(Images courtesy of Great Sports Names Hall of Fame)

I love Fred McGriff. I rarely write about him on this blog but he ranks as one of my all-time favorite players, due mainly to his incredible consistency over a long period of time. I also love his transaction history:

• He was stolen by the Blue Jays from the Yankees in 1982 and put Toronto on the map.
• He was the centerpiece in a blockbuster 1990 trade with San Diego, bringing the Jays some key players (Roberto Alomar and Mr. All-time Overrated) for their two-time championship teams in 1992 and 1993.
• He was traded to the Braves in 1993, played extremely well for them, and helped them win their only World Series during their epic playoff streak.
• Then he went to Tampa Bay in 1997 to give that team respectability. McGriff is a Tampa native and was that team's first truly legitimate power hitter.
• Then he got traded to the Cubs and played extremely well for them.

This 1997 set came during the twilight of Score's run, with the last baseball set coming out in 1998. This set is a far cry from Score's debut in 1988, which featured colorful cards with two photographs and extensive biographies. (See the 1988 Score Tom Glavine card I wrote about a while back as an example.) In the 1997 set, we see just a single photo on the front and a more traditional back with lots of stats and a shorter bio.

Well, hold on one second...that photo on the front may be the only one, but what a great photo. Sure, it's a posed shot, but it's an awesome shot of Crime Dog with an interesting background. I'm not sure if McGriff was photographed against that backdrop or if his image was superimposed onto it, but either way it's interesting and gives the card a dark, ominous feel. I like it. And as for the back being traditional...well it's actually pretty strange.

First of all, nearly every bit of text on the card is in italics. The only thing not italicized is the card number 172. (Incidentally, for both images in this post, you can click on them to get a larger version.) Secondly, this card actually reports OBP! It's called OB%, but I was shocked to see this on a card from 13 years ago. I'm not sure about the history of OBP reporting on baseball cards, but I'd think this is one of the earliest examples. Amazing. On the right side of the card, they give breakdowns of McGriff's 1996 stats in different situations. Splits on a baseball card? That's new to me too. Pretty revolutionary stuff for 1997.

One other neat thing about the back of the card that is easy to miss is the subtle Braves logo appearing behind the stats. It doesn't add all that much to the card except that it prevents it from being purely black text on a stark white background. That was a smart move on Score's part.

Anyway, I should mention the baseball card blog that brought this card to my attention. It's Great Sports Name Hall of Fame, and the writer is a collector of Fred McGriff cards. If you click through to the site, you can see that he's compiled lists of great sports names, and there are some real gems there. (Click on the links on the sidebar to see all the names.) This blog is a good example of one of the main types of card blog that exists today. The author writes a lot of posts about cards he's received in trades but also puts a lot of effort into some specific segments of the hobby that interest him. It's good stuff, and when you get a good writer these blogs can be a lot of fun to follow.

McGriff was a remarkably consistent hitter over virtually his entire career. He was actually hurt by the fact that he didn't have the peaks and valleys that most other players have. Had he sprinkled in a couple of seasons with an OPS+ of 95-100 along with a couple at 170, he might be better remembered. Why? Because in that 170 season he probably would have hit 40 HR, something he never actually did.

But check out the all-time leaders for most seasons with 22 to 36 HR:

There's McGriff on a list with 5 HOFers who all finished with more HR than he did. But let's focus on the #1 guy on the list, Eddie Murray. Murray had a very similar career to McGriff, with very close BA and OPS+, plus Murray never topped 33 HR in any one season despite finishing with 504 (essentially the same as McGriff's 493.) The biggest difference between the two guys was better longevity for Murray, who went to plate over 2,500 times more that McGriff. Give McGriff 2,500 more plate appearances at a 90 OPS+, he finishes with essentially identical numbers to Murray and he's in the HOF next year. As it stands, though, I don't see McGriff making it. (He'd have my vote if I had one.)

Further reading:

Ben Henry of The Baseball Card Blog, one of the granddaddy card blogs, did a feature called The Tao of Fred McGriff. He's posted lots of Crime Dog card images and culled a lot of statistics about the guy too. His entire blog is very much worth the read.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 1st, 2010 at 7:31 am and is filed under Card of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.