TTM Stats
- Sent: 5/26/2018 | Received: 6/7/2018 | 11 Days
- ’81 Topps
- Address: Home (address from Sports Card Forum)
The Story of the Autograph
Larry Christenson had an 11 year career in the major leagues. He spent all of those years with the Philadelphia Phillies. He posted a few good years in the mid-to-late 70’s and won a World Series Championship in 1980.
Christenson grew up in Washington and in high school he was more noted for basketball than baseball. But the Phillies drafted him out of high school in 1972 as their first draft pick. He was the third overall pick that year. Larry made his major league debut the following April in 1973 by pitching a complete game in a 7-1 win over the Mets and was the youngest player in MLB at 19. His first hit in the majors (as well as the minors) was a homer and at least at one time he was tied with the most home runs by a pitcher in Phillies history.
Larry would be up and down from the minors until 1975. He would be a pretty key pitcher in a rotation that helped the Phils win three straight NL East titles from 1976 through 1978. His best season of this time and his whole career was 1977 when he posted a 19-6 record with a 4.06 ERA in 34 starts. He had three consecutive winning seasons from 1975 to 1977.
In 1979 he started to have elbow problems and missed the first month of the season. Then he broke is collarbone in June of that year during a charity bike ride and missed more time. He would have a great start to the season in 1980 and went 3-0, but then had elbow surgery. He finished the season at 5-1 and started Game 4 of the 1980 World Series. He didn’t fare well though and was knocked out in the first inning.
He had one more full season without injury but ultimately couldn’t recover from more elbow issues. He finished his career with an 83-71 record and 3.79 ERA in 220 starts.
The Score on Larry Christenson – 6.5
What a classic signature. That thing is pretty! The only bad part is that this card is old enough that the signature is bleeding a bit. I find that I have that issue a lot on these 1981 Topps cards. At least I feel like it happens with this year more than others around that time. I’m not sure there’s anything different about that years cards though.
Thanks Mr. Christenson! I’m giving this one a 6.5.
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Information gathered using Wikipedia and Baseball Reference.