Vintage Street & Smith’s

As a young baseball enthusiast, by this time of year I usually had already combed through my trusty Street & Smith’s Official Yearbook in preparation for the upcoming season. But now that baseball information is so readily available online, the Street & Smith’s Official Yearbook has gone the way of the hitching post.

Looking back at my first Street & Smith’s (1972), the “Players’ Targets” section listed only 14 players with 400 or more career home runs, 11 of whom had over 500. Going into the current season there are 58 players with more than 400 career home runs, including 28 with 500 or more. Giancarlo Stanton is the active leader with 402 home runs, so no one is close to reaching 500 this season. Mike Trout needs 32 homers to reach 400, so if he’s healthy, then he should get there this season.

My 1972 Street and Smith’s

Going into the 1972 season there were 10 players with more than 3,000 hits, one of whom had over 4,000. Going into the current season there are 33 players with over 3,000 hits; 101 players have 2,500 or more. Free agent Joey Votto is the active leader with 2,135 hits, so no one is going to reach the 3,000 plateau for a while. Free agent Evan Longoria is 70 hits shy of 2,000 for his career; Paul Goldschmidt needs just 91 hits to reach that level.

Going into the 1972 season there were 14 pitchers with 300 or more career wins; since then that number has increased to 24. Justin Verlander is the active leader with 257. At age 40 and currently battling injuries, I’m not sure he will win 43 more games.

Comparing the list of pitchers with 300 wins in 1972 to the pitching leaders on Baseball Reference, I found that at some point revisions were made to the final win totals of several pitchers. Walter Johnson and John Clarkson had one win added to their career totals, Old Hoss Radbourn added two, and Eddie Plank picked up a whopping 21 wins. Poor Mickey Welch lost four wins from the total he was listed with in 1972.

Going into the 1972 season Walter Johnson, with 3,508 strikeouts (he now is credited with 3,509), was the only pitcher with more than 3,000; currently, 19 pitchers have more than 3,000. The active leader is free agent Zack Greinke with 2,979, so if he can find a team and rack up 21 more K’s, he will join the club. Clayton Kershaw is only 56 away, so his chances of reaching 3,000 are very good as well.

APBA Baseball®

I also enjoyed seeing some of the ads in the 1972 Street & Smith’s. Tabletop baseball games were a big item, with Strat-O-Matic, APBA, Major League Baseball, and Big League Manager all offering fans the chance to manage their favorite teams. There was a full-page ad for Sports Illustrated Major League Baseball that promised “Everything but the National Anthem.”

There also were ads for everything from physical fitness–New Height (height gain guaranteed!) and Charles Atlas–to courses and manuals on how to qualify for a career in wildlife management, become a park ranger, a game warden, a forestry aid, or an accountant.

I understand that printing magazines like Street & Smith’s Official Yearbook is no longer profitable. And I must confess that the last few years I was able to purchase one, I relied more on the Internet than the printed page for quick baseball information. But the anticipation of its annual release and speculating about who would be on the cover is something that I truly miss.

(All statistics are from the 1972 Street & Smith’s Official Yearbook and Baseball Reference.)