1981 Donruss, Skip Lockwood

#217 Skip Lockwood

Here is the second card that I got signed by Skip at the Kansas City A's reunion. I only took multiple cards of two players and Skip was the only one that I found to sign. You can see the first Skip Lockwood card here.

Skip pitched in the Majors for 12 seasons. He threw for the Pilots/Brewers, Angels, Mets, and Red Sox. He was a starter for the first half of his career before being converted to a reliever for the second half. It looks like he was the Mets closer while he was there and he racked up 54 saves with them from 1976-78, including a career high of 20 in '77. In '76, Jim won 10 games out of the pen and that matched his career high that he had set in '71 as a Brewers starter. When his career was finished, Skip (whose first name is Claude) had a 57-97 record with 68 saves and a 3.55 ERA. That's not too bad for a former light-hitting third baseman.

When I was looking for cards to buy of Skip, I was shocked to see that there was an '81 Donruss card of him. The A's left Kansas City after the '67 season, so there is a huge gap from then to 1980. I'm just glad that I had this card in my collection. It would have sucked to have gotten an autograph from a third player this year that had an '81 Donruss card that wasn't in my collection. John Tudor and Jack Clark were the first two.

After Skip's playing career was over, he went on to graduate from MIT. I have no idea what he is up to these days. If I had known about MIT when I met him, I might have asked him about it.

'81 Donruss Tracker: 75/100