Being quarantined can lead one down many different roads in your own home.
In my search for baseball games to listen to or watch, I’ve discovered a link to the past that has presented me with something fresh and new.
This site has a list of over 500 radio broadcasts from 1934-73 with many that I’ve never heard. It’s a great thing to pass the time as one cooks, washes dishes, sleeps, etc.
Since 1971, I’ve collected baseball cards. With the way my mind works, I seem to remember most of them.
Jim Beauchamp‘s 1972 Topps card is one of those pieces of cardboard that gets stuffed in a box and is often forgotten. Heck at nine years old, I couldn’t even pronounce BEECH-um.
Something that one learns over time is that each piece of cardboard really does have a story. It may not be significant to some, but to that person any time in the big leagues has to be special.
Beauchamp, who passed away in in 2007, spent 10 seasons in the majors with five different teams from 1963 to 1973. He never really retired from the game and he was a coach for the 1995 world champion Atlanta Braves.
The Oklahoma native was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1958 reaching the majors in 1963 after hitting 31 homers, driving in 105 runs and stealing 21 bases with a .337 batting average for the Tulsa Oilers as he became the Texas League Player of the Year.
Combined with a dozen seasons in the minors, Beauchamp played 17 years as a professional. Overall, he hit 206 homers. However, only 14 of those came in the major leagues. His career-high was 34 with Oklahoma City in 1964.
With the majority of his career taking place prior to my memories of baseball. The only thing I knew about him was that he briefly played for my favorite team, the Cincinnati Reds. I learned that from the back of the 1972 card. He also played for the Houston Colt 45s and Astros (twice), Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves. He had returned to the Cardinals at the end of the 1970 season.
He traded by St. Louis to the New York Mets prior to 1972 season, which of course is how you get an ugly airbrushed card in those days.
Although his career stats are not that memorable, every major league player is capable of having a day. Beauchamp had one of those for the Mets on August 21, 1972.
Having never hit more than two homers in a season as Mets broadcaster Lindsey Nelson pointed out at the end of the game, Beauchamp hit two long balls on this day against his old team, the Houston Astros.
The first homer came in the seventh inning off Astros starter Jerry Reuss, which gave the Mets a 2-1 advantage.
Houston tied the game with a run off eventual National League Rookie of the Year Jon Matlack in the top of the eighth.
In the bottom of the ninth at Shea Stadium, Beauchamp hit a two-run walk-off homer to give the Mets a 4-2 victory.
Perhaps the best part for Beauchamp, it was a great way to celebrate his 33rd birthday.
Wait, There’s More
A postscript … when you’re hot, you’re hot.
Beauchamp hit another homer and drove in all of the runs for the Mets the following night as teammate Tom Seaver beat Houston 4-2. His two-run single in the bottom of the eighth made the difference.
The final two-day count was three homers, five hits, seven RBI and a pair of Mets victories.