My Three Favorite Baseball Cards and Thoughts on the Hall of Fame Case of Thurman Munson

As a lifelong baseball enthusiast, I can point to three aspects of the sport which served as my foundation as a fan: watching games, studying statistics, and collecting baseball cards.  The majority of the articles I have written focus on overlooked Hall of Fame candidates.  However, this past year, I dug back into my baseball card collection.  As a result, my recent writing has been less analytical and more baseball card-centric.  With this in mind, I have been taking a look at some of the candidates who recently appeared on the Era Committee Hall of Fame ballots, picking out my three favorite cards of the player, and giving my thoughts on their Hall of Fame case.  This article focuses on catcher Thurman Munson, who recently appeared on the Modern Baseball Era ballot.

August 2, 2019 marked the fortieth anniversary of the tragic death of New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson in a small plane crash.  During his career, Munson was known as one of the grittiest and most determined players in the game.  Munson was selected in the first round of the June 1968 Amateur Draft by the Yankees with the fourth overall pick and almost immediately paid dividends for his new team, winning the AL Rookie of the Year in 1970.  Three years later, Munson won his first of three consecutive Gold Glove Awards.  Early in the 1976 season, the Yankees named Munson captain of the team—the first player bestowed the honor since Lou Gehrig.  That season Munson was named AL MVP and helped lead the Bronx Bombers to their first Pennant since 1964.  Although, New York was swept by the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series, Munson did his part—wrapping nine hits and batting .529.  Munson and the Yankees returned to the Fall Classic in both 1977 and 1978, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games each time to win back-to-back World Championships.  Munson proved himself to be an excellent postseason hitter during New York’s three-Pennant run, batting .339 in the ALCS and .373 in the World Series.  Unlike most catchers, Munson had the ability to consistently hit for average—reaching the .300 mark in five different seasons.  Munson was also one of the most durable backstops of his day, finishing in the AL top-five in games caught each year from 1970 to 1977 and leading the league in three of those seasons.  In addition, Munson was a seven-time All-Star and accumulated 46 WAR—an impressive total considering the brevity of his career.

Munson's 1971 Topps featured a great action shot of the catcher

After sharing his 1970 Topps rookie card with teammate Dave McDonald, Munson’s 1971 issue was the first Topps card he appeared on solo.  Although Munson is almost unrecognizable without his trademark mustache, this card has always been among of my favorites of the backstop.  The image of the Munson trying to put the tag on face-first sliding Oakland Athletics pitcher Chuck Dobson is one of the greatest action shots of a catcher captured on a baseball card.  Another thing that drew me to Munson’s 1971 Topps is the card’s unintentional color coordination: the card’s black border and white outline complement Munson’s chest protector and jersey while the catcher’s All-Star Rookie trophy and the card’s green and gold writing closely match the brilliant hues of Dobson’s flashy A’s jersey.  The colors of the two teams’ uniforms stand in stark contrast to each other as the classic Pinstripe look of the Yankees is essentially the polar opposite to Oakland’s radiant green and gold.  The shot of Dobson crashing headfirst into home plate foreshadows some major changes that were about to alter the look of the game during the 1970s as more and more teams adopted the brighter jersey colors the A’s had brought into the sport a few years earlier.  The A’s were also about to change the look of baseball players by embracing facial hair during the team’s 1972 World Championship season.  While the Yankees chose not to follow the decade’s trend toward flashier jerseys, the buttoned-down franchise did allow their players to grow mustaches and by 1973 Munson was sporting the whiskers and sideburns that would be synonymous with the catcher for the remainder of his career.

The presence of the gold Topps All-Star Rookie trophy stands as a reminder of Munson’s excellent rookie season in which the backstop hit .302 and helped the Yankees to a 93-69 record which earned the club a second place finish in the AL East.  For his impressive campaign, Munson not only took home AL Rookie of the Year honors but also came one vote away from being the unanimous selection for the award.

