Friday, December 27, 2013

#246 - Mike Norris


What a card: Mike Norris received a card in the 1985 Topps set despite spending the entire 1984 season on the disabled list. In fact, his MLB career was effectively over by this time. He would appear in only 14 more games and those would all be during his comeback season with the A's in 1990. This was the last Topps card issued of Norris during his career.

My observation on the front: Norris looks like he knows he's done.

More opinion from me: I knew about Norris from the very beginning, pulling his rookie card in 1976 and noting that he pitched in just four MLB games, which I thought was both odd (because Topps gave him a card anyway) and cool (because his career ERA was 0.00).

Something you might know: Norris enjoyed a tremendous 1980 season in which he went 22-9 with the A's. It is now known more for being overlooked by sportswriters, who voted Steve Stone as the AL Cy Young winner that year, and for possibly leading to Norris' descent into arm problems thanks to alleged overuse by manager Billy Martin.

Something you might not know: In a 1982 Sports Illustrated poll, Norris was voted one of the biggest hot dogs in the American League. Only teammate Rickey Henderson, the Mariners' Julio Cruz and Reggie Jackson finished ahead of him.


My observation on the back: Norris had surgery in 1983 to free a trapped nerve in his pitching shoulder and doctors told him not to pitch for the entire 1984 season.

The blog wants to speak now: The News category is updated.

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