sportscaster goodness - bill buckner gets back to first

who would you choose to grace the front of the 1977-79 sportscaster card?  lou brock?  he would have been a good choice, although by the late 1970's he was no longer the yearly league leader in steals.  omar moreno, then?  ok - or how about davey lopes?  that's who i expected to see thanks to the checklist over at teamsets4u.  imagine my surprise when i picked up the card and saw none other than...bill buckner?

yes, that's billy buck diving back to first base under the glove of willie stargell in chavez ravine.  buckner and lopes had similar mustaches, but davey wore 15, not 22.  the back is all about the strategy and notes that keeping the runner close at first (as shown in the photo) helps prevent steals.  not necessarily double steals, however.

anyway, it turns out that buckner really wasn't that bad of a subject for this card.  he actually did steal bases back when he had good knees and ankles.  he had 31 in 1974 and 28 in 1976 when this photo was taken (i am pretty sure that is the 100th anniversary patch on his sleeve).  just for fun i took a look at buckner's game logs from 1976.  he stole 3 bases against the pirates at dodger stadium that year.  each time he stole second but was the only baserunner.  he was also caught stealing once, but again was the only runner on base at the time of the attempt.  no double steals.

still, it's a cool card - made even better thanks to the unexpected appearance of billy buck.