The Year in Cards, 1962: Rig’s Big, Yost Is Most
The Angels were the most successful straight-outta-the-gate expansion franchise in baseball history, never forget.
Continuing the series that began here....
The TOPPS 1962 Angels Baseball Card Set...
Number in set: 25
Buy it now, for: $90.
Generalized description:
We’re loadin’ up our woody with our boards inside.... Let’s see, "Surfin’ Safari" came out in 1962, the Fender Jazzmaster guitars of the early ‘60s (including my long lamented ’63, which was stolen out of a locker in Obecni Dum two decades ago) had some sweet wood-panel designs ... so it makes sense that Topps’ 1962 set would feature cards set inside a conversation pit-style, vertically striped walnut frame. Not hard to squint your eyes and imagine the retro becoming cool once more. The pics scroll up in the bottom right-hand corner, where the Catch Me if You Can font announces name/team/position in ALL CAPS. A bit more than half the pictures are mugshots (often times looking away from the camera), half of which are uncapped -- jarheads still rule the day. The rest are mostly dorky posed shots, though Jim Fregosi looks pretty badass, especially for a teenager. Smirking Ted Bowsfield to my eyes is the first Angels card that looks like it was shot in their unusual spring training city of Palm Springs. Still no facial hair, only one black guy, one pair of glasses. Rookies get the same cool star as ’61.
Highest-priced: Bill Rigney, #549, $11.62.
The caption on the back of Rigney’s rakish card blurts out a long-forgotten truth worth tattooing on the frontal lobes of every Angels beat writer:
When Bill was named manager of the newly formed Los Angeles Angels in 1961, everyone listed the club for a berth in the American League cellar. Instead, the team was skillfully manipulated by Manager Rigney and surprised baseball experts with their fine initial season.
This was no soft-tossing Topps hyperbole. In fact, and despite most everything you’ve heard about the comically inept early Angels, they were the most successful straight-outta-the-gate expansion franchise in baseball history. Don’t believe me? Let’s rank the first seasons of every modern MLB start-up:
1) .435 (70-91) 1961 Angels
2) .426 (69-93) 1969 Royals
3) .414 (67-95) 1993 Rockies
4) .401 (65-97) 1998 Diamondbacks
5) .400 (64-96) 1962 Colt .45s (now Astros)
6) .395 (64-98) 1993 Marlins
6) .395 (64-98) 1977 Mariners
6) .395 (64-98) 1969 Pilots (now Brewers)
9) .389 (63-99) 1998 Devil Rays
10) .379 (61-100) 1961 Senators (now Twins)
11) .335 (54-107) 1977 Blue Jays
12) .321 (52-110) 1969 Padres
12) .321 (52-110) 1969 Expos (now Nationals)
14) .250 (40-120) 1962 Mets
Given that in their second year the Angels finished third in a 10-team league, and were in first place as late as July 4, you’d think that the history about the early era would be about scrappily creative roster construction and impressive overachieving, rather than cartoonish mediocrity. So why the persistently inaccurate impression? Four reasons:
1) The Bo Belinsky Factor. The Angels’ own press operation realized they had a live one with the broad-chasing, screwballing booze-hound, and so found him easier to promote (against the backdrop of Mad Men-era Palm Springs, with the good ol’ boy Rigney spinning yarns at the hotel bar) than some harder story about an expansion franchise punching above its weight.
2) The Koufax Factor. This was especially true given that the other team in town, which doubled as Gene Autry’s evil landlord from 1962-65, was the best in baseball during that period. Of course any other team looked bumbling in comparison.
3) Recency Bias. Sure, we can see now that the Angels were a historically successful start-up team, but writers then didn’t have the hindsight of a half-century.
4) Barf-Colored Glasses. The team was legitimately competitive and promising its first seven years, winning 80 games four times and playing meaningful baseball in the historic pennant race of 1967. But from 1968-77 they won 80 games just twice, and played physically uninspiring ball without the promise or novelty. So it’s natural that people would look back and impose the same narrative on those first seven years. But they shouldn’t.
Bill Rigney was a GREAT manager those first four years, finding hidden talent, throwing stuff against the wall, using the bullpen like no other field general in the business, coaxing greatness out of misfits. He should have vaulted the franchise up in 1965-67, but instead tread water, producing the same results but with a much greater pool of available talent. After that he sank, and with him, the lasting reputation of the ballclub, at least until his star shortstop took the reins in the late ‘70s.
