Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Angel Bravo (#283)

Angel Bravo is the oldest living player (with a card in the 1966-70 sets) that I have not yet featured on a blog.

He had a very brief major-league career with the White Sox (1969), Reds (1970-71), and Padres (1971).

He was signed by the White Sox in 1963, and played in the minors every season from 1963 to 1972, except for the 1970 season. He also played in the Mexican League from 1973-76, and the Inter-American League in 1979.

After 3 seasons in class-A ball, he advanced to AA in 1966. He played at the AA and AAA levels in '67 and '68. In 1969 he led the Pacific Coast League with a .342 batting average.


Angel made his major-league debut with the White Sox in June 1969, and started 2 dozen games in center field, mostly in late-June and mid-September. After the season he was traded to the Reds for pitcher Gerry Arrigo.

Bravo spent the entire 1970 season on the Reds' roster (his only season not in the minors). The Reds lineup being what it was, Bravo rarely got any playing time, starting only 6 games in center field (to Bobby Tolan's 146 starts), and was the team's 8th outfielder (behind even Johnny Bench and Jimmy Stewart). Although only playing parts of 22 games in the field, he did get into 43 other games as a pinch-hitter.

In mid-May 1971 he was traded to the Padres for OF Al Ferrara. Once again he was mostly a pinch-hitter, since the Padres had Cito Gaston and Ollie Brown as everyday outfielders, along with Larry Stahl, Leron Lee, and Ivan Murrell all sharing left field. Bravo’s last major-league games came in September 1971.

He played all of 1972 for San Diego's AAA team in Hawaii, then played in Mexico for 4 seasons. In 1979 he played 15 games in the ill-fated Inter-American League before it folded.

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The Inter-American League lasted only 3 months in 1979. It planned to play 130 games, but 2 teams (Panama and Puerto Rico) dropped out in mid-June. Two weeks later the league folded.

The standings at that time were:
1. Miami (72 games played)
2. Caracas (64)
3. Santo Domingo (67)
4. Maricaibo (67)
5. Panama (51)
6. Puerto Rico (55)

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