#CardCorner: 1978 Topps Rawly Eastwick

In 1977, Eastwick lost some life on his fastball. At the June 15 trading deadline, the Reds dealt him to St. Louis, where he struggled for the balance of the season. The Cardinals did not resign him, allowing him to test the free agent waters. That’s how he landed in New York.

Eastwick did not become one of the most integral member of the 1978 World Champion Yankees, as he made only a handful of relief appearances. Eastwick’s early-season presence in pinstripes, however, did provide one of the first controversies of that tumultuous summer. With Eastwick, Gossage, and Lyle all on the ’78 roster to start the season, manager Billy Martin had an overload of ace relievers. Martin picked Gossage to close most of the time (sticking with him despite an early season slump), employed Lyle in a late-inning set-up role, and Eastwick had few opportunities.

It’s not that Eastwick pitched badly in his eight Yankee appearances. He merely became a hood ornament in Martin’s game plan, where starting pitchers piled up loads of innings and only Billy’s best relievers received the ball in meaningful situations. If only Eastwick were pitching in today’s game; he would have been the ideal seventh inning man, setting up Lyle for the eighth and Gossage for the ninth.

The easygoing Eastwick made a number of friends among his Yankee teammates, but Martin never seemed to gain trust in pitching him. Crowded out of the New York bullpen, Eastwick became expendable. The Yankees dealt him to the Philadelphia Phillies for outfielder Jay “Moon Man” Johnstone and minor league outfielder Bobby Brown. In a way, the trade fulfilled a dream, in that Eastwick had once dreamed about playing for the Phillies. Having grown up in Haddonfield, N.J, Eastwick had often attended games with his father at Connie Mack Stadium. Yet the Phillies didn’t scout Eastwick aggressively and never even approached him as he pitched in the amateur ranks.

Unfortunately for Eastwick, the Phillies’ 1978 bullpen was almost as full as New York’s. With Gene Garber, Tug McGraw, and Ron Reed available to soak up the late innings, opportunities for Eastwick continued to dwindle - as did his fastball. Perhaps done in by the 204 innings he logged in 1976 and ’77, Eastwick never regained his dominance while with the Phillies, the Kansas City Royals, or the Chicago Cubs and found himself out of baseball by 1981.

Outside of his meteoric success with the “Big Red Machine” and his brief dalliance with the Yankees, the pencil-thin right-hander created interest because of his offbeat habits. Eastwick practiced transcendental meditation, something he had done ever since childhood in an effort to rid himself of anxiety. Also, during his first spring with the Yankees, Eastwick bragged about a new diet that he had started. It was a regimen that eliminated red meat and foods containing preservatives or dyes, which was a relatively radical diet for the time period.