317 Keith Hernandez Baseball Cards

My box of 317 Keith Hernandez baseball cards. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

I’ve always liked Keith Hernandez. He was one of those players I knew about pretty early on in my childhood baseball fandom, which started right around 1986 and 1987, probably the peak of Hernandez’s fame. I knew Keith Hernandez played first base for the Mets and had an awesome mustache. I knew that his nickname was “Mex,” even though he wasn’t actually Mexican. (The 1980’s were a different time...) I knew the Cardinals had made a disastrous move by trading him to the Mets in 1983 for Neil Allen. (And Rick Ownbey, but as a kid it stuck in my mind as Hernandez for Allen.) And from the backs of his baseball cards, I knew that Keith Hernandez was a Civil War buff. I theorized from all of this that Keith Hernandez must be a pretty cool guy. (And this was before I knew that Keith smoked cigarettes in the dugout and did crossword puzzles.) I read Hernandez’s book If At First, a diary of the Mets’ 1985 season, when I was a kid, although I don’t know if I made it through all 400+ pages of it. And a good amount of it just went over my head, of course. As an adult, I read Hernandez’s entertaining book Pure Baseball, in which he examines two baseball games pitch by pitch. I remember finding the book in a used bookstore and thinking to myself, “Wow, going through a game pitch by pitch? That’s for like a hardcore baseball fan. Oh wait, that’s me.” And I always enjoy reading random articles about Keith and his cat, or whatever random things he’s been talking about on Mets broadcasts. 

Recently I had a dream that Keith Hernandez figured in somehow. I don’t remember exactly what it was, maybe I saw one of his baseball cards? Who knows, my subconscious focuses on odd things sometimes. After that I decided, “You know what? I need to get all of Keith Hernandez’s baseball cards.” I found an inexpensive lot on eBay. Fittingly enough, it was for 317 Keith Hernandez cards—Keith wore number 17 for the Mets. (The Mets retired his number in 2022.)  

The lot featured a nice variety of Hernandez’s cards from 1980-1991. Nothing super rare, but a few special cards beyond just the base issues from the major manufacturers.  

Keith Hernandez's iconic 1979 Topps card. 

The lot unfortunately didn’t include Hernandez’s iconic 1979 Topps card. This is a card that I’ve had since childhood, and it’s just so cool. Keith is looking off-camera, smiling and handsome, his iconic mustache now at it’s full glory. (Vern Rapp had forbidden facial hair during his stint as Cardinals’ manager, so Keith was clean-shaven on his 1978 Topps card.) As a kid, I remember finding it odd that the “STL” logo on Keith’s batting helmet was peeling off. (Same with the helmet on Lou Brock’s 1979 Topps card.)  

Hernandez’s 1980 and 1981 Topps cards are pretty cool as well. I can’t believe that Topps gave Keith card number 321 for the 1980 set, instead of a “star” number ending in 5 or 0. Hernandez had “star” numbers in the 1977 and 1979 sets, so I guess they were on an every other year pattern with Keith. But he led the majors in batting average in 1979, hitting .344! He was the co-MVP with Willie Stargell in 1979, of course he should get a star number card the next year!  

In 1987, Fleer still didn't realize that Keith didn't live in Saint Louis.

It’s funny to see that Fleer still thought that Keith lived in St. Louis in 1987. Obviously, no one at Fleer had read If At First, where Keith describes his East Side condo.  

These cards stuck in my memory. Athletes can be intelligent too!

Keith’s 1985 Topps card and his 1988 Topps Big card both reference his interest in the Civil War. As a kid who was also interested in the Civil War, I thought this was pretty cool, and proof that Keith must be a smart guy.  

Keith's 1991 Score and Fleer cards. It's so weird to see him with the Indians.

This lot of 317 cards also featured a few cards of Hernandez with the Cleveland Indians. It’s just weird to see Keith in a uniform that isn’t the Cardinals or Mets. Hernandez only played 43 games for the Indians in 1990 before injuries forced him to retire. This lot of Keith Hernandez cards brought back fond memories of one of the coolest baseball players of the 1970’s and 1980’s.  

1977 Topps Ted Simmons #470

1977 Topps Ted Simmons #470. I think this is such a cool photo.

The back of Ted Simmons' 1977 Topps card.

