On December 1st, the baseball community lost Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry. In honor of his amazing career, I humbly submit my 5 favorite Gaylord Perry cards that I own.
Perry's career is forever tied to the legend that he threw spitballs, or at the least was a master at illegally doctoring them. While he never officially confirmed this, he never denied it either, and seemed to enjoy fanning the flames whenever it was brought up. One fun story: During the dedication ceremony of his statue at Oracle Park, he taped tubes of Vaseline to the bottom of the chairs as a special souvenir!
1971 Topps #70
The oldest Perry card in my collection, Gaylord tied Bob Gibson for the league lead in wins in 1970, winning 23 games that year. He also placed second behind Gibson in Cy Young Award voting that year.
1978 Topps #686
Perry's career is forever tied to the legend that he threw spitballs, or at the least was a master at illegally doctoring them. While he never officially confirmed this, he never denied it either, and seemed to enjoy fanning the flames whenever it was brought up. One fun story: During the dedication ceremony of his statue at Oracle Park, he taped tubes of Vaseline to the bottom of the chairs as a special souvenir!
1980 Topps #280
Perry became the first pitcher in history to win the Cy Young award in each league, winning his first one for Cleveland in 1972 and then again for the Padres six years later.
1984 Topps #6
In 1984, Topps issued a special card honoring the retirement of 3 future Hall of Famers. This is the only Topps card featuring him in a Kansas City Royals uniform, the last of 8 teams he played for over his career.
2016 Topps Archives #212
We'll finish things up with a great photo of Perry from his time with the Indians. After the Giants traded him to Cleveland in 1972, Perry introduced himself to the new team by winning his first Cy Young Award, leading the league in wins and complete games.
Rest In Peace, Gaylord Perry. You will be missed.
Never seen that last card before, great photo. Looks like an All Star Game - maybe Brooks Robinson at third?
ReplyDeleteExcellent spot! Yeah, must be the All-Star Game. Perry played in two of them while with Cleveland, but the red uniforms didn't exist when he played the first one, in 1972, so this must be 1974. Let's see...sure enough, Brooks Robinson was the starting third baseman for the AL, and Perry the starting pitcher. Must be him. (Bobby Grich came into the game before Perry left, but there's no way in those days he'd be in that location as the second baseman.)
DeleteYou can see some highlights of Perry in that game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPHx3vOcIuE Same uniform, even the stirrups match.
Perry sure had some interesting cards considering all the teams he played for. I bet a 'career timeline' page would look nice with some of these.
ReplyDeleteYaz looks SO old on that card! I like the last one too, it seems like I only ever see Archives on the blogs, and I don't recall having seen that one before.
ReplyDelete