1971 Fantasy Astrology Leaders
View the 1971 FABL Lineups Here!
As I go further back through history, my instinct is to spend more time examining the specifics of each season. This is likely due to lack of familiarity: I was an active fan through most of the 1990s, and I had a cursory knowledge of the 80’s from an inherited baseball card collection. But the 70’s and earlier are largely new territory for me. So I’m going to follow my gut and spend some time examining the leaders of the 1971 Fantasy Astrology Baseball League season.
Going by strict positional eligibility in 1971, neither right fielder Pete Rose (1,779 / 11.1) nor first baseman George Scott (1,545 / 10.6) would have made the Aries starting lineup. Rose was eclipsed by the sign’s top offensive point scorer Rusty Staub (2,232 / 13.8) in right field. Then a trio of centerfielders (Reggie Smith (2,174 / 13.7), Willie Davis (1,934 / 12.2) and Willie Montanez (1,950 / 12.3) in his Positive Polarity Rookie of the Year season) beat out Rose for the rest of the outfield and the (anachronistic) DH spot. Meanwhile, Scott falls behind both Lee May (2,007 / 13.7) and Nate Colbert (1,824 / 11.7) on the first base depth chart.
However, baseball’s all-time hit leader Rose started his career as a second baseman, even though he hadn’t played enough games to qualify at the position since 1967. And Scott was primarily a third baseman in both 1969 and ’70, plus he would return to the hot corner for 23 games in ’72, after going from the Red Sox to the Brewers. If we put Rose and Scott at their secondary positions, that keeps the ’71 Rams from having to rely on light hitting infielders Jim Fregosi (690 / 6.4) and Bernie Allen (549 / 5.7) in key spots.
Using this slightly cheated defensive alignment – as well as slotting Woodie Fryman (1,352 / 36.5) into a bullpen slot, despite his 17 starts in 37 appearances – gives Aries not just the top spot in the Fire Division, but the most fantasy points in the 1971 FABL. If, however, we stick to actual qualified players, Aries is supplanted in both spots by the Leo Lions. We last saw positional eligibility change the overall yearly point leader in 1975, but in that circumstance, both Aries and Libra would still make the playoffs. Not until 1991 was there a positional eligibility controversy that actually kicked a team out of both the top spot AND the playoff picture in general, with Capricorn falling to Virgo.
I made a couple of questionable positional decisions for Leo as well, allowing third baseman Doug Rader (1,137 / 8.4) to slot in at shortstop over Eddie Leon (771 / 5.9), and corner outfielder Cleon Jones (1,618 / 11.9) to man center field over his real-life Mets teammate Tommie Agee (1,462 / 12.9). But the point differences between the starters and the alternates were minimal in these cases, and didn’t affect the sign’s top offensive performers: third baseman Graig Nettles (1,918 / 12.1), right fielder Roberto Clemente (1,819 / 13.8), left fielders Frank Howard (1,739 / 11.4) and Carl Yastrzemski (1,533 / 11.1), and first baseman Boog Powell (1,596 / 12.5).
But the true star of the Lions, and in fact all of baseball in 1971, was Vida Blue (4,068 / 104.3), who won the real-life MVP and Cy Young Awards for the Oakland Athletics. The 21-year-old from Louisiana led the real-life AL with a 1.82 ERA, eight shutouts, and a 0.952 WHIP, on his way to just the second 4,000-point fantasy season since that time (not counting Shohei Ohtani’s combined pitching/hitting point totals in 2021). The other was Steve Carlton’s amazing performance the very next year, which leads to the question of whether 4,000-point pitching seasons were commonplace in the pre-DH years… but we’ll have to continue further with this project before we can make that judgment.
As with Leo, the strength of Aries was their starting staff, with six (6!) hurlers breaking the 2,000-point threshhold. To the familiar foursome of Don Sutton (2,742 / 72.2), Catfish Hunter (2,688 / 72.6), Bert Blyleven (2,602 / 68.5), and Phil Niekro (2,369 / 56.4), the Rams also added Expos ace Bill Stoneman (2,468 / 63.3) and both Marty Pattin (2,277 / 63.3) and Steve Blass (2,108 / 63.9) as alternates.
Where the Lions have the clear edge is relief pitching: while Aries failed to produce even one dedicated reliever with more than 830 points on the season, Leo had three lefties who served as legit closers for their real-life teams. These were Fred Scherman (1,633 / 23.7) on the Tigers (the top Positive Polarity reliever), Tom Burgmeier (1,457 / 21.7) for the Royals (although he split ninth inning duties with Pisces Ted Abernathy (1,320 / 21.0)), and Paul Lindblad (1,202 / 23.6), who led the hapless Washington Senators with just eight saves.
Since I can’t resist branching out into the other major awards winners of the year, I’ll just quickly mention that Cancer Crabs won three out of four in the Negative Polarity. Catcher-turned-third baseman Joe Torre (2,680 / 16.6) scored the most offensive points in the majors - in front of Aquarius slugger Henry Aaron (2,547 / 18.3), who won the Positive Polarity MVP award. Cancer also had the NP’s best relief pitcher - Ken Sanders (2,230 / 26.9) of the Brewers - and rookie - catcher Earl Williams (1,819 / 13.8), who was Aaron’s real-life teammate on the Braves. As far as starting pitching, that honor goes to Virgo Mickey Lolich (3,744 / 83.2), who was still well behind Vida Blue for best fantasy pitcher in the majors.