1981 frank tanana

shortly before spring training began in 1981, the angels sent frank tanana to the red sox, despite what the text on the front of his 1981 o-pee-chee card says. here's the card:

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

white sox.  not quite.  this is the first of two text variation errors i am aware of, and i am fairly sure the error went uncorrected.  anyway, i wrote about tanana a while back on my other blog. he was socal personified, and he had put together a pretty good run in the mid to late 70's as one of the best pitchers in the game, but gene autry and company couldn't pass up the opportunity to acquire fred lynn from the red sox, and so tanana, along with joe rudi, headed east. as it turns out, tanana's lone season in boston was a disappointment, to say the least. injuries forced him to miss most of june and all of july and he won only 4 games (2 of which were shutouts) all season against 10 losses. the record is a bit misleading, as he actually lowered his era to 4.01 from the 4.15 he posted with the angels in 1980 when he won 11 games. still, boston allowed tanana to become a free agent after the season ended, and he would head back to the american league west, this time with the rangers.

voici à vous, 1981 frank tanana!