITE SOX LEADERS” card (#156) in their 1986 set, though:
As you might imagine, there were 26 of these team leader cards — one for each major league team at the time — scattered throughout the 1986 set. I immediately loved the design of this subset and wished Topps would do a full set this way, all cloudy and dreamy and minimalistic.
Lo and behold, The Real One obliged me, at least partially, later that year.
The 1986 Topps Mini Leaders set featured 66 small (2 1/8" X 2 15/16") cards, 65 of which showed a player who had been among the league leaders in something in 1985.
Card #66 was the set checklist.
With such an expansive group of “leaders,” this set featured a few head-scratchers:
But you always learned something interesting when you turned the cards over:
Who knew (or remembered) that Keith Moreland had such a stellar 1985 season?
Anyway, for a 14-year-old kid, it was always thriling to have another set to collect, espeically since you could buy these in packs — 6 cards for a quarter, which today sounds almost like “free.”
And it didn’t hurt that the cards looked so darn good, either — at least to these eyes.
Wow! Wax Wednesday
Surprise! You can still buy unopened Mini League Leaders on eBay. This one has an asking price of $20 (plus $8 shipping), which puts the overall per-pack price at about 75 cents. You could probably shop around a bit.
As usual, this isn’t my box, so I don’t know where it’s been. The one cello pack (right, it’s not “real” wax) shown in the listing looks pretty tight — and it definitely tweaks the nostalgia sensors.
Because, any time Dwight Gooden is the featured athlete on a box, you know you’re about to dive into some circa-1986 hobby bliss.
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That’s all for this Hump Day edition. May all your camels come home to roost by sundown.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
More cardboard fun: