Thursday, December 14, 2017

#735 - Garry Templeton


What a card: Garry Templeton completed his third of 10 seasons with the Padres in 1984. He appeared in 148 games, batting .258, but he hit .324 in the NLCS and the World Series in the only postseason appearance of his career.

My observation on the front: I like many of Templeton's cards, but they are all his early ones with the Cardinals. His Padres cards are pretty boring.

More opinion from me: I just completed the Greatest 100 Cards of the '70s countdown on my main blog and I have no idea how the 1977 Templeton card didn't make the list.

Something you might know: Templeton is the guy the Cardinals traded to San Diego to get Ozzie Smith. (The Padres also received Sixto Lezcano and Steve Mura).

Something you might not know: Templeton is known as the first major league to collect 100 hits from each side of the plate, which was recorded in 1979. But he probably didn't actually achieve it. To this day, Templeton says he should have remained a right-handed hitter. He said he was converted to switch-hitting but was never interested in doing it.


My observation on the back: The Orioles held the ALCS games-won lead 18 to 12 over the Yankees as of 1984. Since that point, the Orioles have won just three more ALCS games and the Yankees have won 36. The new totals:

Yankees: 48
Red Sox: 26
Athletics: 23
Orioles: 21
Royals: 20
Tigers: 18
Indians: 17
Blue Jays: 16
Angels: 13
Twins: 9
Rangers: 8
White Sox: 7
Mariners: 5
Astros: 4
Rays: 4
Brewers: 3

The blog wants to speak now: The Pop Culture tab is updated.

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