That’s What I’m Talking About
October 31st, 2010 by slangon

Finally. I can’t say it enough. Never in a million years did I think that it would take until Game 3 for the Rangers to win the 1st World Series game in franchise history. Congrats to them for that. Now they just need to continue the longish uphill climb to World Championship-ness.

In the meantime, here’s some Game 4 highlight cards from throughout the years.

I really like the whole television look of this card, although it obviously wasn’t the first time someone did it. I think Bowman did it a little bit better back in 1955, but this one’s pretty cool too. I can also somewhat forgive the plagiarism since it’s just the design of a sub-set. This card features Baltimore pitcher Dave McNally, who pitched a complete game shutout against the Dodgers to cap off the Orioles 1st World Championship. You can also see Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson floating about 8 feet off the ground in celebration. Judging from the slumped shoulders, I’d venture to say that that fellow wearing #18 in the foreground is a Dodger’s third base coach Preston Gomez.


Here’s yet another 1970 card celebration the Mets 1969 World Series win. It shows J.C. Martin dropping down what should have been a sacrifice bunt to move Rod Gaspar (who was pinch running for Jerry Grote who started the inning with a double) over to third. During the play, Orioles reliever Pete Richert hit Martin in the wrist with the throw to first. It was deemed that Martin did not intentionally interfere with the throw. Gaspar came around to score the winning run. Thanks to this play, the running lane that you see on all Major League fields was added.

By now you must’ve noticed that the majority of my World Series highlight cards come from the 1970 and the 1973 set. The ’70 set is pretty obvious since I’m a Mets collector and I guess the number of ’73 cards is because I’m sort of unofficially collecting that set. Gene Tenace hit his 3rd home run in the 1972 World Series in the 5th to give the A’s a 1-0 lead, which was squandered in the top of the 9th when Vida Blue was brought in to face Joe Morgan and Bobby Tolan. He ended up giving up a 2 run double to Tolan before retiring Johnny Bench for the 3rd out. The A’s came back in the bottom of the 9th when they strung together 4 straight hits to score 2 runs and win the game.

This card shows Le Grand Orange smashing a 3 run homer in the 1st inning off of starting pitcher Ken Holtzman, who would only go 1/3 of an inning while giving up 4 hits, a walk and 3 runs. That can’t be good for you ERA. Game 4 of the ’73 Series was also known for a controversy involving Oakland pinch hitter Mike Andrews. Apparently in Game 2, Andrews committed 2 key errors that led to 4 Mets runs and cost the A’s the game. Oakland owner Charlie Finley forced him to claim he was disabled, allowing the A’s to be able to replace him on the roster for the rest of the Series. Pretty much everyone not named Charlie O. Finley knew this was B.S.. Bowie Kuhn eventually forced Finley to reinstate Andrews for Game 4. He came into Game 4 in the eighth inning as a pinch-hitter to a standing ovation from sympathetic Mets fans. He promptly grounded out, and Finley ordered him benched for the remainder of the Series. Andrews never played another major league game, playing baseball in Japan in 1975 before retiring.

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