George Vukovich hadn’t quite gotten his feet wet in the majors in the early ‘80s with Philadelphia but he did manage to come out with a pretty decent monster card in the strike-shortened 1981 season.
For the year, he went 10 for 26 with a homerun and 4 rbis. He also contributed a walk and a stolen base for the Phils.
| Split | G | GS | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 Totals | 20 | 2 | 27 | 26 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | .385 | .407 | .500 |
Vuk gets a single 1 for his one homer in 27 plate appearances. He does get a 10 to go with his 11 for his one steal though.
For his .385 batting average, Vukovich gets plenty of 7s on his card. After the 1, 11 and 10, he gets six 7s plus three 8s and two nines. APBA placed an 8 at 61 and a 9 at 42.
Fun numbers: 51-7, 61-8, 62-9
Interestingly for all his great numbers, Vuk still gets unfortunate results like 13-32 and 45-40 due to having just one 14.
If you’re wondering, George is not the brother of pitcher Pete Vukovich. He has a local connection to me, though. He played for Southern Illinois University, a frequent opponent of my favorite Illini baseball team and is a fellow alumnus of Illini head coach Dan Hartleb who also attended SIU (though a few years later).
Scott Fennessy might note his hometown, too.
After 1981, Vukovich evolved into a adequate if not spectacular backup outfielder for four more years for the Phillies and the Indians.
Note: This week, Terrible Card Tuesday is going to take a break for the holidays. I do have a pretty fun Weird Wednesday card lined up so we’ll see about that. That might wait a week too.
So Des Plaines has more baseball history than I thought. It I also home to Shawn Green, and Harry Caray’s final resresting place. Looks like I need to step up my game a bit.