The 4-Man Rotation that Stuck to the Hobby
Some had stronger glue than others
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1982 Topps Stickers Dennis Martinez (#10) - “Card” of the Day
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The 1981 season was a terrible one for baseball fans in many ways, thanks to The Strike that ripped the summer down the middle (roughly).
The team with the best overall record in baseball, for example, missed the expanded playoffs since they didn’t lead their division after either “half” in the standings. (Yeah, those would be my Cincinnati Reds.)
Meanwhile, the Dodgers and Yankees made it to the World Series despite not leading their divisions in winning percentage or wins for the full season and struggling in the second half, all because they “won” the first half .
And players lost valuable playing time — sometimes prime-year playing time that could have impacted their Hall of Fame cases. Think Dale Murphy, Dwight Evans, Lou Whitaker, Dave Stieb, and other outside-looking-in superstars of the 1980s.
If you want a complete accounting of the zaniness that was 1981, I recommend you pick up Split Season 1981 by former Cooperstown mayor (seriously) Jeff Katz:
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But for all its warts, the 1981 season did produce a few fun artifacts and trivia facts.
Like the advent of the “Division Series” as a way to shoehorn the results of the split season into the playoffs. Ironically, the next time Division Series were on the docket was 1994, when MLB split into six divisions.
In case you don’t remember, that season also “featured” a lengthy player strike…so lengthy, in fact, that it lingered into 1995, but not before wiping out the postseason. Yes, including the Division Series.
Backing up to 1981, though, another “feature” of the season was the truncated league leader totals. Unlike the standings, MLB kept the tallies running for player stats throughout the summer. The missing 50 or so games led to smaller-than-normal leader numbers, like Mike Schmidt’s tops-in-the-majors 31 home runs.
Or rookie Fernando Valenzuela’s 190 strikeout totals, also tops in the bigs.
It also led to some big ties amont league leaders at season’s end, maybe because there wasn’t quite enough time for attrition and pack-separators to do their thing.
Evans, Eddie Murray, Bobby Grich, and Tony Armas all led the American League with 22 home runs each, for example.
On the pitching side of the ledger, Tom Seaver paced the senior circuit with 14 wins, one ahead of Steve Carlton. The victory total in the A.L. was also 14, but four men had to share the “league leader” title: Dennis Martinez, Steve McCatty, Jack Morris, and Pete Vuckovich.
The next year, Topps gave collectors a one-shot glimpse of the five 14-game winners from 1981 on card #165 in their 1982 set:
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That’s a pretty famous, if busy, card and features more talent than 99% of hobby specimens just by virtue of Seaver’s presence. Add in the other four gents, and you have a special grouping…even if it’s nothing too extravagant from a price/value standpoint.
A bit more obscure and colorful is that same grouping — minus Seaver — on “card” #10 of the 1982 Topps Sticker set. That’s the red, white, and blue number you see leading off this post, part of a set-opening 16-sticker run celebrating 1981 league leaders. Seaver gets his own card (#9) in that subset, while the four A.L. leaders again have to share.
At that point in their careers, these four guys lined up like this:
Vuckovich (28): 13.7 WAR, 67-47, 3.53 ERA
Morris (26): 13.1 WAR, 51-35, 3.67 ERA
Martinez (27): 9.8 WAR, 66-45, 3.64 ERA
McCatty (27): 7.4 WAR, 39-33, 3.56 ERA
The number in parentheses is the age at which each pitcher played in 1981.
Not much to separate them, other than the big lead in wins for Vuckovich and Martinez, Morris’ relative youth, and McCatty’s stats checking in a rung below the others.
The next few years weren’t all that kind to McCatty or Vuckovich, both of whom were out of the majors by 1985 and 1986, respectively. (Vuckovich did still have one big season in the tank, though, winning the 1982 A.L. Cy Young Award.)
The next few years actually weren’t all that great for Martinez, either, whose ERA jumped to 4.21 in 1982 and ballooned above five in the seasons to come. Heavy drinking contributed to his mound problems and eventually led to a DUI arrest. That came in December 1983, less than three months after the Orioles’ most recent World Series title.
From there, Martinez tackled his drinking head-on, but his on-field results continued to suffer as he worked on his sobriety. It wasn’t until the O’s traded him to the Expos in June 1986 (with Jon Stefero, for Rene Gonzales) that the first Nicaraguan-born big leaguer started to turn the corner.
Indeed, beyond a mere comeback, Martinez staged one of the great career revivals of the last 40 years. From 1987 through 1995 (with the Expos and Indians), the right-hander went 120-77 with a 3.02 ERA and a perfect game. Not too shabby for a 33-to-41-year-old pitcher who once looked like a has-been.
Through those same years, Morris entered a more typical decline phase, bolstered by a surge of his own with the Twins in 1991 and the Blue Jays in 1992. The ‘91 World Series hero was done in the bigs by the end of 1994, though, while Martinez kept ticking through 1987.
In the end, the two survivors from the 1982 Topps Stickers American League Victory Leaders “card” landed in the same general neighborhood of the all-time pitching hierarchy:
(Source: Stathead Baseball)
If that “Hall of Fame” line looks a bit out of balance to you, well, you’re not alone. But who knows? Maybe someday the sticker at the top of this post will feature two denizens of Cooperstown!
Today, we can celebrate Dennis Martinez anyway, as El Presidente turns 71 years old.
How the 1981 Topps Steve McCatty Card Almost Ruined the Hobby
Speaking of the split season and Steve McCatty, his drab 1981 Topps card was one of the reasons I resisted collecting for a couple of years while my mom insisted it would be a good hobby for me. Thanks, Mom!
Even so, it’s a nostalgia-inducing pasteboard that brings back all sorts of memories these days. If you’re so inclined, you can read all about it right here.