Card #26: Greg Brock
1987 (w/Brewers): .299, 13 HRs, 85 RBIs, .371 OBP, .438 SLG
You know what they say: Don’t be the guy replacing the guy. Brock had the unenviable ask of replacing Dodgers legend, and borderline Hall of Famer Steve Garvey, after Garvey signed with the Padres following the 1982 season. After four seasons in which Brock displayed pretty good power (71 homers) but hit just .234 with an OPS nine percent above that of a replacement-level player, he was dealt to the Brewers for pitchers Tim Crews and Tim Leary in December 1986.
Finally emerged from Garvey’s shadow, Brock had the best year of his career in 1987, when he set full-season career highs for batting average, RBIs, on-base percentage and OPS while manning first base for a team that traveled more highs and lows than any team I can ever remember watching. And give the guy credit: After going 4-for-5 in the penultimate game of the season to lift his average to .301, Brock could have sat out the season finale and preserved a .301 batting average, but he played and went 0-for-3 to fall under the magic number.
Brock declined from there and batted just .244 over the next three-plus seasons before retiring following the 1991 season. But he will always have his solid 1987 season, as well as one of the best back-of-card blurbs of all-time: “Greg once earned himself the free use of a car for a year by recording a hole-in-one in golf match.” Brock is now a championship-winning high school baseball coach in Colorado, and, one can presume, still pretty good on the links.
Card #27: Joe Cowley
1987 (w/Phillies): 0-4, 15.43 ERA in five games (four starts), 5 Ks, 3.26 WHIP
What if you could reach the pinnacle of your profession, only to immediately fall all the way to the bottom of it? That’s what happened to Cowley, whose final five big league games turned him into the bridge between Steve Blass and Rick Ankiel as the symbol of a pitcher who completely and helplessly loses the skills that made him great.
Cowley’s final win as a big leaguer was a no-hitter on Sept. 19, 1986. In retrospect, his gem — in which he walked seven and struck out eight in an 8-1 victory over the California Angels — might have portended the issues that would envelope Cowley the next year. Cowley was a league-average pitcher despite scattershot control in his first four seasons, during which he posted a 3.91 ERA while issuing 215 walks and recording 327 strikeouts.
But he lost it completely in 1987, when Cowley gave up a whopping 38 baserunners (including 17 walks) in just 11 2/3 innings before being demoted to Triple-A Maine, where he continued to struggle and bottomed out by walking 11 batters in 2 2/3 innings against Tidewater. Eventually, the Phillies and Cowley agreed a return to his Kentucky home would be best for all parties. He never pitched again.
Cowley, whose reputation as an easy-going free spirit made his struggles all the more stunning, spoke at length about his descent in this New York Times story, which hints that perhaps his issues stemmed from his desire to make the Phillies look good for acquiring him from the White Sox late in spring training. Regardless of what happened, Cowley’s downfall served as a reminder of how thin the line is between success and failure in the major leagues, and the helplessness that can accompany an inexplicable loss of skills.
Card #28: Rick Dempsey
1987 (w/Indians): .177, 1 HR, 9 RBIs, .295 OBP, .270 SLG
The fun thing about this project is re-learning things I’d somehow forgotten over the last 30 years. Like Dempsey playing for the Indians in 1987, or actually becoming a four-decade player despite collecting just 77 at-bats in his first five major league seasons and batting .207 over his final six seasons, a stretch that began in 1987. That’s impressive. (There’s another four-decade catcher coming up in this set, by the way)
Dempsey was the Pat Borders of his time, a journeyman catcher with an unlikely World Series MVP trophy hanging on his mantle. Unlike Borders, Dempsey won another ring (he was the backup for the 1988 Dodgers). Dempsey spent more than a decade as a minor league manager and major league coach before moving into his current position as a popular studio analyst on Orioles games.
Card #29: Jimmy Key
1987: 17-8, 2.76 ERA in 36 starts, 161 Ks, 1.06 WHIP
Another thing I learned revisiting this set: Key’s 1987 season is an all-time under-appreciated gem. First of all, anyone who won an ERA title in 1987 was doing something right, but Key’s American League-leading 2.76 mark was a whopping 64 percent better than the league average. And it wasn’t a fluke: He also led the league in WHIP while averaging 7.25 innings per start. Key finished second in the Cy Young Award balloting and probably would have won it if not for Roger Clemens’ second-half surge lifting him to the magical 20-win mark.
This season proved to be Key’s peak as the diminutive crafty lefty battled some injuries over the next decade, but he was very good when he made it to the mound. He had an ERA+ of 119 or better in four of his final five 200-inning seasons. Key was also one of those quote unquote clutch postseason pitchers: He posted a 3.15 ERA in 10 series and earned the World Series-clinching win while serving in two different roles for two different teams. He won Game 6 as a reliever for the Blue Jays in 1992 and won Game 6 as a starter for the Yankees in 1996, when the Bronx Bombers notched their first title in 18 years behind a whole bunch of 1987 Topps alums. In retirement, Key has become a terrific golfer.
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