Rookie Cards: Bob Rodgers, Jim Fregosi, Dean Chance. I know, right? Fregosi and Chance rookie cards worth 20% of Bill freakin’ Rigney? Such is the primacy of high set-numbers in 1960s Topps valuations.
Best player the year before: The forgotten stalwart of the Chance/Bo Belinsky years, Ken McBride, with 4.3 WAR -- 5.2 from pitching, but a still-team-record (for a pitcher) -0.9 with the bat. McBride had one of those nothing-GREAT-nothing careers, not uncommon for pitchers, what with their human arms and all:
1959-60: 27.1 IP, 0-2, 3.29 ERA, 119 ERA+, 0.0 pitching WAR
1961-63: 642 IP, 36-32, 3.46 ERA, 113 ERA+, 10.3 pitching WAR, 3 All-Star selections
1964-65: 138.1 IP, 4-16, 5.40 ERA, 62 ERA+, -2.8 pitching WAR, kaput
Best player that year: Dean Chance already, with 3.5 WAR -- 4.1 from pitching, an impressive -0.6 for his performance at the plate, where he managed just 4 lousy singles and 3 walks in 68 plate appearances. Chance was one of the worst hitting pitchers in Angels history, racking up an .082/.120/.087 line in 442 plate appearances, for an OPS+ of -39 and offensive WAR of -2.5. The only one who competes with him on negative batting WAR is George Brunet, with -1.9 (and a -34 OPS+).
Other decorations: Lee Thomas, nee Leroy, gets a big ol’ "Topps 1961 All-Star Rookie" trophy in his lower left-hand corner.
Most previous WAR: Eddie Yost, 33.8. Here’s a comment on the back of Yost’s card that will blow your ears off: "Eddie holds the major league record for playing the most games at third base." Could that possibly have been true? According to Baseball Reference, not only was it true as of the end of 1961, it wasn’t particularly close:
1) 1980 Eddie Yost
2) 1863 Pie Traynor
3) 1836 Stan Hack
4) 1768 Pinky Higgins
5) 1724 Lave Cross
6) 1692 George Kell
7) 1683 Jimmy Collins
8) 1674 Willie Kamm
9) 1656 Larry Gardner
10) 1614 Willie Jones
You could have offered me $5,000 to come up with this list, I never would have put Eddie Yost at the top. Nowadays he doesn’t even crack the top 10....
Yost was still so talented at drawing a walk in his last two professional seasons as an Angel in ’61-62, that his anemic .215 batting average and sickly .290 slugging percentage were brought to the prom by a robust .377 OBP, helping him amass 0.7 WAR in a part-time role. Can you imagine a 35-year-old backup 3Bman with a .412 OBP? That was Eddie Yost on the historic 1962 Angels, in his final big-league season. What a valuable, oddball career.
Most future WAR: Jim Fregosi, 48.7. That’s more than Hall of Fame shortstops Dave Bancroft, Travis Jackson, Rabbit Maranville, Hughie Jennings, and Phil Rizzuto. Though in fairness, none of those guys except maybe Jennings and definitely (IMO) Rizzuto -- who lost double-digits in WAR due to WWII -- deserve to be in the Hall.
Johnny Handsome: Lee Thomas has a kind of All-American charm, despite the awkward post-swing.
Make the walls peel off: Ken L. Hunt. Good Lord. I mean, this on a team with Ed Sadowski.
Now THAT’S what a ballplayer looks like: Jimmy Fregosi. My favorite card in the set, by a longshot.
Uh, this guy’s a professional athlete?: Ryne Duren, hung over Alabama state trooper.
Missed it by THAT much: "Ed finally was given the opportunity to play regularly in the majors last year and he proved himself worthy." That would be Ed Sadowski, who hit .232/.278/.384 in a bandbox, for an OPS+ of 69, and -0.6 WAR. The only month he had more than 8 starts was June, when he had 20, and hit .200.
Dude, where’s my card?: Gene Leek. Bro had 211 plate appearances in 1961, and he can’t get a rectangle? Though in fairness he only had 14 left in the Bigs.
Miscellaneous weirdness: Leon Wagner is all horribly out of focus. Eddie Yost has the same photograph as the year before, only in tighter closeup -- and with his position listed as "3 BASE."
Say, Matt, did you ever write anything about any of these guys?: Some stuff about Dean Chance, Ken McBride, and other starting pitchers here.
Originally appeared at Halos Heaven.