1982 jim kern

jim kern was traded from the rangers to the mets in december of 1981. here is his 1982 o-pee-chee card:

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

hold the phone - his o-pee-chee team and text variation shows him to be with the reds, not the mets. what gives? well, kern was traded twice in the offseason. a couple months after the mets acquired him, they sent him to the reds in the george foster deal. that february trade was made in plenty of time for o-pee-chee to get the card right and avoid a 1981 donruss bob owchinko moment.

with the reds, farmer somehow managed a nice 2.84 era in his 50 appearances despite a whip of 1.43 and a strikeout rate of less than 1/ip. that probably has something to do with the relievers who followed him and their inherited runners scored, as kern only finished about half of the game he pitched in. he did have a couple of saves to go with his 3-5 record when he was traded for the third time since the end of the 1981 season. the last trade, made in august of 1982, sent kern back to the american league where he joined the chicago white sox. he had a 2-1 record for them with 3 saves despite his era ballooning to 5.14. strangely, in his 13 games with the southsiders in '82, he lowered his whip to 1.14 and increased his strikeouts per inning rate to almost 2!

i want to point out that the 1982 topps jim kern card was one of the cards that introduced me to card blogging, thanks to a post on gem mint ten way back when.

voici à vous, 1982 jim kern!

1979 jim kern

jim kern is one happy dude.  in a few weeks, i'll feature his 1982 o-pee-chee card which is even better than this one.  for now, though, here is kern's 1979 o-pee-chee card documenting his transition from cleveland to texas.

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

kern was traded to the rangers (with larvell blanks) for len barker and bobby bonds.  he went on to have his best season in 1979 for the rangers, going 13-5 with a 1.57 era and 29 saves.  that means he won or saved over half of the team's 83 wins.  as a result, he finished 4th in the cy young voting and 11th in the al mvp race.  not too shabby.

notice how o-pee-chee mixes up the text - 'trade with indians...' as opposed to 'traded to indians...'.  i guess they thumb their noses at consistency.  i'll categorize it as 'traded' anyway.

voici à vous, 1979 jim kern!