Dave Johnson, who would later(?) be known as Davey, had a career of 13 seasons in the bigs, a majority of them with the Orioles. This card is the first card in the set showing a full time second sacker. It's also the first card in the set, to my knowledge, where the player had at least one World Series ring each as both a player and manager. Davey got rings with the O's in '66 and '70 and as manager of the famous Mets team of '86. His 1974 season would be his last full season in the bigs. He had a blowout year in '73, smacking 43 homers (breaking Rogers Hornsby's all time 2B HR record) and batting in 99. His numbers were way off in '74 (.251/15/62), and after only one at bat in the 1975 season - a run scoring double - Davey was released by the Braves early in April. He missed the rest of the '75 season as well as the entire '76 season. Does anybody know why? He was signed as a free agent by the Phillies in '77, seeing limited action in '77 and in '78 as well, when he was traded to the Cubs in August. He played his last eight weeks of big league ball on the North Side before being cut after the season ended.
This photo is a bit strange for an action shot. The ball is seen behind Davey's behind. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that he swung and missed. But... He hit right handed, so this was snapped on his follow through swing. It looks like he either fouled the ball at the plate and it bounced up behind him or maybe it hit off the catcher or umpire and ricocheted back.
Cartoon: Davey is a licensed pilot. Speaking of pilot, here he is shown in a TV cartoon series pilot flying by the Umpire State Building, cutting in front of Bugs Bunny who is waiting on top of the tower to catch that ball. The show never debuted. This blog post used two past tense conjugations of verbs that ended in silent T's, just so you know. Ricocheted and debuted.
Ballpark background: I can see Mets uniforms in the dugout beyond Johnson, and this looks like the Shea Stadium dugout shown in other card shots over the years. So, I'm going with Shea Stadium. Final answer.
LOVE YOUR SITE, LIFETIME PHILLIES FAN FROM 64 ON, PHILLIES PICKED UP DAVEY IN 77, HE WAS PLAYING IN JAPAN IN 75 AND 76.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment! I do remember now that he played in Japan. As a kid, that was something of an oddity to me, somebody going over to Japan to play. It wasn't often we heard about it.
It's almost as if he was taking steroids in 1973!
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