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.