The Nitty Gritty Card of the Night

This is the first time in a while that I have had the time to post twice in one day over here. I have a tiny of free time ahead on Saturday morning and I am going to try and post ahead a little bit. I also dug up some more 1961 Topps and I have acquired some 2010 Topps Heritage, so there will be some good "Old Vs. New" posts in the near, near future. For now we will settle for a quick post of the night. In today's Card of the Day I showed the National League's Strikeout Leaders for 1967. I picked the card because it showed 3 Hall of Fame pitchers lined up in a row and I pointed out some of the huge names on the back of the card who were not in the Top-10. Obviously they had reasons, but the bottom line was that none were among the test best strikeout pitchers in 1967. However in 1969, all 3 of those Hall of Fame pitchers joined one and other as the Top-3 ERA Leaders in the National League. Tonight's Nitty Gritty Card of the Night is card #67 from 1970 Topps. It shows the Top 3 ERA leaders in the National League for 1969. Juan Marichal earned the crown for lowest earned run average in the NL with a mark of 2.10. 1969 was the only year in his career that the Dominican Dandy paced the league in this category. He cracked the top-ten 7 times, but only led the league once. His career ERA of 2.89 is 132nd of All Time. Steve Carlton finished 2nd with a mark of 2.17. Lefty would pace the league in ERA in 1972 with a 1.97. He would also lead the league in wins and pick up his first Cy Young Award that year. Bob Gibson finished third, just 0.01 points behind Carlton. Gibby had led the NL with a ridiculous 1.12 mark the year prior. Fellow Hall of Famer Tom Seaver placed 4th with a 2.21 mark while Gaylord Perry and Phil Niekro rounded out the top-10 at 9th and 10th respectively. Thanks for reading! I love this game, I love it's rich history and I LOVE this hobby! Oh, yes, this card is very off center top to bottom, it was miscut. It is pretty sharp otherwise. 40 years LATER!

The Nitty Gritty Card of the Night!

Before Mr. October became Mr. October he was just plain old Reginald M. Jackson or Reggie for short. Reggie had an amazing year in 1969 when he was an All Star led the league in slugging percentage and runs scored and hit 47 homers and drove in 118. The following year the only categories he would pace the league in were caught stealing and strikeouts. It looked like ’69 might have been a fluke. Obviously it wasn’t. Jackson is and will always be Mr. October. He has 4 World Series rings, 18 postseason homers and a plaque on the wall in Cooperstown. Still, none of that was certain just yet when this card was printed. After seeing the amazing Thurman Munson card from this same set on the Night Owl’s blog, I decided to counter by making card #20 from the 1971 set the Nitty Gritty card of the Day. There is just something I like about this card. Something innocent, uncertain, classy and cool about this one. Can’t put my finger on it… Thanks for reading! 39 years LATER!