Monday, February 21, 2011

1983 Oakland Athletics



Back to 1983, we get to the Oakland Athletics, who finished dead in the middle of the AL West. Billy Martin had led this team to the ALCS in 1981, but blew out the pitchers arms in the process, so by 1983, there was virtually no pitching on this team. The one bright spot for the pitching staff was a no-hitter thrown by Mike Warren. Rickey Henderson was the best player on this team by a mile and this team may have been in last place without him. A true definition of "most valuable" player.

Best Player: Rickey Henderson...by a mile

Best Pitcher: Chris Codiroli...this wasn't a good pitching staff, Codiroli led the team in wins and was one of the few who was uninjured for the whole year to give the team 200+ innings.

All-Stars: Rickey Henderson

Hall-of-Famers: Rickey Henderson

Rookie Card of the Year: Tony Phillips...played with the A's through 1989, but really had the peak of his career from 1990-1994 with the Tigers. He led the league in runs scored in 1992 and garnered MVP votes in 1993. He bounced around after that with several teams and finished his career in 1999 with the same A's that he started out with.

Other rookies: Steve Baker, Chris Codiroli, Bob Kearney

First Athletic card: Bill Almon, Steve Boros, Tom Burgmeier, John D'Acquisto (under retired players), Preston Hanna (under retired players), Carney Lansford, Jimmy Sexton (listed under St. Louis Cardinals), Al Woods (under players on new teams)

Most interesting non-Topps card: Kelvin Moore...one of the things with doing this project is how many players are completely shut out of Topps sets. Kelvin Moore had a career from 1981 through 1983, all with the A's. This is actually his second Donruss card, as he had a card in the 1982 Donruss set. He never had a Topps card, even though in 1983, he played in 41 games with 136 plate appearances.

Starters
__ TT 52 C Bob Kearney OAK
__ TO 233 1B Wayne Gross OAK
__ TO 365 2B Davey Lopes OAK
__ TT 87 SS Tony Phillips OAK
__ TT 60 3B Carney Lansford OAK
__ TO 180 LF Rickey Henderson OAK
__ TO 598 CF Dwayne Murphy OAK
__ TT 24 RF Mike Davis OAK
__ TO 648 DH Jeff Burroughs OAK
__ TT 2 IF Bill Almon OAK
__ TO 23 C Mike Heath OAK
__

UT Garry Hancock

Starting Pitchers
__ TT 20 SP Chris Codiroli OAK
__

SP Bill Krueger
__ TO 493 SP Steve McCatty OAK
__ TO 620 SP Mike Norris OAK
__

SP Gorman Heimueller

Relief Pitchers
__ TO 102 CL Dave Beard OAK
__ TO 466 RP Tom Underwood OAK
__ TT 16 RP Tom Burgmeier OAK
__

RP Tim Conroy
__

RP Keith Atherton
__

SP Mike Warren
__ TT 6 RP Steve Baker OAK

Other Players
__

CF Rick Peters
__ TO 208 1B Dan Meyer OAK
__

SS Donnie Hill
__ DO 87 1B Kelvin Moore OAK
__ TO 737 DH Mitchell Page OAK
__

UT Luis Quinones
__

C Darryl Cias
__

UT Marshall Brant
__

UT Dave Hudgens
__

UT Rusty McNealy
__ TO 413 RP Matt Keough OAK
__ TO 259 RP Jeff Jones OAK
__ TO 286 SP Rick Langford OAK
__

RP Mark Smith
__

RP Ed Farmer
__

SP Ben Callahan
__

RP Curt Young
__

RP Bert Bradley
__

RP Rich Wortham

Manager
__ TT 13 MG Steve Boros OAK

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