Goodbye to Nate Colbert at the age of 76.
Colbert was the first star of the expansion San Diego Padres after being selected from the Houston Astros in the 1969 expansion draft.
Colbert would be selected to three All-Star teams with San Diego and hit 163 homers in his six seasons as a Padre, hitting thirty-eight homers in both 1970 and 1972.
On August 1, 1972, Colbert set major league records when he finished with five home runs, thirteen RBI, and twenty-two total bases in a two-game San Diego sweep of a doubleheader against the Atlanta Braves.
Colbert was traded to Detroit in 1975 but a back injury caused him to struggle through two unproductive seasons before forcing his retirement.
Goodbye to Denny Doyle at the age of 78.
A journeyman second baseman for the Phillies and Angels, Doyle was traded to the Red Sox in June 1975 with the Red Sox in the middle of their American League pennant-winning campaign.
Doyle responded with the best season of his career, hitting .310 for Boston, and had the highest hitting streak of the season with twenty-two games in his streak.
Doyle was the only player on either team in the famous 1975 World Series to hit safely in all seven games but is more remembered for being thrown out at the plate with the bases loaded and no out in the bottom of the ninth of game six.
Fred Lynn's shallow fly to George Foster was the first out but with the screaming crowd, third base coach Don Zimmer's cry of "No No No" was heard by Doyle as "Go Go Go" and Foster threw him out easily at home rather than winning the game for Boston.
Had Doyle scored, the game would have ended and there would have never been the famous Carlton Fisk homer in extra innings.
Goodbye to Frank Thomas at the age of 93.
A three-time All-Star, Thomas hit over twenty homers nine times in a sixteen-year career spent with seven teams and was the top hitter for the expansion 1962 Mets when Thomas hit thirty-four homers with ninety-four RBI.
Thomas is also remembered for his fight in 1964 as a member of the pennant-contending Phillies with rookie of the year Richie Allen during batting practice that ended with Thomas hitting Allen with a bat which resulted in injury to Allen and the release of Thomas by Philadelphia in the midst of the 1964 pennant race.
Goodbye to Gary Peters at the age of 85.
Peters, along with Joel Horlen and Tommy John, gave the Chicago White Sox a three-man top-of-the-rotation that ranked among the best in the American League during the mid to late 1960s for a White Sox that often contended on the backs of their pitching staff.
Peters won the 1963 Rookie of the Year award when he finished 19-8 with an American League-leading 2.33 ERA and then led the AL in wins the following season with twenty.
Peters made two All-Star teams (1964, 67) and led the AL in ERA in 1966 with a 1.98 mark.
Peters would finish his career with Boston from 1970-72, winning thirty-three games over the term for the BoSox.
Goodbye to Sal Bando at the age of 78.
Bando was the third baseman and captain for the three-time World Champion Oakland Athletics in 1972-74 and was part of the initial free agent class after the 1976 season that would see almost all the stars of the A's dynasty leave owner Charlie Finley for other franchises, with Bando signing with Milwaukee for final five years of his career.
Bando made the All-Star team in each of the title years (as well as 1969) and his homers with Oakland were the franchise record until broken by Mark McGwire in the 1990s.
Bando's best season was in 1973 when he hit .287 with 29 homers and 98 RBI.
After retirement, Bando was a part of the NBC Game of the Week broadcasting team in 1982 and would be the general manager of the Brewers from 1991 through 1999.
No comments:
Post a Comment