Cake or gum? 1976 Carl Yastrzemski

Last time was a 5-4 squeaker for gum. Who will triumph here?

Hostess gives us a bit of a dark photo at Cleveland Stadium. It's hard to read on the card but the ad on the scoreboard tells us to "Come to Marlboro Country". Meanwhile, Topps gives us an action shot of Yastrzemski following through on what appears to be a long fly ball at Comiskey Park. Yaz played in three day games at White Sox Park in '75, with three hits, including a double, in 14 at bats. Assuming the photo is indeed from '75, then the catcher in the background is Brian Downing, who caught all three of those games.

Carl Yastrzemski grew up on a potato farm in Bridgehampton, Long Island, and after briefly attending Notre Dame on a basketball scholarship, signed with the Red Sox organization in 1959. Two years later he was in the major leagues, and immediately became a force in the Red Sox lineup. Yaz was one of the best hitters in the major leagues in the 1960s, with three batting titles between 1963 and 1968. Despite never reaching 200 hits in a season, he twice led the AL in hits during this offensively-challenged era. By far his best season was 1967, when he won the Triple Crown and MVP with a .326 batting average, 44 HR and 121 RBI, as the Red Sox, perennial bottom-dwellers in the American League, won a surprising pennant. Injuries in the early 1970s robbed him of his previous effectiveness, and though he hung on until 1983, he was not really an elite player after 1970. For a big star in a big baseball town, Yastrzemski has lived a pretty low-profile life since retirement. He was not close to his Red Sox teammates, and other than regular appearances at Fenway Park he has mostly stayed out of the spotlight. His grandson Mike Yastrzemski has been the Giants' regular right fielder since 2019.