Munson won his first of three straight Gold Glove Awards in 1973

Munson’s 1973 Topps shows the Yankees backstop crouched down in full catcher’s gear.  On the bottom right corner of their 1973 cards, Topps featured a silhouette icon representing the player’s position.  For catchers, the silhouette is in a squatted pose similar to the card’s shot of Munson.  Throughout Munson’s career, Topps was the card manufacturing giant as they essentially had a monopoly over the industry until a legal victory allowed Donruss and Fleer to produce full sets in 1981.  Thus, pretty much all the cards I associate with Munson are Topps.  Of Munson’s Topps cards, his 1973 issue features the backstop in the most natural catcher pose.  Like Munson’s 1971 Topps, the harmonious color coordination on his 1973 Topps make this card stand out.  Munson’s hat, sleeves, and shin guards along with the black silhouette fit the shadowy backdrop of the dugout.  The dark surroundings also make the whites of Munson’s home jersey and its pinstripes more pronounced.  Topps used a deep purple for Munson’s name which was a good match for the black and dark navy in the photo.  Topps used a different color for the circle behind each position silhouette.  The orange color Topps chose to put behind the catcher silhouettes may be an eyesore on some of their cards but with the presence of Munson’s brown and orange catching gear along with the surrounding dirt, the orange circle looks fitting.

By the time Topps released their 1973 set, the young backstop had already proved himself to be one of the best catchers at managing the running game—ranking in the AL top-five at throwing out would-be base stealers in each of his first three full seasons, including a league-leading otherworldly 61% in 1971.  Munson stood atop the AL leaderboard again in 1975 with a 50% caught stealing rate.  For his career, Munson threw base stealers out an impressive 44% clip, a healthy margin above the 38% league average.  Munson finished among the AL top-five in caught stealing percentage seven times and had only one season in which he finished below the league average.  The BBWAA electorate recognized Munson’s defensive value, awarding the catcher three straight Gold Glove Awards from 1973 to 1975.

Yankee captain Munson standing tall on his 1978 Topps

I’ve always felt the 1978 Topps set best captured the Bronx Zoo-era Yankees who won back-to-back World Championships.  For several teams, Topps did a poor job of selecting colors to use for the square outline that surrounded the player’s photo.  However, for the Yankees, the purplish blue outline and clean white border match the pinstripes of the Bombers jerseys.  Similar to his 1973 Topps, the brownish orange color used for the team name complements Munson’s chest protector, knee guards, catcher’s glove, and mask.  The cursive writing of Yankees also gives the card a more regal air than designs used by Topps in surrounding years.  The image of the card fittingly captures Munson standing tall, decked out in his catching gear, looking very much like the captain of the team.  With his long hair, sideburns, and mustache, Munson personified the look of the Bronx Zoo-era Yankees—whose scruffiness was a stark contrast from the franchise’s clean-shaven dynasties of the past.

Fresh off New York’s World Series victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers the previous fall, by 1978, Munson had established himself as one of the most recognizable players in the game.  Munson’s status as an MVP and Gold Glove Award winner along with being captain of baseball’s most celebrated franchise all added to the catcher’s notoriety.  Munson’s MVP campaign came in the middle of a three-season stretch in which the slugging backstop achieved two of the era’s most celebrated milestones by driving in 100 or more runs while posting a .300-plus batting average.  Along with his excellent play on both sides of the diamond, Munson’s well-documented rivalries with Boston Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk and teammate Reggie Jackson gave his career extra mystique.

Munson immortalized alongside five other franchise icons

However, more than any of his baseball cards, the image I most associate with Munson came from a poster which featured the backstop alongside five Yankee legends—Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris.  Although Munson passed away a few years before I became a fan of the game and started collecting baseball cards, as I became more familiar with the history of the sport, I learned about the former Yankee captain and the impact he had on the game.  I remembering seeing the poster in a shopping mall as child during the late 1980s and being immediately awestruck by the image of Munson alongside the other Yankee greats and immediately knew I needed to purchase it.  I always viewed the painting as the late Munson being immortalized among the other franchise icons.  I felt the six Bronx Bomber legends each symbolized a different decade of success for the franchise with Ruth representing the 1920s, Gehrig the 1930s, DiMaggio the 1940s, Mantle the 1950s, Maris the 1960s, and Munson the 1970s.  This was fitting to me as I also had a poster of Don Mattingly, who I felt was the Yankee great who best represented the 1980s.  Years later I found out the image on the poster had originally been used for the cover of the Yankees 1985 yearbook.

