What a card: Johnny Ray was coming off his best season in the majors when this card appeared in packs in 1985. Even better than his rookie year in 1982, Ray hit .312 in 155 games with a .789 OPS.
My observation on the front: Lots of mid-1980s Pirates color on this one. Gold-and-black all over. Every Pirate that's appeared in this set so far has been wearing the gold tops.
More opinion from me: I'm going with Jason Thompson as the guy in the on-deck circle.
Something you might know: Ray was edged out of the 1982 N.L. Rookie of the Year award by the Dodgers' Steve Sax, a controversial decision for those who cited a number of stats in which Ray came out ahead of Sax. But you'll never convince this Dodger fan that Sax was not the rookie of the year that year.
Something you might not know: Ray came to the Pirates at the end of the "We Are Fami-l-ee" era. He said he remembers walking into the training room as a youngster and seeing Willie Stargell lying on a table all stiff and sore. Ray would make fun of him and Stargell said, "Son, just keep livin' and you'll know what this is like."
My observation on the back: French on a non-O-Pee-Chee card??
The blog wants to speak now: Unfortunately, Blogger is not allowing me to update any of the tabs at this time. This makes less-intensive work for me, but an inferior blog experience for you. Hopefully, Blogger will fix whatever it's tinkering with soon.
Looking at modern stats they didn't have in '82, and Sax is more clearly the guy - ahead in OPS and only slightly behind in WAR. He was ahead of Ray on the offensive side and behind on the defensive side, but it averaged out to less then a game's difference.
ReplyDeleteWin Shares gives a slight edge to Ray 19-18.
ReplyDelete