On his blog, T.R. Sullivan lists the top 25 pitchers in Rangers' history. He lists Hough, seen here on card number 371 of the 1981 Topps set, as number one on the list. Jon Matlack is number 25. In between are a wide variety of guys, included several Hall-0f-Famers.T.R. is right when he says that from 1984 to 1988 Charlie was about all the Rangers had. I remember him being as big a name as Nolan Ryan before Nollie came to Texas. Charlie was always a great signer too. It seemed that he always signed and returned any cards that I sent him. That kind of fan interaction is hard to underrate.
I have managed to nail down the 1981 Topps base set but am still missing some of the Traded set. Here is what I am still hunting:
1981 Topps Traded
749 Larry Cox
772 Rick Honeycutt
801 Mario Mendoza
825 Leon Roberts
836 Bill Stein
852 Mark Wagner
2 comments:
It's funny, but while putting together Rangers cards for a '12 days' pack recently, I had a stack of Hough cards, and not remembering much of the rangers from then, I wondered if he was something 'worth' giving. Now, I can't remember if I gave them or not.. :-)
I guess it says something about the Rangers' history of pitching woes that Hough is No. 1. Texas always had the hitters, didn't they?
Hough started out with L.A., as I'm sure you know, and he wouldn't make it in the Dodgers' top 50 of all-time -- of course the Dodgers have been around a lot longer ;)
I always liked Hough. Kind of got mad when he started enjoying more success after he left L.A.
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