The 1971 SOM baseball card set will always be near and dear to my heart, as it was the first year my friends and I began playing SOM in the Fall of 1972 and early 1973, prior to SOM's release of the 1972 card set. We were all juniors in high school at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South on the South Side of Chicago and began playing as a result of an argument over who would make the best baseball manager. In addition, the 1971 card set was the first year for the advanced "back" of the card split into lefty righty percentages, the first year for outfielder arms, the first year for pitcher endurance ratings and the first year for injuries. Catcher arms would arrive with the 1972 set and error ratings came with the 1977 set. Ballparks, advanced stealing and other super advanced features were several years down the road. We played annual draft leagues until we all graduated from college, using a serpentine draft, with the draft order determined by pulling "split" cards out of a hat. I don't know that we ever settled the best manager argument, but we sure had fun along the way.
Anyway, when we first started playing, we only had vague notions of dice probability, and one of the managers, Vic, drafted hitters based on the number of hits shown on the card, regardless of whether the hits were on 11 or 12 or 6,7 or 8. Needless to say, Vic's teams weren't very good, but he immortalized journeyman players like Joe Lahoud and Jerry "Doubles" Davanon.
The reason that I bring this up in the Royals player add thread is that Vic really only had 2 good pitchers on his 1971 team, Don Wilson (as The Last Druid has noted, there should be a good Wilson card in the ATG set) and Steve Mingori. In most games, Mingori, who I believe had a 3 inning endurance factor in 1971, entered the game for Vic about the 6th inning and pitched until the end of the game, unless the pitcher became tired, which we called the dot because of the dot on the back of the card that became a single** when the pitcher became tired, aka his "dot is up". Unlike online SOM, there was no limit on the number of consecutive games a reliever could pitch. A relief pitcher entered the game fresh without his dot being up even if he had pitched 30 straight games of 3 innings each. Yes, my friends, my exposure to the hated super reliever option began as a post adolescent 45 years ago with Vic's usage of Mingori! Fortunately, Vic had a bad team and it actually became somewhat amusing when Vic would reach into his pile of player cards when opponent batters got on base in the 6th inning or later, and he would pull out a card and emphatically slap it down on the SOM game box playing field and shout "MINGORI!", even though we all knew it was coming. Now here I am, 45 years later, playing a kid's game as an adult, with other post adolescents, but now the names have been changed from "MINGORI!" to "SUTTER!" and "MURRAY!"
In our future dice rolling, face to face seasons, 1971 Mingori was the standard against which all relief pitchers were measured.
I've been reading this thread, and have read that the Royals need another reliever besides Quis, but I don't recall seeing the 1971 Mingori being nominated. I think everyone here is missing the boat.
Although I'll probably regret this, and as a fond memory of my early dice rolling days, I suggest that the 1971
Steve Mingori card be added to the ATG card set. Here are his numbers:
1971
Steve Mingori LRP, Royals 1-2 1.42 0.971 WHIP
Unfortunately, there is no 1971 Mingori card in the '70s mystery card game, but, trust me, it was GOOD!
Other Royals who did well from my dice rolling days include:
1971
Paul Splittorf, LSP, Royals 8-9 2.68 1.136 WHIP. Good usable card as 5 day SP.
1971
Cookie Rojas, 2B, Royals .300 6 59 .357 .406 .763. 2b 2
http://365.strat-o-matic.com/player/740310/1670/1/701971
Alan Gallagher, 3B, Royals .277 5 57 .340 .378 .717. Despite rather pedestrian numbers, Gallagher had a good card with lots of on base chances. 3b 3.
1972
John Mayberry, 1B, Royals .298 25 100 .394 .507 .900. Although his numbers aren't as good as those on which the underwhelming 1975 card is based, the 1972 card was the better card, probably because 1972 was the year of the pitcher.
1972
Richie Scheinblum, RF, Royals .300 8 66 .383 .418 .800 Switch hitter. 5th in AL in OBP, 6th in BA. Great card vs. RHPs! RF 4(0)
Thanks for reading! - Bernie
Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:13 pm