As I stated earlier, when I had my post on the great airbrushing
job on the 1977 Doyle Alexander card, some of you wrote in and mentioned
a few other great paint-jobs pre-Photoshop by Topps.
Here's one of the cards mentioned: 1976 Nelson Briles:
Man, you really have to appreciate the work that was done on this photo!
The shadowing on the chest area, the "Rangers" across the jersey and the cap. All great work!
Sure, if you carefully scan the image you can see the small imperfections. But overall a wonderful job by the Topps crew.
Briles was just about to start his short tenure with the Rangers,
pitching about a year and a half after putting in two years with the
Kansas City Royals.
His peak years were with the team he came up with, the St. Louis Cardinals.
In 1967 he posted a 14-5 record with the World Champs, leading the
league in winning percentage with a nice .737 mark, along with a 2.43
earned run average, two shutouts and six saves in 49 games, 14 of which
were starts.
The following year he went 19-11 with a 2.81 E.R.A., four shutouts and 141 strikeouts over the course of 33 games, all starts.
By the time he retired after the 1978 season he finished with a
129-112 record, with a 3.44 E.R.A., 17 shutouts and 1163 strikeouts over
452 games, of which 279 were starts.
