Random Topps Card of the Day: 1981 Topps Traded #826 Joe Rudi

Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Card of the Day for Tuesday, June 8, 2010:

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 1981 Topps Traded #826.
• Player Name, position, team: Joe Rudi, outfielder, Boston Red Sox.
• Major League Debut: April 11, 1967.
• 191t Line of Statistics: 1980 stats (Angels): 104 G, 372 AB, 42 R, 88 H, 17 2B, 1 3B, 16 HR, 53 RBI, 1 SB, .417 SLG, 17 BB, 84 K, .237 AVG.
• Any special information about player: Signed with the A's as a Free Agent 06/13/1964. Traded by the Angels to the Red Sox 01/23/1981. Bats: right, Throws: right.
• Any special information about this specific card: Rudi's fourteenth regular Topps card (total includes regular and traded cards only). The 1981 Topps Traded set was the first set Topps produced since 1976. The reason? Competition. Donruss and Fleer both won the rights to produce baseball cards, ending Topps' monopoly on the Hobby since 1956 when the Topps Company bought out its rival Bowman. So now Topps needed something to stand out from the newly formed crowd. It did so by producing an end of the year update set that was to be sold only in hobby shops. Enter the 1981 Topps Traded set. Now, believe it or not, the 1981 Topps set, mostly remembered for its use of baseball caps in the design, does use the Topps logo last seen in 1979 (albeit on the back of the card...incidentally, this would be the last time that the old Topps logo would be used). And instead of differentiating the Traded set from the regular set, the cards started numerically after the last card from the 1981 Topps set, so it started with 727 and so forth. As the randomizer originally selected 1981 Topps Traded #110, that really meant #826, which is what we're here to discuss today. Joe Rudi, after many successful years with both the Oakland A's (not Athletics...A's) and California Angels (not the Anaheim Angels, not the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim...California Angels), was sent off to Boston as part of a five player deal that saw Fred Lynn, the first player to become ROY and MVP in the same season, to California. It did appear though, that he was starting to wind his career down as he only played sparingly with the Red Sox in the 1981 season. He returned to the A's after the 1981 season, but injuries caught up with him and by that time, he saw limited action. He was released by the team by the end of the 1983 season. He was a 3-time All Star, a three time Gold Glove winner, and a three-time World Series Champion. Who said good things didn't come in threes?
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $0.40-$1.00.
• How many cards of this player do I own?: 14 cards.

Tomorrow's card will be: 2002 Topps #17. Post will arrive at 1:00 PM CST. We're looking back at a card from 2002 here on the blog tomorrow.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama