#365 Jim Fregosi - California Angels

James Louis Fregosi
California Angels
Shortstop

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'1"  Weight:  190
Born:  April 4, 1942, San Francisco, CA
Signed:  Signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent before 1960 season
Major League Teams:  Los Angeles Angels 1961-1965; California Angels 1966-1971; New York Mets 1972-1973; Texas Rangers 1973-1977; Pittsburgh Pirates 1977-1978
As a Manager:  California Angels 1978-1981; Chicago White Sox 1986-1988; Philadelphia Phillies 1991-1996; Toronto Blue Jays 1999-2000
Died:  February 14, 2014, Miami, FL (age 71)

A six-time All-Star and a Gold Glove shortstop, Jim Fregosi was the first star of the expansion Los Angeles Angels before his trade to the Mets in December 1971 for future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan (#533).  Fregosi led the league in triples with 13 in 1968 and won his Gold Glove in 1967.  He held most of the Angels' franchise hitting records until Brian Downing began breaking them in the late 1980s.  Over his 18-year career, Fregosi hit .265 with 151 home runs and 706 RBIs.  He was inducted into the Angels Hall of Fame in 1989 and the club retired his #11 in 1998.

Following his playing days, Fregosi was a successful manager, leading the Angels to their first playoff berth in 1979 and the Phillies to the World Series in 1993.  His 15-year managerial career spanned between 1978 and 2000, earning him a career record of 1028-1094.  A baseball lifer, he spent five full decades in the game earning friends at each franchise he joined.  Fregosi was the top advance scout for the Braves in 2014 when a series of strokes led to his passing.

Some text for this post originally appeared on my 1965 Topps blog.

Building the Set / Card #2
March 3, 2018 from a box of 2018 Topps Heritage
This is the only buyback card I'll include in our 1969 Topps set, and the story below was originally posted over at The Phillies Room on Monday, March 5, 2018.

While battling some sort of hybrid cold/flu nonsense on Saturday, I had settled in to watch the Phillies-Orioles [spring training] game on TV when our postal carrier delivered our shipment of 2018 Topps Heritage boxes.  The four of us settled in for an afternoon of pack opening, and it was the most fun I've had opening baseball cards in quite a while.  The sorting process is still underway, but that's all part of the fun of opening packs of cards.

Each of our boxes had a single card pack as a box topper and the wrapper indicated that an original 1969 Topps buyback card was included within.  I was thrilled when the first buyback pack we opened was former Phillies manager Jim Fregosi.  I was amused when the second buyback pack we opened was another Fregosi.  I was annoyed when the third, fourth, fifth and sixth buyback packs we opened were also Fregosi.  I'm chalking this one up to dumb luck and poor collation from Topps.  While I would have liked to have added a few different buybacks to my collection, the six Fregosis won't diminish the fun we had opening the boxes.

With six of these Fregosi cards in our collection, I couldn't rationally bring myself to purchase a seventh just so it wouldn't have the gold buyback stamp on the front.  So I picked the best of the bunch, and it's now officially part of our 1969 Topps set build.

The Card / Angels Team Set / Accuracy Index +1

Fregosi is showing off his bunting form here, and it's the same exact photo Topps used for his 1968 Topps card.  The back of the card highlights his double in the 1968 All-Star Game, Fregosi's fourth Mid-Summer Classic appearance.  The American League All-Stars lost the game, 1-0, and Fregosi's double led off the game against National League starter, Don Drysdale (#400).  The cartoon depicts one of his two inside-the-park home runs hit at Dodger Stadium, the Angels' home ballpark during their first few years.  Fregosi collected those two home runs in 1962 and 1963, the only two inside-the-parkers of his career.

Accuracy Index:  This card scores a +1 - five points for depicting Fregosi in the correct uniform, but then minus four points for re-using a photo.

Inserts:  Fregosi is included in the 35 card Topps Deckle Edge insert set and is one of 48 decals in the Topps Decals insert set.  He's one of 27 players to appear in both insert sets.

1969 Season
In his seventh full season with the Angels, Fregosi was once again the club's regular shortstop.  He appeared in 161 games, making all but the final three starts at shortstop throughout the season.  Marty Perez got the call in those final three games with Fregosi starting his offseason a little early.  He batted .260 with 12 home runs and 47 RBIs while owning the highest bWAR on the team among position players with a 4.9 mark.

Phillies Career
Fregosi was originally hired by the Phillies by his former teammate and friend Lee Thomas on May 29, 1989 as a special assignment assistant to Thomas, the team's general manager.  He was serving as a minor league pitching instructor and part-time broadcaster for the Phillies when Nick Leyva was fired in early 1991.  Fregosi was named the club's new manager on April 23, 1991, leading them to a third place finish that season, the club's best finish since 1986.  He guided the Phillies from a last place finish in 1992 to the World Series in 1993, only to lose the Series on Joe Carter's dramatic walk-off home run off Mitch Williams in Game 6.  Fregosi was credited with effectively leading a band of veteran cast-offs to an unexpected and improbable postseason run.

Unfortunately, it was all downhill for Fregosi and the Phillies following the 1993 season and the club wouldn't finish above .500 during the remainder of his tenure.  He was fired following the 1996 season, a dismal year in which the Phillies went 67-95 to finish in last place in the division.  In six years as Phillies manager, Fregosi had a 431-463 record and his win total is third behind Danny Ozark (594) and Charlie Manuel (780) for the club since 1970.

1962 Topps #209

1970 Topps #570

1975 Topps #339

1978 Topps #323

1992 Topps #669

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1962 Topps #209
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (27):  1962-1976, 1978-1981, 1986-1989, 1991-1993, 2001
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2002 Topps Archives #40
Total Non-Parallel Baseball Cards:  196 in the Beckett online database as of 12/23/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference / SABR
Beckett Database / The Trading Card Database
1992 Phillies Media Guide / 1965 Topps Blog / The Phillies Room

#364 Tommie Agee - New York Mets / #366 Bo Belinsky - St. Louis Cardinals

#528 Claude Osteen - Los Angeles Dodgers

Claude Wilson Osteen
Los Angeles Dodgers
Pitcher

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  5'11"  Weight:  160
Born:  August 9, 1939, Caney Springs, TN
Signed:  Signed by the Cincinnati Redlegs as an amateur free agent, July 2, 1957
Major League Teams:  Cincinnati Reds 1957, 1959-1961; Washington Senators 1961-1964; Los Angeles Dodgers 1965-1973; Houston Astros 1974; St. Louis Cardinals 1974; Chicago White Sox 1975

World Series Appearances:  Los Angeles Dodgers 1965-1966

Lefty pitcher Claude Osteen made his big league debut in July 1957, a month shy of his 18th birthday, and he'd pitch sparingly for the Reds over the next three-plus seasons.  Dealt to the Senators in September 1961, he was inserted into the team's starting pitching rotation, enjoying moderate success in his four seasons in Washington.  Osteen turned in the first of ten consecutive double digit win seasons in 1964, when he was a 15-game winner.  He developed into an All-Star following his trade to the Dodgers in December 1964 as part of a blockbuster seven-player trade.  Osteen started two games of the 1965 World Series, pitching to a 0.64 ERA in 14 innings and recording a complete game shutout in Game 3.  The Dodgers would down the Twins in seven games.  He'd help pitch the Dodgers back to the World Series in 1966, but the Orioles would sweep his club.

1985 Tastykake Phillies #3

Osteen was an All-Star in 1967, 1970 and 1973 and a 20-game winner in 1969 and 1972.  Osteen's best season came in 1969 when he was 20-15 with a 2.66 ERA, striking out 183 over 321 innings pitched.  He threw 16 complete games that season, including seven shutouts.  Osteen would pitch through the 1975 season before retiring as a player and beginning his second career as a pitching coach.  

In 541 games, Osteen was 196-195 with a 3.30 ERA and 1,612 strikeouts with his 40 career shutouts currently 44th on the all-time list.  Osteen would coach in the majors with the Cardinals (1977-1980), Phillies (1982-1988), Rangers (1993) and Dodgers (1999-2000).

Some text for this post originally appeared on my 1965 Topps blog.

Building the Set / Card #1
Summer of 1982, 1983 or 1984 from Ocean City, NJ
At the beginning of my baseball card collecting journey, I was focused on building complete sets and collecting Phillies cards.  My Dad and I hand collated or bought Topps, Donruss and Fleer sets each year beginning in 1981, and gradually started working our way backwards and collecting a complete 1975 Topps set in the mid-1980s.  But before then, and even to this day, my first collecting priority was and is Phillies baseball cards.  That priority led to this Osteen card entering my collection in either the summer of 1983 or 1984, and I realize that needs a little bit of further explaining.