With the election of Ted Simmons to the Baseball Hall of Fame this week, I thought I should take a look at my favorite baseball card of his: 1977 Topps #470. I’ve always liked Ted Simmons, partially because he played for my second favorite baseball team: the St. Louis Cardinals. I think his election to the Hall of Fame is long overdue. 

Simmons was overshadowed by Johnny Bench during the beginning of his career, and then by Gary Carter during the latter part of his career. There’s certainly no shame in being upstaged by the two best catchers in baseball history, according to WAR. 

Simmons’ 1977 Topps card is a really cool photo. It shows Simmons in profile, head down, catcher’s mask and hat in one hand, glove on the other. Is Simmons listening to the national anthem before the game starts? Or did the camera just catch him in a moment of contemplation between innings? The photo also shows the National League Centennial patch that all the NL teams wore during the 1976 season, and the pillbox hats that some of the NL teams wore that season. This photo also gives you a good look at Ted Simmons’ awesome hair. Earlier in the 1970’s Simmons had been wearing his hair much longer, leading to his nickname of “Simba,” as it resembled a lion’s mane. 

Simmons was a great hitter during his years with the St. Louis Cardinals, 1968-1980, putting up an OPS+ of 127, and a slash line of .298/.366/.459. Simmons became an everyday player in 1971, and from 1971-1980 he caught an average of 135 games a year. Simmons’ career in St. Louis came to an end when Whitey Herzog took over as manager and general manager in 1980. Herzog loved the catcher he had managed in Kansas City, the bespectacled Darrell Porter, and Herzog just didn’t like Ted Simmons—specifically, his defense. After signing Porter as a free agent after the 1980 season, Herzog wanted to move Simmons to first base, and then move Keith Hernandez to left field. Obviously, Herzog didn’t understand that he had maybe the best-fielding first baseman of all-time on his team. (In a terrible move in June of 1983, the Cardinals traded Hernandez to the Mets for Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey.) Simmons asked to be traded, and so the Cardinals sent Simmons, Rollie Fingers, (who was only a Cardinal for four days) and Pete Vuckovich to the Brewers for David Green, Dave LaPoint, Sixto Lezcano, and Lary Sorensen. The Cardinals had traded two future Hall of Famers, and the 1981 and 1982 AL Cy Young Award winners. Oops. But Lezcano was one of the players the Cardinals sent to the Padres for Ozzie Smith, so it all worked out. The Cardinals and the Brewers ended up facing off in the 1982 World Series. The Cardinals triumphed in 7 games. Fingers was injured and didn’t pitch in the postseason. Simmons slugged two home runs for the Brewers. Darrell Porter was the World Series MVP. 

In addition to being a great catcher, Ted Simmons also seems like a very cool guy. For a baseball player, Simmons was a bit of an iconoclast. In addition to his long hair, Simmons was also a vocal opponent of Richard Nixon’s administration. Simmons might have become baseball’s first free agent, as he started to play the 1972 season without signing his contract. Simmons eventually signed his contract in late July of 1972, thus making the point moot. Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally did the same thing in 1975, pitching for the entire season without contracts, and an arbitrator ruled that they were free agents, thus ending baseball’s reserve clause. Simmons was a collector of antiques and a trustee of the St. Louis Art Museum. In an article from Sports Illustrated from 1978, Simmons is quoted as “authoritatively discussing the evolution of the fireplace in American households.” The whole article is worth reading, as it gives you a glimpse of a very intelligent man. 

As a young man, Simmons had sleepy eyes and long, dark hair, so I think the obvious choice to play him in a 1970’s made-for-TV movie would have been Tony Danza. Okay, so Simmons isn’t Italian, but it would have worked. “The Ted Simmons Story: From Simba to Museum Trustee,” airing next week on NBC.

1987 Fleer Cliff Johnson #231

1987 Fleer Cliff Johnson, card number 231. He looks like a friendly walrus, doesn't he?

Back of Cliff Johnson's 1987 Fleer card.

Bill James wrote of Cliff Johnson in the 2001 edition of his Historical Baseball Abstract that if someone would have made Johnson a DH/first baseman from the very beginning of his career, he would have hit 500 home runs. That might be stretching it, but James’ estimation says something about Johnson’s prodigious power. 

