That Time the Crow Flew to Montreal

OR -- another Expos card that looks plain wrong

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1984 Topps Terry Crowley (#732) - Card of the Day

One of of the most jarring baseball cards of the 1980s (to me, at least) was the 1984 Topps Traded Pete Rose (#103T) that showed him in an Expos uniform:

Charlie Hustle, after all, was a member of the 1983 Phillies Wheeze Kids team when I started following baseball the year before, and I also knew that he was a founding father of the Big Red Machine.

And by the time this card was issued, Rose was back with the Reds. So Rose as an Expo was about as sideways as Freddie Patek suiting up for the Lakers might have been.

Maybe it’s that Rose association that gives me the same sort of feelings when I see the 1984 Topps Terry Crowley card above.

See…

When I started collecting in earnest — also in 1983 — Crowley cards were easy to come by. He was in all three major sets, none of my friends were hoarding him, and he wasn’t shy about showing up in every other wax pack or so.

On all those 1983 cards, Crowley was an Oriole. And, according to the backs of those cards, he had been with Baltimore for most of his career, even though he’d spent two seasons with the Reds and seven games with the 1976 Braves.

Those 1983 Orioles, of course, won their division, then the American League Championship Series, then the World Series.

The O’s capped their championship run by finishing off Rose’s Phils.

I probably didn’t notice in October of 1983, with my Phillies and Orioles (and White Sox and Dodgers) cards spread all around, that Crowley wasn’t in the Baltimore dugout.

I might not have noticed even the next spring when this card started to show up in my wax packs instead of the usual Crowley-Orioles fare. He wasn’t a big name, after all, and there was too much excitement around guys like Darryl Strawberry, Ron Kittle, and — eventually, at least — Don Mattingly to worry too much about lumpy veterans.

At some point when I was poring back over my 1984s, though, the name and face clicked, and the uniform most definitely did not click.

Terry Crowley, Expos? Baseball blasphemy, I say!

As it turns out, though, we’re pretty lucky to have this pasteboard because Crowley never played another inning of minor league or major league baseball after he pinch hit for starter Charlie Lea in the bottom of the ninth on October 2 against the Mets.

It was the first game of a season-ending doubleheader, and Crowley popped out to Mets shortstop Ron Gardenhire.

Thus ended the career of one of baseball’s most prolific pinch-hitters. Among Crowley’s 379 big league hits, 108 of them were of the pinch variety. The back of Crowley’s career-capping Topps mentions justone particular pinch-hit exploit, but it’s a career-capper nonetheless.

Which probably means The Real One expected Crowley to return for a 16th MLB season in 1985 at age 37 since they were loath to make cards of players they knew weren’t going to be active in a particular season.

Just ask Johnny Bench, Mike Schmidt, Carl Yastrzemski, Willie Mays, or any other number of greats.

But Crowley pulled a fast one on Topps and hung up his spikes instead of hanging around the dugout waiting for another PH opportunity. So, no matter how “wrong” this card looks, it’s right in a lot of the most important ways.

It’s the perfect bauble for celebrating Crowley’s 77th birthday today, don’t you think?

(affiliate link)

1976 Linnett Superstars Don Gullett (#90)

Crowley won his second World Series in 1975, as a member of the Reds, the team he’d help beat in 1970. In both cases, all his plate appearances in the Fall Classic came as a pinch hitter.

Same deal in 1979, when he was back with the Orioles and subbing in against the Pirates.

One of Crow’s Reds teammates on that 1975 Big Red Machine club was lefty ace Don Gullett, who went 15-4 with a 2.42 ERA.

Gullett was just 24 years old that summer, but he was already pitching in his sixth big league season. All that work early eventually took a toll on Gullett, and he threw his final pitch in July of 1978 at age 27.

Before he was done, though, Gullett would win another title with the Reds, sign a free agent deal with the Yankees, and help the Bombers win the World Series in 1977.

He also appeared on a slew of neat baseball cards from the era, including the 1976 Linnett Superstar oversize (4" x 5 5/8") model above. Gullett was one of 12 Reds featured in the issue, which also pictured 12 Dodgers and 12 Red Sox.

You can usually find these babies on eBay (affiliate link) for a few dollars a card.

Sadly, Don Gullett passed away at the age of 73 on February 14, 2024.

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That’s a wrap for this week. It’s been a busy barrage of birthdays, candy, flowers, pitchers and catchers, and nostalgia around here.

So, you know, just about business as usual.

As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you on the flip side (or maybe in the weekly newsletter, if you’re so inclined).

—Adam