Card Corner Plus: 1975 Topps: The Mistaken Identity of Steve Busby

By 1975, Steve Busby was a household name in baseball circles. He had already authored two no-hitters and was regarded as the ace of the Kansas City Royals, an up-and-coming team that was about to win 91 games and suddenly become a contender within the American League West. He was a young pitching star, a future Cy Young Award winner it seemed, and most people in the game knew what Busby looked like, from his facial appearance to his distinctive pitching delivery.

Amid that backdrop, it might come as a surprise that the man featured on this 1975 Topps card is not Steve Busby. Not even close. Actually, the pictured player is journeyman catcher Fran Healy, who would later become better known for his work as a color analyst with the New York Yankees (becoming the comedic foil for Phil Rizzuto) and the crosstown Mets.

This is certainly not the first time, nor will it be the last, that a card company has misidentified a player featured on a baseball card. Dick Ellsworth’s 1966 card shows his former Chicago Cubs teammate, Ken Hubbs. (This card is especially haunting given that Hubbs had died two years earlier in a plane crash.) In 1969, in what is arguably the most famous error card of all time, Topps issued a card of California Angels third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez that actually featured the picture of the team’s batboy, Leonard Garcia. Four years later, Topps came out with a card of Joe Rudi, but none of the three Oakland A’s players photographed on the card turned out to be him. Instead, they were teammates Gene Tenace, Marty Martinez and Bill Voss.

In another error in the 1975 Topps set, the card that purports to show A’s catcher Larry Haney is actually an action shot of another catcher, Dave Duncan. Then there is Gary Pettis’ 1985 Topps card, which features a photograph of his younger brother, Lynn Pettis, who never even played in the major leagues. John Smoltz’ 1990 Donruss card displays fellow Hall of Famer Tom Glavine.

Some of these errors in identification are quite understandable, but this one falls into a more mystifying category. Topps did not have any difficulty identifying Busby on one of its other 1975 cards, a special “highlights” card that made note of the no-hitters thrown by Busby, Dick Bosman and Nolan Ryan the previous summer. More pertinent, Healy and Busby did not really look alike. Other than the fact that they are both white, their facial features were completely different.

Their on the field was also quite distinct. Healy was coming off a 1974 season in which he had batted .252 with nine home runs as a relatively nondescript starting catcher who usually batted in the bottom third of the Royals’ batting order. Meanwhile, the hard-throwing Busby had assembled one of the best seasons of his short-lived career, winning a career-high 22 games with a solid 3.39 ERA. The peak of Busby’s season came on June 14, when he no-hit the Milwaukee Brewers and came within one walk (issued to George Scott) of throwing a perfect game. It was his second no-hitter, coming at the age of 24.

So how did this error of identity happen? I don’t have a clear-cut answer, other than to speculate that the photographer for Topps may not have been particularly knowledgeable about baseball. Or perhaps he was so preoccupied with taking multiple photographs of so many players during that day in spring training that he simply let one slip through the cracks. (Hey, we writers make mistakes, too. As the volume of words increases, so does the chance for factual errors.)

I suppose the mistake could have been far more egregious. The photographer could have confused Busby with an African-American teammate like Vada Pinson, or someone like Tony Solaita, the hulking first baseman from American Somoa, or a Latino ballplayer like Fernando Gonzalez. Now that would have been funny, though it’s almost certain that someone at Topps would have caught such an error of obvious proportions.

In retrospect, the confusion regarding the identity of Busby might seem more understandable given that his name has faded from public consciousness. He is a player rarely remembered today because of the meteoric nature of his career. But the reality is this: at the time that Topps produced this card of Busby (or Healy, to be more technically accurate), he was a young right-hander who seemed destined for Hall of Fame greatness.

So who was Steve Busby? As a high school pitcher, he flashed enormous talent, but was also dogged by injuries. The San Francisco Giants (who would coincidentally become one of Fran Healy’s teams) selected him in the fourth round of the 1967 amateur draft, but lessened their offer after Busby came down with a knee injury. Rather than accept the discounted offer, Busby enrolled at the University of Southern California and led the Trojans to the College World Series title in 1971.

That same year, the Royals drafted Busby in the second round. He signed relatively quickly and reported to San Jose of the California League, where he dominated the competition. Busby made seven starts, won four of them, and limited opponents with an ERA of 0.68. With 50 strikeouts in 40 innings, Busby was clearly above the level of competition being provided by Class-A ball.

The following summer, the Royals promoted Busby to Double-A Omaha, where he forged a deceptive record of 12-14. He was far better than that record indicated, carving a 3.19 ERA and striking out 221 batters in 217 innings. Other than a streak of wildness, which accounted for 13 wild pitches, Busby’s performance convinced the Royals he was ready for major league duty. When the Royals expanded their roster on Sept. 1, they included Busby among the call-ups and added him to their rotation. He made five starts, allowed only 28 hits in 40 innings, and pitched to an ERA of 1.58. The late-season audition convinced the Royals that Busby would be part of their fulltime rotation in 1973.