I had a red Tastykake Phillies binder that housed every single Phillies baseball card I owned, organized by player and then chronologically in sturdy nine-pocket Enor pages.  My Pete Rose (#120) pages consisted of his cards pre-dating his time with the Phillies, and the jewel of my Rose collection at the time was his 1976 Topps card.  The Mike Schmidt pages had all his mainstream baseball cards dating back to his 1974 Topps appearance, since his 1973 Topps rookie card was way out of our price range at the time.  And I had a page for the team's current coaches, featuring cards of Mike Ryan (#28), Bobby Wine (#648), Deron Johnson (#297), Dave Bristol (#234) and yes, Osteen, who at the time was the Phillies' pitching coach.  I would have considered this Osteen card "old," given it had been in circulation for more than a decade when I plucked it from a dime box in the waning hours of a baseball card show we were attending inside the Music Pier on the Ocean City boardwalk.  Given Osteen's tenure with the team began in 1982, I would have purchased this card in one of his first few years with the club and before the John Felske era began in 1985.

For years, this was the only card from the 1969 Topps set I owned.  It was removed at some point from the the Tastykake Phillies binder and it sat in a 5,000 count box with every single non-set and non-Phillies baseball card I owned between the years 1950 and 1984.  That 5,000 count box is sorted by year, by set and in number order, so this card was very easy to find and remove once I decided to start collecting the 1969 Topps set in mid-2022.  I had no way of knowing 40 years ago this card, of the Phillies pitching coach at the time, would be the first of 664 cards added in my latest set collecting journey.

(The Tastykake Phillies binder pictured is from an old eBay auction.  I still have my original binder here somewhere, but its exact location eludes me.)

The Card / Dodgers Team Set / Accuracy Index +1

Topps recycled the photo used for Osteen's 1967 Topps card for this card.  He's shown here at spring training, possibly from 1966, with his red uniform number 23 peaking through on the front.  The back of the card highlights his 94 career wins, and he'd notch his 100th victory on May 21, 1969 in a complete game, 3-1 win over the Cubs.  His World Series ERA of 0.86 resulted from three starts in the 1965 and 1966 series in which he gave up just two earned runs, on two solo home runs, in 21 innings pitched.

Accuracy Index:  As I progress through the set, I'm going to use a scoring system to gauge Topps' accuracy with the player photos used for each card.  The Osteen card scores a +1, assigning 5 points for him appearing in the correct uniform, but losing 4 points for the recycled photo.

1969 Season
As mentioned above, this was a career year for Osteen.  Struggling to find offense, the Dodgers finished in fourth place in the National League West, and Osteen was arguably the club's MVP.  Righty Bill Singer (#575) kept pace with Osteen throughout the season, also winning 20 games and a young Don Sutton (#216) was a 17-game winner for the team.  Osteen led the club in innings pitched (321) and shutouts (7), tying Singer for the team-lead with 16 complete games.

Phillies Career
Pat Corrales (#382) was named the new Phillies manager on November 4, 1981, succeeding Dallas Green, and Corrales named Osteen his pitching coach a month later.  Osteen had started his coaching career in 1976 spending one season with the Double-A Reading Phillies.  As the pitching coach for the Phillies, he saw three pitchers win Cy Young Awards - Steve Carlton (#255) in 1982, John Denny in 1983 and Steve Bedrosian in 1987.  

Osteen outlasted Corrales, who was let go during the 1983 season, and he served as the pitching coach for Phillies teams managed by Paul Owens, Felske and Lee Elia (#312).  Osteen left the Phillies following the 1988 season with Darold Knowles succeeding him as part of the new Nick Leyva regime.

1959 Topps #224

1964 Topps #28

1967 Topps #330

1972 Topps #298

1976 Topps #488

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1959 Topps #224
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (17):  1959-1960, 1962-1976
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1992 Fleer ProCards #740
Total Non-Parallel Baseball Cards:  154 in the Beckett online database as of 11/24/22

Sources:  
Baseball Reference / SABR / Wikipedia
Beckett Database / The Trading Card Database
1965 Topps Blog / The Phillies Room

#527 Al Lopez MG - Chicago White Sox / #529 Ed Kirkpatrick - Kansas City Royals