1971 hoyt wilhelm

hall of famer hoyt wilhelm pitched for 9 different teams in his career, which included 2 stops with the braves. in september of 1969, the angels sent him to atlanta for mickey rivers. a year later, the cubs selected wilhelm off of waivers and he played out the 1970 season in chicago. after the season was finished, however, the braves sent hal breeden to the cubs to bring wilhelm back to the south. this, then, is hoyt wilhelm's 1971 o-pee-chee card.

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

although you can't really tell from the front, the o-pee-chee card is badly miscut (or more likely the back is poorly mis-aligned). as a result, that's dodger bill sudakis making an appearance on the back of wilhelm's card, which is somewhat prescient as wilhelm joined the dodgers during the 1971 season. wilhelm appeared in only 3 games for the braves before being released and picked up by the dodgers. he fared much better in la, turning in a 1.02 era in 9 games with 3 saves.

a well known knuckleballer, wilhelm wore the number 49 only during his years with the giants in the early 1950s. i had always thought that knuckleballers of today (hough, candiotti, wakefield, etc) wore 49 to honor wilhelm, but he wore a lot of different numbers, including 39 with the cubs and braves. in la, he would switch to 31 since 39 was campy's number.

voici à vous, 1971 hoyt wilhelm!