1975 Topps Jim Rice

Well, if we do a card for one Gold Dust Twin, we have to do the other, right? As with Freddie Lynn, Jim Rice was stuck in a 4-in-1 rookie timeshare card. Here's Jim Ed in his rightful solo glory.

Advanced 1970s-80s Red Sox collectors will notice I swiped this Rice pic from the 1980 Topps Superstar Photo set, with the blue facsimile sig changed to black. This photo might be from spring training 1979, when the Red Sox ditched their 1975-78 red hats for the classic blue versions, but kept the pullover jerseys until opening day, when they returned to the pre-1972 button-down jerseys and belted pants.

Chad Finn's wonderful countdown/nostalgia trip of the Top 50 Red Sox Prospects of the Past 50 Years ranks Rice at No. 1.

Speaking of the Spirit of '75, we're going to celebrate the 1975 World Series soon with a series of 1976 Topps World Series cards. Each card will be posted on the 40th anniversary of the day the game was was played, which means Game 1 is coming up in two days. Check it out!

1975 Topps Fred Lynn

So I heard this guy had a pretty decent rookie year in '75? Despite his awesomeness, he's stuck in a four-in-one rookie card with Ed "Interference, My Ass" Armbrister, Tom "Traded to Boston for George Scott" Poquette and Terry "Can't Think of a Snarky Nickname" Whitfield.

I admit to cheating with this one. A proper '75 Topps card would show the Red Sox in the previous year's uniforms, which used blue hats instead of the red ones they adopted for '75. Unfortunately, it's easier to find photos of Bernie Sanders smiling than color photos of Fred Lynn from '74, so I took a later Lynn photo at Gimped his hat blue.

One of the misconceptions about Lynn's career is that his numbers were helped by Fenway, and had he stayed with the Red Sox his whole career, he could have piled up stats that would have put him in Cooperstown. Not that WAR is the end-all, be-all of baseball stats, but a quick check to baseball-reference shows that five of Lynn's top six WARs came with the Red Sox. Wanna try OPS+ (OPS adjusted to the ballpark)? Lynn's top three came with the Sox. That his best numbers were in Boston was no ballpark illusion.

1965 Topps Jim Lonborg

Forty-eight years ago this week, the 1967 "Impossible Dream" Red Sox clinched the American League pennant with a 5-3 win over Minnesota Twins one year after finishing a half-game out of last place. Boston's Jim Lonborg fired a seven-hitter (and added two hits at the plate himself) to complete his AL Cy Young-Award winning season. But you all know that already.

Lonborg's rookie card is in the 1965 Topps set, shoehorned with three other guys (Jerry Moses, Mike Ryan and Bill "One career game, one at-bat" Schlesinger). Let's fix that. I couldn't decide which Lonborg photo to use, so of course I used both.

Lonborg is often thought of a one-year wonder because of his December '67 ski accident that basically ruined his last four seasons with the Sox, but he went to have several solid seasons with the Phillies as part of Steve Carlton's supporting cast; in fact, he won more games with the Phillies (75) than with the Red Sox (68). He fished his career with a 157-137 record, hardly that of a one-year wonder.

1973 Topps Danny Cater

Danny Cater. I heard a rumor once that the Sox dealt a pretty fair pitcher for him.

All wisecracks aside, at least then-Red Sox GM Dick O'Connell admitted it was the worst trade he ever made (If one of my dog-eared, taped-up, pages-falling out Baseball Hall of Shame books from my childhood servers me correctly). Lou Gorman, on the other hand, continued to defend the Jeff Bagwell trade until his dying day, sadly.

Topps gave Cater a card in '73 worthy of his tenure in Boston: capless photo, Yankee pinstripes in obvious view, hair flying everywhere as if he were yanked out of the clubhouse for a photo before he could put a comb to it ... this card is truly worthy of someone who compiled a 2.0 WAR over three seasons while Sparky Lyle was 8.4 over that same span, and he probably sat in twice as many birthday cakes.

That said, we're going to give Cater a decent-looking '73 card anyway. Cater looks like one of those guys who was caught off-guard by baseball's switch to double-knits in the early 70s, kinda like hair bands who were swept away by grunge in the early '90s -- which didn't stop the crue-heads in my high school from sporting leather jackets and spiky hair during the Nirvana era. Cater here just looks as if he'd be more comfortable in baggy flannel. Nineteen-seventies skin-tight knits were never meant for doughy players; trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

The original Cater is on the left; the new version is on the right.

1967 Topps Mike Andrews and Reggie Smith

This is the first in a number of '67 Sox fantasy cards in the can, and we'll start with Mike Andrews, a second baseman good enough to crack Bill James' top 100 second sackers of all time in his New Historical Baseball Abstract despite a short (893-game) career. It's too bad everything he's done -- member of the '67 Sox, chairman of the Jimmy Fund -- is still overshadowed by the whole Charlie Finley b.s. in the '73 World Series with the A's.

Andrews shares a rookie card with Reggie Smith, which is a double bonus for Sox fans. But two players of this quality deserve their own individual cards. The Andrews photo is from the '68 Dexter Press set, which is a source for some of the "New and Improved" cards you'll see here.

Smith has always been a favorite of mine, even though he always seemed to be feuding with his teammates (Carlton Fisk, Bill Lee, etc.) and fans (calling Boston a racist city during the busing crisis, and I believe he had to wear a helmet in the outfield because the fans were so angry at him). By '74, he was in St. Louis, although the Sox did receive two keys to the '75 team (Bernie Carbo, Rick Wise) in return. 

It's actually amazing all the talented players the Sox dumped during Dick O'Connell's time as GM -- Smith, Jim Lonborg, George Scott, Tony Conligliaro, Sonny Siebert, Hawk Harrelson -- but the team was able to stay above .500 thanks to a kick-arse farm system.

According to baseball-reference.com, the most similar player to Smith is the guy who soon took his center field spot in Boston -- Fred Lynn.