Sal Bando was a 4-time All-Star, won 3 World Series with the A’s, finished second in 1971 MVP voting to teammate Vida Blue and was the GM of the Brewers from October, 1991 to August, 1999.
He also did a guest appearance on a 2006 episode of The Simpsons!
Two things that struck me about Sal Bando when preparing this post…
1) He looks like an ordinary guy. Maybe it’s just the jaded view from the midst of the steroid era, but he looks normal.
2) He lead the American League in a very wide variety of statistics; check it out:
1968: Putouts at 3B, 188
1969: Plate Appearances, 734; Errors at 3B, 24
1970: Putouts at 3B, 158
1973: Doubles, 32; Extra Base Hits, 64; Total Bases, 295
1974: Sacrifice Flies, 13
1975: Double Plays turned at 3B, 36
Sal Bando is one of those guys I can only picture as an Athletic. I stumbled across his 1981 Topps card last month and thought it was a mistake. Then realized he’d been playing with the Brewers for several years.
It’s funny how some guys are like that. I wouldn’t say that I can’t picture Bando with the Brewers, but it never looks right.