#118 -- Skip Lockwood

Skip Lockwood

This Brewers Spring Training photo includes a photo of one of the rocks that you see in the Arizona shots. If 1972 baseball cards were sent to Neptune and the inhabitants tried to figure us out from this set (scary thought, isn't it?) they'd get out the topographical map and wonder where all the mountains in Wisconsin are.

Skip also looks very 70's in this shot. He's got the sideburns coming way down and up towards his mouth. That took a lot of grooming back then. It's also a lot different from the bookish version of Skip we see in later cards with the Mets.

Skip signed with the A's as an 18 year old out of high school and was brought up in 1965. Those stats aren't on the back of his card because he hit .121 as a 3rd baseman. I guess he didn't scare Sal Bando too much. Looks like after a couple more years of trying to make it as a hitter he started pitching in 1968. For some reason, the Pilots took a flyer on him and drafted him in the expansion draft. After going 6-2 in 10 starts in AA ball, the Pilots brought him up in 1969, with just over a year's pitching experience in the minors.

He finished a couple of blowouts, giving 2 runs in 2 innings, not looking too impressive. The runs came on solo homers to Elrod Hendricks of the Orioles and Ike Brown of the Tigers, not exactly thought of as big time sluggers. However, they let him start 3 games in September and he did great. Since he was with the Pilots, he went 0-1, but he had a 2.70 ERA. He went 7 innings and gave 1 run in a 1-1 tie with the Angels, lost 2-1 to the White Sox and left after 7 against the Twins tied at 3 in a game the Pilots won in 14.

He earned a spot in the rotation from 1970-1973, but was mediocre, going 28-54 (ouch) despite a 3.70 ERA over that time. He was traded to the Angels and didn't get much work there in 1974. He was traded to the Yankees in the off-season, but was released at the beginning of 1975. The A's picked him up, but he was stuck at AAA Tucson, pitching so-so between the rotation and bullpen. The Mets purchased him for bullpen depth and he found his niche. He was a big part of the Mets bullpen in the late 70's before arm trouble shut him down in 1979. He tried to come back with his beloved Red Sox (native of Massachusetts) but he wasn't the same. The Sox released him in the last cuts before the 1981 season started. He tried to hang on with Montreal's AAA team in 1981, but that was it for his baseball career.

But that wasn't all for Skip Lockwood. He's done some baseball analyst work, but he's had a really interesting post-baseball career. He has a Master's degree from MIT in 1983, shortly after his baseball career ended. That's a pretty big accomplishment, especially given that he went from high school to baseball and he had to pick up a bachelor's degree somewhere along the way. Skip is only one of three MIT grads to have played in the big leagues with Art Merewether (1 at bat for the Pirates in 1922) and Jason Szuminski (7 games in 2004 for the Padres) are the others.

Skip is currently the CEO of a company called PACE 360, a company involved in sales and marketing.

1972 Feature

On June 16, 1972 there were 6 shutouts in the 11 games played. Joe Coleman of the Tigers threw a 3-hitter at the Angels, Jim Palmer needed Grant Jackson to get the last out with the bases loaded to preserve a 3-0 win over the Twins, the A's got 4 in the 1st and Ken Holtzman scattered 7 Indian hits to win 5-0, Ron Reed gave the Expos only 7 hits in the 2nd game of a doubleheader in Atlanta, Cub rookie Burt Hooton stopped the Dodgers on 6 hits, and the Game of the Day is in the Houston Astrodome.

The Phillies absolutely sucked in 1972. Except when Steve Carlton took the mound. They were 59-97 overall, but Carlton was 27-10. The Phillies were 29-11 when he pitched, meaning they were 30-86 when he didn't pitch. You've got to wonder how they only threw him out there 40 times. Carlton went to the mound on June 16 against Don Wilson of the Astros and they put on a pitching duel. Wilson was taken out of the scoreless game in the 7th. Don Money had singled to start the inning and Larry Bowa bunted him to second. Supposedly that would be so the next hitter had a chance to knock him in. At this point, the Astros decided to get a fresh pitcher in to face that hitter, so Tom Griffin came in. Carlton was the batter. He flied to center and the game stayed scoreless.

In the 9th, the Phillies put runners at 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. Carlton was the scheduled hitter. The Phillie bullpen was so solid that he was left in to hit and struck out. Good thing. In the bottom of the 9th Cesar Cedeno led off with a double and the meat of the lineup is coming up. Carlton intentionally walked Jimmy Wynn. Then he struck out Lee May, got Bob Watson to line out to left. He walked Doug Rader to load the bases, but the less formidable Tommy Helms came up and flied to center.