The first Cliff Johnson baseball card I remember getting was his 1975 Topps card. Unbeknownst to me, it was his rookie card. I found it, as I found so many of the baseball cards from my childhood, rooting through the 1970’s commons at Shinder’s. If you didn’t grow up in the Twin Cities, let me explain Shinder’s to you. It was a store that sold newspapers, magazines, comic books, baseball cards, and other collectibles. (And they had an “adult” section in the back of the store!) Shinder’s had several locations throughout the Twin Cities, but the one I frequented most was the Richfield location off of 70^th Street and France Avenue. (Technically off of Hazelton Road, but 70^th was the other cross street.) I spent many, many hours there as a youngster in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. My Dad could at least buy tobacco for his pipe there, but I’m pretty sure it drove my Mom batty to wait as I examined the huge stack of cards and tried to remember if I already had a 1977 Bob Forsch or not. 

I liked the bright colors of the 1975 Topps set, and I was always partial to crazy uniforms, which means there are a fair amount of Houston Astros cards from the 1970’s and 1980’s in my collection. So, I purchased Cliff Johnson’s 1975 card, for 10 cents or however much it was, and took it home with me. Eventually I wanted to transfer Cliff’s card from the plastic sleeve it was in to a sleeve in a binder. Shinder’s put tape over the top of the sleeves their cards came in, which I would cut off with a scissors. Usually no problem, but there wasn’t much room in this sleeve between the top of the card and the tape, so I tried to cut the side of the sleeve. Big mistake. I ended up trimming the side of Cliff’s card pretty badly. (I’m happy I didn’t know it was his rookie card at the time!) Oops. 

So that was my introduction to Cliff Johnson, and he gradually became a familiar presence to me in the commons box at Shinder’s. Johnson also played just long enough to make it into all three of the 1987 baseball card sets. As anyone who grew up in the 1980’s will tell you, 1987 was the year that baseball cards achieved perfection, with the iconic Topps woodgrains, the awesome blue Fleers, and the Donruss that had baseballs in the middle of the card borders. (I’m being perhaps a little sarcastic about the perfection of 1987 baseball cards, but for a lot of folks in my generation, these sets were the ones that really started us on our collecting adventures.) 

Johnson’s 1987 Fleer card is a pretty great one. I really enjoy the 1980’s cards where you get a triple dose of the team logo-on the hat, the jersey, and the card itself. I love that Blue Jays logo, and I’m happy they’ve gone back to a very similar variation of it, after ditching it for much of the decade of the 2000’s. It’s just a classic, perfect logo. It tells you all the information you need to know: there’s a Blue Jay, they play baseball, and the maple leaf tells you they’re Canadian. 

Cliff Johnson was one of those players who took a long time to find his way in baseball. It wasn’t his fault; it was more like teams couldn’t figure out what to do with him. Johnson only exceeded 400 plate appearances in four of his seasons in the majors, and the first time wasn’t until 1980, his age 32 season. He still put up four seasons of 20+ home runs and ended up with 196 longballs for his career.

When Johnson was with the New York Yankees in 1979, he famously got into a locker room fight with closer Goose Gossage. Gossage ended up with a sprained thumb and missed almost three months of the season. Not surprisingly, Johnson was traded to the Cleveland Indians before Gossage came back from his injury. 

The 1987 Fleers offered some interesting information on the back of the cards. Hitters were classified as “dead pull hitters,” whatever that was, “singles hitters,” “spray hitters,” which we all knew was just another term for “singles hitters,” and “power hitters.” Cliff Johnson was a power hitter. You had to respect that, since power hitter was clearly the best of the four categories Fleer had delineated. With his mustache and grin on this card, Johnson looked like a friendly walrus. On the cards where he’s not smiling, he looks like a grumpy walrus, and not someone you’d like to get into a locker room tussle with. He’s also listed as 6’4” on his baseball cards, another good reason to stay away from the walrus if he looks grumpy. 

By the time the 1987 baseball cards were released, Cliff Johnson’s career had come to an end. He was granted free agency after the 1986 season ended, but no one signed him. I wonder if he might have been a victim of the collusion scandal of the mid 1980’s that saw owners conspiring to keep free agent signings to a minimum. Of course, it might have simply been that Johnson was a 39-year-old DH/pinch hitter, and no one was interested in signing him for 1987. As a power hitter who walked frequently, Cliff Johnson would fit well in baseball in 2019. Hopefully teams now would know where to play him.