1981 bob shirley

bob shirley was traded by the padres to the cardinals along with rollie fingers and gene tenace in december of 1980. here's his 1981 o-pee-chee card:

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

i can only imagine that the cardinals' gm, upon hearing his padres' counterpart pitch the deal, exclaimed 'surely, you must be joking', with the cardinals gm replying 'not just shirley, but fingers and tenace, too'. hey, it could have happened.

a fun fact that i did not know about shirley is that he was originally drafted by the dodgers in 1972 but did not sign. he could have joined bill russell and tommy john to create a 'two first name' trifecta on the team. ok, enough of that.

shirley split his time with the cards in 1981 between the starting rotation and the bullpen, appearing in 28 games. he was 6-4 with a 4.08 era in 79.1 innings and was traded to the reds just before the start of the 1982 season.

voici à vous, 1981 bob shirley!