Monster Card Monday: 1985 Willie McGee

Rodney Woodward (who by the way, originally hails from APBA’s old home of Lancaster, PA) suggested St Louis Cardinal Willie McGee’s 1985 card for this column.

In 1985, McGee was an All-Star, a Gold Glove winner, and barely beat out Dave Parker for the NL MVP award.  He didn’t do with his power but rather his gap power, speed and and glove.  McGee led the NL with a .353 batting average as well as triples (18) and hits (216).  His 56 stolen bases came in a distant 3rd place to teammate Rookie of the Year Vince Coleman who stole 110 in ‘85.

McGee may not have stolen 110 bases but he still gets three 11s on his card for the 56 he thieved.  Though McGee has a 55-8, he has a pretty healthy hitting card.  With the assumption that an 11 is equal to a 7 as far as hit value is concerned, his card is roughly equal to one with a 25-7 albeit one with just two 8s.

McGee does have three zeros with a solid second column with no singles.  The more relevant thing with him here though is the number of 2s.  He has 11 which almost works out to equal a single column 2.  Who knows?  Maybe if APBA re-made the card today, it would be a 2-5-6.

Fun numbers: 51-11, 61-9

There’s one thing I don’t like about this card and it’s not McGee’s fault.  It’s APBA’s placement of the 12 at 42.  It’s the probably the best number that APBA has ever put the 12.    Here’s the listing of the placement of the 12 for all past sets.  Now that APBA has settled on the 23-12 which seems to be a neutral number for future sets, that won’t be an issue, I suppose.

I remember that Willie McGee was on our commissioner’s team in the Illowa APBA League.  Mike Bunch had catch phrase for Willie when he was up to bat.  Since he hit so many triples for him, we could hear him yell, “It’s T-time!” before he rolled the dice.

thanks to Rodney for the suggestion!