1982 Houston Astros

MVP
This team is a good demonstration in how much the game has changed in 25 years. The Astros in 1982 were 4 games (or is that 8 games, not quite sure how that works) under .500, so they were roughly an average team in 1982. Granted the Astros played in a very large stadium, but they did play half their games on the road. Here are your team leaders in various categories:
BA - Ray Knight - .294
HR - Phil Garner - 13
RBI - Phil Garner - 83
SB - Dickie Thon - 37 (Garner had 24, Jose Cruz had 21, 2 others had at least 17)

By comparison, the leaders for the 2009 Astros, who played in a smaller park, but finished 4 games worse:
BA - Miguel Tejada - .313
HR - Carlos Lee - 26
RBI - Carlos Lee - 102
SB - Michael Bourn - 61 (OK, he led the league in stolen bases, but only one other player had more than 17 and three players I would consider full time players had 0, nobody in 1982 had 0.)

OK, some stat guy could probably tear these comparisons apart (different stadium, record was better because team pitching was better in 1982, etc.), but it is odd to see that 13 home runs and 83 RBIs could lead an average team.

Anyway, Phil Garner, Dickie Thon, Ray Knight, and Jose Cruz get consideration for team MVP, I'll give it to Garner. Probably a pitcher really deserves it.

Cy Young
The 1982 Astros had two hall-of-famers anchoring their pitching staff in Nolan Ryan and Don Sutton (although Sutton got traded before the end of the season to the Brewers), but the ace of this pitching staff was a brother of another hall-of-famer, Joe Niekro. He had 17 wins with a 2.47 ERA.

Another sign of the changes in the game in the past 25 years, Niekro pitched 16 complete games. Nolan Ryan pitched 10 and 11 games complete games were pitched by other pitchers. That is a total of 37 complete games or almost 23% of the games played. Was this an oddity to have so many complete games. Well here is a look at the NL West teams in 1982:
Atlanta - 15 (didn't have a very deep rotation)
Los Angeles - 37 (18 of these were by Fernando Valenzuela)
San Francisco - 18
San Diego - 20 (thrown by 7 different pitchers)
Houston - 37
Cincinnati - 22 (13 by Mario Soto)

By way of comparison, the Giants had 11 complete games in 2009...and they had the two league leaders in complete games thrown in Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.

Rookie Card of the Year
Not much to choose from here...I'll go with Joe Pittman, he was a utility infielder through 1984 with the Astros, Giants, and Padres. It was either Pittman or George Cappuzzello. Pittman is shown with the Astros on his card so he gets the pick.

Most Interesting non-Topps Card
Danny Heep had a 13 season career as a utility first basemen/outfielder, seeing action with the Astros, Mets, Dodgers, Red Sox, and finally ending it with the 1991 Braves. In 1981, he was one of the three players on the Astros future stars card. He had his own card in the 1981 Fleer set. You would think Topps would've given him his own card in 1982, since he already had one in a competitor's set. Nope, he was put on the Astros prospects card in the 1982 Topps set as well. Again, Fleer gave him his own card. He finally got his first solo Topps card in 1983.

Note: if you want to check out more cards of Houston Astros go to Astros Baseball Cards, a blog devoted to nothing else except Houston Astros cards.

Starters

__	TO	433	C	Alan Ashby	HOU
__	TT	57	1B	Ray Knight	HOU
__	TO	683	2B	Phil Garner	HOU
__	TO	453	3B	Art Howe	HOU
__	TO	404	SS	Dickie Thon	HOU
__	TO	325	LF	Jose Cruz	HOU
__	TO	698	CF	Tony Scott	HOU
__	TO	277	RF	Terry Puhl	HOU

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	611	SP	Joe Niekro	HOU
__	TO	90	SP	Nolan Ryan	HOU
__	TO	305	SP	Don Sutton	HOU
__	TO	672	SP	Bob Knepper	HOU
__	TO	539	SP	Vern Ruhle	HOU

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	761	CL	Dave Smith	HOU
__	TT	61	RP	Mike LaCoss	HOU
__	TO	248	RP	Frank LaCorte	HOU

Other Players

__	FL	217	RF	Danny Heep	HOU
__	TO	582	C	Luis Pujols	HOU
__	TO	147	UT	Denny Walling	HOU
__			UT	Alan Knicely
__	TO	57	SS	Craig Reynolds	HOU
__			2B	Bill Doran
__	TO	377	SS	Kiko Garcia	HOU
__	TO	509	1B	Harry Spilman	HOU
__			CF	Scott Loucks
__			UT	Tim Tolman
__			OF	Kevin Bass
__	TO	119	UT	Joe Pittman	HOU
__	TO	734	PH	Mike Ivie	HOU
__			RF	Larry Ray
__			RP	Randy Moffitt
__			SP	Frank DiPino
__			RP	Bert Roberge
__	TO	137	RP	George Cappuzzello	DET
__	TO	34	RP	Joe Sambito	HOU
__			RP	Danny Boone
__			RP	Mark Ross
__			RP	Gordie Pladson

Manager/Coaches

__	DO	144	MG	Bill Virdon	HOU
__			MG	Bob Lillis