Final Card: Hector Lopez

Hector Lopez (#177) was signed by the then-Philadelphia Athletics, and played in their farm system from 1951 to May 1955. His major-league debut was on May 12, 1955 with Kansas City. From 1955 to 1959, he played 3rd base and some 2nd base.

In May 1959, he was traded to (naturally) the New York Yankees. (Fellow Athletics' teammate Roger Maris would follow him at the end of the season.) Beginning in 1960, Lopez played exclusively in the outfield, usually in left field.



For those of you who never heard of Hector Lopez (and I was among them, before poking around on baseball-reference.com a few years ago), here's how he fit into the Yankees outfield (click to enlarge):

(I used 1966 as the cutoff, because Maris and Lopez left after 1966, and Mantle moved to 1st base in 1967.)

Lopez was released by the Yankees following the 1966 season. He played 2 more seasons with the Senators' triple-A team in Hawaii (1967) and Buffalo (1968).