1967 Fantasy Astrology Recap
View the 1967 FABL Lineups Here!
The 1967 season could be scarily relevant for one team in particular, as ’67 marked the last year when the Athletics played in Kansas City. Charlie Finley moved his team to Oakland in 1968, where they’ve remained ever since. Although the sepcter of a move to Las Vegas haunts the franchise now more than ever before, with the A’s owning the worst record in the American League. I’m just hoping they keep the green and gold uniforms, wherever they end up, but I’m afraid that the inherent gaudiness of Sin City will corrupt the soul of my favorite team.
For those of you hoping to see a (reverse-chronological) continuation of the pitching dominance of 1968 - with multiple 4,000-point performances, and pitchers occupying most of the top 30 spots on the fantasy leaderboard - I regret to inform you that things were more balanced in 1967. In fact, only one pitcher even reached 3,000 points: Jim Bunning (3,239 / 81.0), who pitched for the Air Division-leading Libra Scales. The Negative Polarity’s top pitcher also led a division winner: Gaylord Perry’s (2,885 / 74.0) Virgo Flowers came in on top in the Earth Division.
But as for the top scoring team in the whole league… well, that’s a matter of some debate. You may recall that for pitchers who had 10 or more games started, but who had more than 50% of their appearances in relief for any given season, I allow them to qualify for either the starting rotation or the bullpen. But when going by strict eligibility rules, I ignore these “utility pitchers,” because they don’t fit neatly into either category. Using my preferred method, Leo comes out on top, thanks to the trio of Nelson Briles (1,822 / 37.2 – 14 starts in 49 appearances), Jose Santiago (1,452 / 29.0 – 11 out of 50), and Bill Monbouquette (1,280 / 36.6 – 10 out of 35). But without counting utility pitchers, Aries jumps into the lead, despite having to sacrifice the points total of Phil Niekro (2,432 / 52.9 – 20 out of 46), the best primary reliever in the league.
But now that we’ve gone through the bubble cases, let’s move to the true top performers of each sign. For Aries, this was Jim Lonborg (2,848 / 73.0), who won the real-life AL Cy Young Award for the Red Sox, despite being outscored by Bunning, Fergie Jenkins (2,988 / 78.6), and Dean Chance (2,915 / 71.1), of Libra, Sagittarius, and Gemini, respectively. Leo’s top starter was Joe (or Joel?) Horlen (2,824 / 80.7), one of the co-aces of the real-life White Sox, along with Taurus Gary Peters (2,810 / 73.9). But the true star of Leo, and indeed the whole MLB in 1967, was Triple Crown winner Carl Yastrzemski (2,839 / 17.6). Yaz led the AL in batting average, home runs, and RBI, the last player to do so until Miguel Cabrera in 2012… who was the last player to do so since. By contrast, the top Aries batter in 1967 was Pete Rose (1,883 / 12.7), in his last season to actually qualify as a second baseman.
Despite being the worst of the FABL divisions, each Water sign had a winner of one of the major awards. Cancer first baseman Harmon Killebrew (2,507 / 15.4) took home the MVP, which he would win again two years later in 1969. Scorpio’s Tom Seaver (2,280 / 65.1) was the polarity’s best rookie, even though he was outscored by positive hurlers Dick Hughes (2,578 / 69.7) and Gary Nolan (2,393 / 72.5), of Aquarius and Gemini, respectively. But the division-winning Pisces Fish got there thanks in part to the pole’s top TWO relief pitchers: Ted Abernathy (2,164 / 30.9) and Bob Locker (1,930 / 25.1). But the real Pisces strength was a lineup built around center fielder Jim Wynn (2,294 / 14.5) and the third base tandem of Ron Santo (2,285 / 14.2) and Dick Allen (2,102 / 17.2).