Due to the Hall of Fame waiving its standard five-year waiting period, Munson appeared on the 1981 BBWAA ballot.  Despite his impressive career accomplishments, Munson drew just 15.5% of the vote. On the following ballot, Munson’s support plummeted to 6.3% and though he stayed on the BBWAA ballot for the entire fifteen eligible years, he never broke 10% again.  The brevity of Munson’s career, which essentially spanned only a decade, likely cost the catcher support as it left him well shy of the major or even secondary career milestones often associated with most Hall of Fame players.  Also, Munson’s prickly personality did the former Yankees captain no favors with the writers who make up the BBWAA electorate.  Although he was lauded for his leadership capabilities, Munson was also known for his gruffness and abrasiveness—particularly towards the press.

As a candidate who lasted the maximum number of eligible years on the BBWAA ballot, along with his status of being a key player on a back-to-back World Championship team, a former MVP winner, and captain of the unforgettable Bronx Zoo-era Yankees, Thurman Munson seemed like an obvious choice to be selected to appear on the Era Committee ballot.  However, Munson’s name was not among the candidates on either the 2011 or 2014 Expansion Era ballots or the 2018 Modern Baseball Era ballot.  Perhaps Munson’s exclusion from the Era Committee ballots was due in part to his receiving little to no support on the Veterans Committee ballots.  Indeed, Munson appeared on three-straight Veterans Committee ballots between 2003 and 2007 and failed to draw even 10% of the vote in those elections.  Last fall, Munson’s Hall of Fame case finally got another look when he was one of ten candidates included on the 2020 Modern Baseball Era ballot.  After being passed over on each of the three previous Era Committee ballots, Munson’s inclusion on the most recent Modern Baseball Era ballot can possibly be traced back to August 2019, marking the fortieth anniversary of the catcher’s tragic passing which brought renewed attention to his career achievements and Hall of Fame case.  Munson shared the ballot with fellow newcomers Dwight Evans and Lou Whitaker along with holdovers Ted Simmons, Dave Parker, Don Mattingly, Steve Garvey, Dale Murphy, Tommy John, and Marvin Miller.  Both Simmons and Miller were voted in on the ensuing election—picking up 81.3% and 75% of the vote, respectively.  Evans drew the next highest vote total with 50%, followed by Parker’s 43.8%, along with Garvey and Whitaker at 37.5%.  Despite his inclusion on the Modern Baseball Era ballot generating a fair amount of attention and fanfare, Munson drew one of the lowest vote totals, with his and the three remaining candidates support being ambiguously described as having received “three-or-fewer votes.”

