A TTM Success from Out of Nowhere
November 15th, 2011 by slangon

Or at least it seems like it was out of nowhere since I sent it out over a year ago.

Craig Swan pitched for the Mets for 12 seasons, from 1973 to 1984. For some reason I was under the impression that he bounced around a bunch of teams, but apparently, outside of 5 innings pitched for the Angels at the very end of his career, he spent his entire time in the Majors with the Mets. His career numbers do not exactly jump out at you. He won 59 games and lost 72, but he did have a respectable 3.74 ERA. Part of his lack of numerical success might be able to be pinned on the fact that his time with the Mets exactly coincided with one of the many periods when they were just terrible.

He was mostly a spot starter and reliever for the first 3 seasons of his career and became a full time starter in 1976, which was the last time while he was in Queens that the Mets posted a winning record until 1984, when he was released late in the season. 1978, the year this card was issued was probably his finest as he went 9-6 and led the league with a 2.43 ERA. The Mets as a team went 66-96 that year. He had 13 starts that year where he was pegged with either a no-decision or a loss after giving up 2 or less runs. 9 of those losses or no-decisions he went 7 or more innings.

Even though I had to wait a while for it, and honestly pretty much forgot that I even sent it out, this is a pretty nice autograph of an under-appreciated Mets pitcher from another of the Mets dark days.

One Response to “A TTM Success from Out of Nowhere”

  1. Nice success, congrats!

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