The Unexpected Rod Carew Career Capper
Did you know he was in a tight race with Big Mac??
1986 Woolworth Rod Carew (#6) - Card of the Day
Rod Carew didn’t necessarily think he was done punishing baseballs when he collected his 3053rd and final hit on October 4, 1985.
For one thing, he still had a game the next day — he went 0-for-2 with a strikeout against Matt Williams of the Texas Rangers, but he did draw a walk and score a run in the California Angels’ 3-1 win to close the season.
(The Angels had yet another game, on October 6, but Carew didn’t play in that one.)
For another thing, Carew went into the winter as a free agent, at age 40 but with no definite plans to hang up his spikes.
The Halos didn’t offer him a contract for 1986, though, and the new season began without him.
As the weather heated up, the San Francisco Giants came calling, but Carew decided — after some time away from the diamond to reflect — that he really was done.
That decision came in early June, way too late for card companies to do anything about the composition of their 1986 sets, which were likely on the planning board way back when Carew was knocking that last single.
And with a future Hall of Famer shopping his services during the offseason, what was a humble card-maker to do other than assume he’d be back?
So, yes, Rod Carew snagged a full complement of career-cappers in 1986, with Topps, Fleer, Donruss, and Sportflics all issuing base cards of the bat magician. Heck, Fleer and Sportflics even included “special” cards featuring Carew in their sets.
But Topps did them all one better.
Besides issuing that final Carew card with full stats in their black-and-white-bordered main set, The Old Gum Company also included the superstar in their Baseball Champion Superstars box set produced for sale at Woolworth that summer.
That 33-card issue included active players who had previously won batting, RBI, or home run titles in the majors.
Carew, with his seven batting crowns and undecided future, made the cut, as you can see above.
And when you turned the card over?
Yeah, full stats:
Well, OK, maybe not full stats, but career stats, at least.
And that gaudy .328 batting average is on full display, as is the list of his seven batting titles. And Topps even did it with some 80s pastel flare.
So, yes, this Woolworth card counts as a career-capper, and a bonus one at that.
One born of indecision and a sort of fizzled, unrecognized ending to a great career, and fate incongruent with the rocket glow of Carew’s peak years — much to the benefit of collectors.
Today, the great Rod Carew turns 79 years old.
Big Mac Had Us Jazzed
Today is also Mark McGwire’s birthday, and as hard as it is to believe, Big Mac is turning 61.
Calendar lies aside, it’s hard for collector kids of the 1980s not to get a charge out of that wood-grained beauty you see above. It felt electric sliding out of a pack in the summer of 1987, and it still does. Always will.
Naturally, I waxed poetic about this one in more detail once upon a time, right here.
—
Carew and McGwire couldn’t have been much more different in the way they made their teams better.
For example, Big Mac stole 12 bases in his career, a total Carew matched or topped in 12 different seasons.
On the other hand, McGwire hit 491 more home runs than Carew did, while never coming within 15 points of Carew’s .328 career batting average in any single full(ish) season.
But they had some things in common, too, including not-great defense and always finding a way on base — McGwire bested Carew in career OBP, .394 to .393.
Alright, that’s more than you bargained for, I’m sure. But let it all serve as a reminder that you can waste spend however much time you want with nothing at your disposal except a couple pages full of baseball stats.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
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