Monster Card Monday: 1981 Mickey Klutts

I’m going back to Monster Cards of the Relatively Unknown this week.  It’s Gene Ellis “Mickey” Klutts of the 1981 Oakland As. 

Klutts had a banner year in ‘81… for 48 plate appearances.  In that time, he cranked out five homeruns and hit .370.  As you can see, he started 12 of his 15 games.  He didn’t come up till August of that year and apparently never looked back. 

With his three 1s, Klutts is sure to be a favorite to come off the bench as a pinch hitter.  He’s got some singles out there too.  His hit numbers are 1-1-1-7-7-7-7-7-8-8-8-8-9-9.  That’s four 8s which puts his last 9 at 62. 

As is common with APBA cards with few 14s (Klutts has two), APBA chose to put one at 36.  The other is at the requisite 45. 

And Klutts may be a slow base runner but he’s no klutts at third base. He’s rated as a 3B-4.  He does have his share of 13s but the good news is that one of them is at 41. 

Power-wise, Klutts didn’t make much of his 8-year career with just 14 homers.  But he might have had some good (albeit limited) APBA cards.  In addition to 1981, he hit one homer in 18 PA for the Yanks in 1977.  Also, he closed out his career in 1983 by hitting three homers in 45 PA for Toronto.  Not bad for an infielder with a career .371 slugging percentage.