It did not take long for Busby to make a distinct impression on the beat writers and broadcasters following the Royals. One writer described Busby as “a highly verbal, analytical man” whose diverse interests ranged from computer science to science fiction. In fact, while at USC, Busby had written several science fiction stories in a style that was reminiscent to that of Rod Serling. He quickly became a favorite interview subject, as much for his personality and his openness as his vast pitching talents.

On the field, Busby joined a rotation that included young veterans like left-hander Paul Splittorff, who was the established staff ace, and right-handers Dick Drago and Al Fitzmorris. Busby emerged as a workhorse, throwing 238 innings, which was second only to Splittorff among Kansas City starters. With his power stuff, highlighted by a devastating fastball and slider, he struck out 174 hitters and won 16 games, but his ERA rose to 4.23. The culprit? It was Busby’s wildness. He walked 105 batters and issued nine wild pitches. The lack of control remained the one obstacle between Busby and American League domination.

In 1974, Busby improved his control, lowering his walks total to 92 while increasing his innings pitched to 292. He made 38 starts, completed 20 of them, and pitched so well that he earned selection to the All-Star Game and picked up some MVP votes at season’s end.

As he approached the 20-win mark for the season, a reporter asked Busby about the possibility of reaching the milestone. His answer offered a clue about his never-ending drive for success. “Winning 20 would not give me complete satisfaction if we didn’t win. Frankly, I hope I’m never satisfied because satisfied people are complacent,” Busby told sportswriter Sid Bordman. “Maybe I’m searching for something I can’t find. I always try to improve. I guess I’m a perfectionist.

Busby would improve in 1975. Maintaining his competitive streak, he pitched more efficiently in 1975, though with a decreased workload caused by arm problems. In 260 innings, he posted a career-best ERA of 3.08. He also won 18 games for a Royals team that finished a strong second in the West Division. Making his second consecutive All-Star team, Busby made it clear that he had arrived as a pitching star.

In June, though, Busby felt something wrong in his shoulder. It was initially diagnosed as tendinitis. He continued to pitch, but the pain worsened, forcing him to the disabled list before the end of the season. A medical examination revealed a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder, an injury that had previously been the death knell for pitching careers. Rotator cuff surgery had only recently been introduced; it was decided that Busby would undergo the surgery, making him the first major league pitcher to do so.

After the rotator cuff procedure, the doctor recommended that Busby be placed on a strict pitch count. Some have speculated that this was the first time in history that a pitcher has been placed on a pitch count by his team, but Busby has disputed that assertion, saying that other pitchers in his era had been placed on pitch limits after suffering injuries.

In contrast to the pioneering Tommy John surgery, which proved a success with the pitcher of the same name, the first rotator cuff surgery failed to reach the same level of glory. Busby would return to a major league mound, but would not come close to regaining the effectiveness of his younger days. He made an abbreviated comeback in 1978, after a stint in the minor leagues, but made only seven starts and saw his ERA balloon to 7.59. He pitched better in 1978, splitting his time between starting and relief, but his power fastball was gone, his velocity reduced to a maximum velocity in the high 80s. He started the 1980 season at Triple-A and then made 11 appearances for the Royals, but it was obvious that his arm strength had completely left him.

With a 6.17 ERA and only 12 strikeouts in 42 innings, Busby suspected that the end was near. The Royals thought as much, giving Busby his release about a month before the end of the season and denying him a chance to play in that fall’s World Series. But Busby decided to give it one more shot, signing a make-good contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. He reported to spring training as a non-roster invitee, but failed to make the team and finally called it quits.

The fall had come too quickly for Busby. Within two years of the issue of his 1975 Topps card, he had injured his arm in the most serious of ways. He would never win more than six games in a season after 1975, and now found himself out of baseball only five years later. In many ways, his career mirrored that of the meteoric rise and rapid fall of Mark Fidrych, but without the colorful antics and amusing side story of the man known as “The Bird.”

No one could have known that some 35 years later Busby’s notoriety in the game would be matched by Fran Healy. Although he served most of his playing days as a backup catcher with the Giants, Royals and Yankees, Healy’s presence as a longtime New York broadcaster made him just as well-known as Busby.

Coincidentally, Busby also became a broadcaster—not a surprising development given his easy manner with the spoken word—but in the far smaller market encompassed by the Texas Rangers. Busby still works for the Rangers, doing play-by-play in a two-man booth with Tom Grieve. He has done well in what can be a difficult industry, achieving long-term success at the local level. And he is also well remembered in Kansas City, where he broadcast briefly and earned a place in the Royals’ Hall of Fame.

But at the national level, Steve Busby has become something of an obscure figure. It seems that fans of today’s generation know little about him, and just how remarkable a pitcher he was for those few splendid seasons back in the 1970s. At his peak, Busby was the most talented pitcher the Royals have ever had, better than Bret Saberhagen, or Dennis Leonard or Yordano Ventura. For those like me who remember Busby at his best, it seems a bit unjust how overlooked he has become.

In a strange way, Busby’s 1975 Topps card, and its classic case of mistaken identity, were harbingers of things to come, a sign of how easily one can become anonymous in the vast, sometimes cruel world of baseball.

References & Resources

• National Baseball Hall of Fame Library
• The Sporting News