#318 Jack Fisher - Cincinnati Reds

John Howard Fisher
Cincinnati Reds
Pitcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'2"  Weight:  215
Born:  March 4, 1939, Frostburg, MD
Signed:  Signed by the Baltimore Orioles as an amateur free agent, June 24, 1957
Major League Teams:  Baltimore Orioles 1959-1962; San Francisco Giants 1963; New York Mets 1964-1967; Chicago White Sox 1968; Cincinnati Reds 1969

An innings eater for several bad Mets teams in the mid-1960s, Jack Fisher led the league twice in losses with 24 in 1965 and 18 in 1967.  Fisher's best seasons came early in his career with the Orioles and he went 12-11 with a 3.41 ERA in 1960, at one point pitching 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings.  Fisher gave up a few milestone home runs during his career, surrendering a home to Ted Williams (#650) on September 28, 1960 in his final major league at-bat and also giving up Roger Maris' (#164) record-tying 60th home run on September 26, 1961.  Fisher threw the first official pitch at Shea Stadium in 1964 as the starting pitcher for the team's home opener.  He appeared in 160 games for the Mets, going 38-73 with a respectable 4.12 ERA in 133 starts.  He spent the last two seasons of his career with the White Sox and Reds, and was released by the Angels on opening day 1970.

In exactly 400 career appearances, Fisher was 86-139 with a 4.06 ERA and 1,017 strikeouts over 1,975 2/3 innings pitched.  In his retirement, he owned and operated Fat Jack's sports bar in Easton, Pennsylvania, so named because of the nickname given to him by former teammate Hoyt Wilhelm (#565).

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

Building the Set / Card #306
December 3, 2023 from The Philly Show (Uncle Dick's Cards)
Doug and I returned to The Philly Show in early December, once again held inside the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania.  eBay has taken over sponsorship of the show, with the quaint, bubble-lettered Philly Show logo that had been in place since the 1980s replaced with a more modern logo, keeping with the times.  I wrote about the show in a post over at The Phillies Room.

Similar to my strategy from March, I wanted to focus on accumulating commons and having found success with Uncle Dick's Cards before, I didn't mess around and headed right for the neon green binders.  I pulled 145 cards from the binder containing cards 301 to the end of the set, stopping when I reached 500.  This card was the 14th of 145 cards purchased for our set, and after the dealer discount due to my bulk purchase, it cost me a little over $1.25.

The Card / Reds Team Set / Accuracy Index -8

Fisher is wearing a Mets jersey here and he'd be in a Mets jersey (and hat) again for his final card in the 1970 Topps set.  Topps diplomatically sums up his Mets tenure as "pitching in tough luck."  Unfortunately for Fisher, he'd miss the success coming to the Mets as they won the World Series in 1969.

Accuracy Index:  The hatless (-3) Fisher and his Mets jersey (-5) score a -8.

1969 Season
Fisher was traded by the White Sox to the Reds on December 5, 1968, for Don Pavletich (#179) and Don Secrist (#654).  In his final big league season, he was 4-4 with a 5.50 ERA in 34 games, including 15 starts.  He pitched 113 innings and recorded one save.

1960 Topps #46

1962 Topps #203

1965 Topps #93

1967 Topps #533

1970 Topps #684

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1960 Topps #46
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (11):  1960-1970
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2008 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs #ROA-JF
Total Non-Parallel Baseball Cards:  55 in the Beckett online database as of 5/31/24.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference / SABR / Wikipedia

Beckett Database / The Trading Card Database
1965 Topps Blog

#317 Bruce Look - Minnesota Twins / #319 Ken McMullen - Washington Senators