Last week, I wrote about the 1965 Willie Mays card. In reference to Mays’ 52 homers, I said:
I remember when George Foster tied his mark of 52 dingers in 1977. To me, that was uncharted territory.
Well, Mel M comes to the rescue. He helped me out with George Foster’s card from 1977. Foster was the only MLB hitter to break the 50 homer barrier in the 1970s. In fact, no one would hit as much until Cecil Fielder hit 51 in 1990.
How dominant was Foster in 1977? His 52 homers were eleven more than runner up Jeff Burroughs’ 41 that year.
Hitting .320 for the second-place Reds, Foster also led the NL in rbis (149), runs scored (124) and slugging (.631). He earned the 1977 NL MVP over Phils’ slugger Greg Luzinski and Pirates’ batting champ Dave Parker.
| Split | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 Totals | 158 | 689 | 615 | 124 | 197 | 31 | 2 | 52 | 149 | 6 | 61 | 107 | .320 | .382 | .631 |
If you ignore the two 24s, this card was built for runners on base. Not only does he have a very powerful card (especially for his time) with extra base hit numbers 1-1-5-6 but his .320 average contributes to some nice hit numbers too. Foster has a 55-7 plus a 15-10 too.
Foster’s 1977 had a whopping four 13s on his card in 1977. I’m sure APBA baseball purists at the time were aghast at that. Still, with 107 Ks that’s manageable. It helps that came to the plate 689 times in the season. On the same token, he only received three 14s for his 61 free passes.
Note: in the 1977 set, APBA cardmakers put the 12 at 52 necessitating the 23-27.
thanks, Mel!!
Foster’s and Cecil Fielder’s home run feats were more impressive (in retrospect) than McGwire, Sosa and Bonds’ combined!
I remember it very well—his performance was a huge deal. The pressure on him to reach the 50 homer mark must have been huge. Only three years after Aaron gets hate mail for breaking Ruth’s all time record, another black man approaches Maris’ number? Could not have been easy.
Hey Kurt,
I hadn’t thought of Foster’s feat in that way. Very thoughtful perspective!
Tom
Love that card. I had him on my 40 game 1977 replay team.
.309 14 HR, 35 RBI 11 doubles.
I was impressed by the 52 homers at the time, but a couple years later, I was amazed by the 149 rbi. I had not realized that few players had been able to get to the magic 150 number in 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.