In the 10th, the Astros again got a runner to 2nd on a balk with nobody out. They bunted him to third with one out, but Carlton struck out Roger Metzger and got Cedeno to ground out and end another threat. The Phils got their leadoff man on in the 11th and bunted him to 2nd. Larry Bowa then popped up, meaning Carlton would be coming up with a man in scoring position and 2 out, just like the 9th. This time they lifted him for Oscar Gamble. Gamble singled, but the run couldn't score. The next batter groundd out. Dick Selma relieved and Jimmy Wynn promptly led off the bottom of the 11th with a homer. Sounds to me like that game was going to last as long as Carlton would.

#106 -- Brewers Team

Milwaukee Brewers

(Apologies to Matt. I was out of town when this posted and didn't realize I hadn't uploaded scans of the cards.)

The first thing that jumps out at you are the records on the back of the card. This team only had 3 years to compile records, so they're not going to be terribly impressive. For one thing, you can tell that Tommy Harper had a good year in 1970. Of the 11 club records, Tommy set 8 of them in 1970. The only batting record that fell in 1972 was that George Scott knocked in 88 runs to take the club record.

On the pitching side, Marty Pattin had a pretty good 1971, but things were a little more spread around. No pitching records fell in 1972, but Jim Lonborg tied Pattin's 14 wins in 1970 and 1971. Interesting that Pattin and Harper (and others) were traded to the Red Sox for Scott and Lonborg (and others) and they're all over the leader board on this franchise as of 1972.

The Brewers still sucked in 1972. They were last in the AL in attendance with 600,000. That's right. The Yankees or Dodgers can pull that in on a long homestand now. It didn't matter whether Dave Bristol or Del Crandall was managing, they still lost. Heck, you could have Whitey Herzog, Billy Martin, Tommy Lasorda and Earl Weaver on the bench and this team wasn't going to win. George Scott was 4th in the league in RBI and 9th in hits and Johnny Briggs was 9th in homers and slugging percentage and that was it for Brewers on the hitting leaderboards. Oh, Rick Auerbach was 4th in outs made. The pitching side was even leaner with Ken Sanders being 4th in saves and 5th in games pitched, unless you want to consider Billy Parsons being 3rd in earned runs allowed.

George Scott won a Gold Glove at first base. I would have thought he would be the Brewer All-Star, but that honor went to Ellie Rodriguez, who had 2 homers, 16 RBI and hitting .281 at the break. Boomer was only hitting .238 at the break and there are usually a lot of deserving first basemen.

I do like the guy wearing the letterman's jacket on the left side of the picture.

1972 Feature
Being a Sunday, June 4, 1972 was a big day for doubleheaders. The A's swept the Orioles in identical 2-0 games. The White Sox came back from yesterday's 13-inning loss to sweep the Yankees, including a 3-run walk-0ff homer by 1972 MVP Dick Allen in the 2nd game. The Pirates swept the Giants. The Red Sox and Royals split. The 2nd game of the Yankees-White Sox doubleheader would have to be the Game of the Day. The Yanks took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the 9th. Wife Swapper Mike Kekich was cruising along, having allowed 2 runs on 3 hits, but had walked 6. Rick Reichardt flied out, but after Bill Melton walked and Mike Andrews singled, Sparky Lyle came in. Lyle was a stud, but he went 5 innings the day before. Weak hitting Rich Morales was due up, but Chuck Tanner sent up Dick Allen, who'd had the day off. As Ralph Cramden would say, "Bang Zoom" and the game was over.

Cy Acosta made his major league debut in this game (no doubt because of the way the Sox bullpen had been shredded), pitched a scoreless 9th and got the win.

#77 -- Ron Theobald

Ron Theobald

I actually remember Ron Theobald. How, I have no earthly idea. Why I can remember Ron Theobald, but not remember to get the trash out on Thursday mornings is an enigma that provides mild frustration to me and something more than mild frustration to my wife. If there's a forgettable player in this set, it's probably Ron Theobald.

The Brewers picked him up as a minor league throw-in in 1970. He'd been in the minors since 1964. That may not be all that unusual, except that Ron was a college player, so he should have been a little more advanced. Still in 1971 he won the second base job from Ted Kubiak and hit well enough to bat second most of the year. He hit .276, which wasn't bad, although he didn't even have gap power.

In 1972 he fell to earth, hitting just .220, although he drew enough walks that his OBP stayed at its 1971 level of .342. His power numbers still weren't there and his "slugging" percentage was an anemic .256. Ouch. He still got most of the playing time at 2nd base, mostly because he was slick with the glove. He teamed with Rick Auerbach for a keystone combination that combined for 3 HR, 49 RBI and hit .219. Oh. Ron was also 0/7 on stolen base attempts. Needless to say, the Brewers found a new second baseman in 1973 and Ron never saw the big leagues again.

I hate to talk about how somebody looks (well, not really, but I'd hate to offend Ron or his family if they happened to Google this), but in this photo Ron looks like he's about 50. He just doesn't look like a pro baseball player. Ron does show excellent form for executing the sacrifice bunt. I think he was a fundamentally sound ballplayer who wasn't much for hitting. Baseball had a lot more room for guys like Ron in 1972 than it does today.