Munson’s career was tragically cut short, leaving the former Yankees captain well shy of the milestones associated with the Hall of Fame.  Nevertheless, I feel Munson’s career was worthy of a bronze plaque in Cooperstown.  Detractors of Munson’s Hall of Fame case often say he was nearly finished as player in 1979 and point to his declining power along with the wear and tear of his knee injuries as evidence.  While it is true Munson appeared to lose much of his home run power in his final two seasons, he still possessed the ability to hit for average.  At the time of his death, Munson was batting .288 in what had been a streaky season for the catcher up until that point.  Indeed, after a slow start to the 1979 campaign, Munson raised his batting average up to as high as .331 on May 27, it hovered around .300 for much of June and July, before a 2-for-27 slump dropped him to .288.  Moreover, Munson had hit better in the second half of 1978 so there is no evidence that his ability to hit for average was declining.  Although, it is likely that Munson’s chronically injured knees were going to force him to reduce his workload at catcher and possibly necessitate his eventual move to first base, the outfield, or even designated hitter.  Be that as it may, Munson gained his gritty reputation by playing through pain and injuries.  In fact, Munson never made a single trip to the disabled list during his career.  Furthermore, despite being bothered by knee injuries during his final season, Munson still managed to start 88 of New York’s first 101 games.  For the last four games of his career, Munson started at first base on three occasions and designated hitter once.  Yet, it was not completely out of the ordinary for Munson to occasionally play positions other than catcher.  For example, during the 1978 season, Munson was moved to right field for 13 games just after the All-Star break at the insistence of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to give the veteran backstop’s aching knees a rest before being moved back behind the plate for the remainder of the year.  It is possible that Munson was going to be taking an extended break from catching or at the very least lightening his load for the remainder of the 1979 season.  However, it is hard to imagine the resolute Munson giving up catching entirely or completely walking away from the game.  Thus, I do not agree with the conclusion that Munson was nearly finished as player in 1979.

Even though I feel that Munson deserves to be elected to the Hall of Fame, the combination of only being allowed to vote for four of the ten candidates on the 2020 Modern Baseball Era ballot along with the presence of several deserving candidates would have forced me to leave the catcher off of my mock ballot.  As a passionate supporter of Dwight Evans’ and Lou Whitaker’s overlooked Hall of Fame cases who has waited years to see the two sluggers finally get a second chance at Cooperstown immortality after falling off of the BBWAA ballot, half of the votes for my mock ballot were immediately spoken for.  My remaining pair of votes would have been prioritized for Ted Simmons and Marvin Miller, the two candidates who ended up being elected on the 2020 ballot.  While I felt Munson had a comparable Hall of Fame case to both Simmons and Miller, my primary reason for choosing Simmons and Miller over Munson was because I felt they stood the best chance at actually being elected.  As the top returning holdovers from the 2018 ballot, Simmons and Miller carried a fair amount of momentum going into the 2020 vote.  Simmons in particular appeared poised to be voted in as he had missed gaining entry into Cooperstown by a single tally on the 2018 ballot.  Like Simmons, Miller also had come excruciatingly close to being voted into the Hall of Fame on a prior ballot, having fallen one checkmark shy on the 2011 Expansion Era ballot.  The presence of Simmons on the ballot likely cost Munson support as having two catchers as part of the same ten candidate slate may have forced some members of the electorate to choose between using one of their four votes on one backstop while omitting the other.

The Modern Baseball Era Committee will hold its next election in fall 2022.  However, after drawing such little support on the 2020 vote, Munson’s inclusion on future ballots is not a given.  Unlike the BBWAA voting process, the Hall of Fame discourages the Era Committee electorate from publicly discussing their ballot.  Thus, we have no way of knowing how many Era Committee voters had a similar viewpoint as myself and supported Munson’s Hall of Fame case but ran out of space to include the catcher on their ballot.  Nevertheless, the elections of Simmons and Miller will at the very least free up support for the 2020 ballot’s holdover candidates on future votes.  Moreover, with the induction of Simmons, the focus may then turn to who should be the next catcher elected to the Hall of Fame.  Modern Baseball Era Committee voters should look no further than Thurman Munson.

----by John Tuberty

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Sources:  Baseball Reference, Baseball Reference Play Index, Thurman Munson’s SABR bio, Baseball Hall of Fame, Marty Appel-Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group), PSA card, New York Times (Dave Anderson 1979 article), New York Times (Murray Chass 1978 article), New York Times (Murray Chass 1978 article), Cooperstown Cred, Fangraphs

Other articles by Tubbs Baseball Blog:

My Three Favorite Baseball Cards and Thoughts on the Hall of Fame Case of Mainstay Era Committee Ballot Candidate Tommy John

How Dwight Evans Overcame a Mid-Career Crisis to Evolve into a Hall of Fame-Caliber Player

My Favorite Baseball Cards of Jimmy Key During His Nine Seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays