Card of the Week: 1977 O-Pee-Chee #210 George Scott
Posted by Andy on May 15, 2010
(all images courtesy of oh my o-pee-chee! Click on images for larger versions)
Just about any card collector will know this, but in case you don't: O-Pee-Chee is the Canadian version of Topps. My understanding is that O-Pee-Chee was a Canadian company that utilized the Topps photographs and designs for card releases specifically in Canada. The sets were usually smaller, ignoring some of the non-star players, and sometimes the sets included extra players for the Canadian teams. See the "further reading" section at the end for more on this.
Another difference with the O-Pee-Chee set is that it was released later during the off-season than the Topps sets and this allowed the Canadian company to modify some of the cards to reflect off-season movement of the players. Brewers and Red Sox fans alike will recall that George Scott moved between the two teams during the off-season between the 1976 and 1977 seasons. This followed his earlier move between the same two teams between the 1971 and 1972 seasons.
Scott's trade will explain why the card above might look a little funny. If you still don't see it, take a look at his Topps card from the same year:
That's a real photo taken sometime in 1976 showing Scott in his Brewers' uniform and helmet. By the time O-Pee-Chee had produced its set, however, they had time to airbrush his jersey and helmet to reflect his trade to the Red Sox. (Note, however, that they kept his bling very much intact.) It's also interesting that they moved his signature.
The source blog for these scans and information is oh my o-pee-chee! (oh mon o-pee-chee!) written by GCRL, better known for the Garvey Cey Russell Lopes blog dedicated to Dodgers baseball cards. GCRL's O-Pee-Chee blog is focused on variations between cards due to modifications that O-Pee-Chee was able to make to the Topps designs each given year. If you enjoy this post about the George Scott card, you'll want to check out his blog because he has many, many more examples. You can also see the back of the Scott Topps card and see how it varies.
Speaking of card backs, if you check out the back of the Scott card below, you can immediately see one of the trademark differences between O-Pee-Chee and Topps. The Canadian company includes a French version of all the commentary on the card. Pretty cool--kids who spoke English as their first language could learn that "meilleur frappeur de puissance" means "best power hitter" in French.
I don't know all that much about Scott's career but I see he had two pretty lackluster years in his Age 24 and 25 seasons, putting up just 19 HR and 77 RBI in about 1,000 plate appearances across those two campaigns. That's a shame because if he had performed near his career average for those years, we can presume that he would have finished with 300 career HR and a batting average in the .270s.
Starting the next season, 1970, Scott was among the best power hitters in the game. Over his 8 peak years from 1970 to 1977, he was in the top 10 in HR:
| Rk | Player | HR |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johnny Bench | 245 |
| 2 | Reggie Jackson | 236 |
| 3 | Willie Stargell | 236 |
| 4 | Lee May | 226 |
| 5 | Bobby Bonds | 224 |
| 6 | Graig Nettles | 205 |
| 7 | Hank Aaron | 201 |
| 8 | Tony Perez | 199 |
| 9 | George Scott | 188 |
| 10 | Reggie Smith | 186 |
| 11 | Willie McCovey | 180 |
| 12 | Billy Williams | 177 |
| 13 | Dave Kingman | 176 |
| 14 | Dick Allen | 174 |
| 15 | Bobby Murcer | 174 |
Not to mention RBI:
| Rk | Player | RBI |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johnny Bench | 860 |
| 2 | Tony Perez | 803 |
| 3 | Lee May | 787 |
| 4 | Reggie Jackson | 736 |
| 5 | Willie Stargell | 727 |
| 6 | Bobby Murcer | 721 |
| 7 | George Scott | 699 |
| 8 | Sal Bando | 691 |
| 9 | Rusty Staub | 685 |
| 10 | Bobby Bonds | 681 |
| 11 | Carl Yastrzemski | 678 |
| 12 | Bob Watson | 672 |
| 13 | Graig Nettles | 665 |
| 14 | Ted Simmons | 661 |
| 15 | Al Oliver | 647 |
And it's amazing how times change. Scott was the Brewers' all-time slugging leader in 1977 with a .456 mark for the franchise. Nowadays that doesn't even crack the top 10:
Slugging %
| Rank | Player | SLG | PA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Ryan Braun | .575 | 2012 |
| 2. | Prince Fielder | .542 | 2959 |
| 3. | Richie Sexson | .536 | 2288 |
| 4. | Jeromy Burnitz | .508 | 3269 |
| 5. | Geoff Jenkins | .496 | 4932 |
| 6. | Cecil Cooper | .470 | 6492 |
| 7. | Corey Hart | .468 | 2113 |
| 8. | John Jaha | .463 | 2530 |
| 9. | Gorman Thomas | .461 | 4133 |
| 10. | Ben Oglivie | .461 | 4658 |
However, this is one of the benefits of OPS+, which adjusts for overall offense levels in the league, among other things:
Adjusted OPS+
| Rank | Player | OPS+ | PA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Ryan Braun | 146 | 2012 |
| 2. | Prince Fielder | 139 | 2959 |
| 3. | Richie Sexson | 133 | 2288 |
| 4. | John Briggs | 131 | 2237 |
| 5. | George Scott | 131 | 3320 |
| 6. | Paul Molitor | 125 | 8438 |
| 7. | Sixto Lezcano | 125 | 3132 |
| 8. | Ben Oglivie | 124 | 4658 |
| 9. | Cecil Cooper | 122 | 6492 |
| 10. | Jeromy Burnitz | 122 | 3269 |
Scott is 5th all-time in OPS+ for the Brewers, just ahead of HOFer Paul Molitor and just behind John Briggs, of whom I had never heard before writing this.
Further reading:
Back at my old card blog 88 Topps Cards I wrote all about the 1988 O-Pee-Chee set. You can also see some examples of cards featuring Blue Jays and Expos that were not included in the Topps set of the same year.
May 15th, 2010 at 9:14 am
I could be wrong becuse I haven't looked at cards in quite a while but I do believe another difference between Topps vs OPC is that OPC's card backs were "more glossy."
May 15th, 2010 at 10:01 am
I think you're right. Certainly the 1988 OPC cards were glossier on the back. GCRL's blog has more info on this I'm sure.
May 15th, 2010 at 10:54 am
He was also known as a slick glove. Eight Gold Gloves, 4th in runs saved by 1Bmen by TotalZone. A while back I was looking up some well-known 1Bmen and Scott was the third highest I found in career TotalZone runs per inning. I can see there are some guys I missed and he doesn't actually rank quite that high, but I wish B-R would add that to its leaderboards.....
I just noticed B-R surreptitiously added WAR to its leaders pages. I thought maybe it was licensed from baseballprojection.com, but some of the numbers look slightly different.
May 15th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Sean adds most things surreptitiously and then announces them later. I think he likes to see how they work with daily automatic updates and such. Occasionally he mentions them to us bloggers ahead of time. In the end he always announces them on this blog, plus he usually announces the source as well. Check back about WAR.
May 15th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
I have that Topps card and was always amazed at Scott's putrid stats in 1968.
May 15th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Not to put too fine a poinmt on it for JWL, 1968 was pretty much a "putrid" year for hitters all the way around. Just look at the AL Batting champ -- Yastrzemski at just over .300, which finally took the onus of being the lowest-average batting champ off of Elmer Flick {after, if memory serves, right at. half a century}.
May 15th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Yes, I know about 1968 and how the mound was lowered for 1969. That said, that 1968 line from Scott is still eye-popping.
May 17th, 2010 at 8:28 am
o-pee-chee used a brighter card stock most years, which was most noticeable on the backs of the cards. as a result, the stats were typically easier to read than the topps backs. the text was a lot smaller though, because of the french translation which started in 1970.
that george scott card is one of my favorites, for both topps and o-pee-chee. thanks for featuring it, andy.
May 17th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Bottom ten OPS+ figures for 1968 AL position position players with 200+ plate appearances:
Mark Belanger, Baltimore: 531 PA, .520 OPS, OPS+ 58
Jerry Adair, Boston: 224 PA, .502 OPS, OPS+ 48
Buck Rodgers, California: 281 PA, .469 OPS, OPS+ 46
Ed Brinkman, Washington: 215 PA, .462 OPS, OPS+ 44
Dick Tracewski, Detroit: 240 PA, .475 OPS, OPS+ 43
Ron Clark, Minnesota: 250 PA, .474 OPS, OPS+ 41
Paul Casanova, Washington: 335 PA, .461 OPS, OPS+ 41
George Scott, Boston: 387 PA, .473 OPS, OPS+ 39
Jackie Hernandez, Minnesota: 217 PA, .439 OPS, OPS+ 30
Ray Oyler, Detroit: 247 PA, .399 OPS, OPS+ 20
If you draw the cut-off line at 300 PA, Scott was worst in the AL.
I'd say something sardonic about how having two players on this list would ruin your pennant chances, but there are two of the Tigers' shortstops down there with Mr. Scott. Of course, the Tigers sidestepped the problem in the postseason by moving one of their very good outfielders to short.
Besides not being able to hit, Jackie Hernandez and Ron Clark made 36 errors in 104 starts at shortstop for the Twins. Overall Twins shortstops made 51 errors in 1968. Hernandez and Clark played for expansion teams in 1969, as did Adair and Oyler.