Tuesday, October 20, 2015

MISSING IN ACTION- 1977 BUDDY BRADFORD

Here’s a fun card, particularly because of the uniform worn by the player on this “missing” card, a 1977 “Missing in Action” Buddy Bradford.
Take a look:
 

As you know the White Sox players were all sporting the new blue and white uni’s (some had to be airbrushed into them for lack of photos), but I just could not find an image of Bradford in one of them, perhaps because he never actually got to wear one since his career was over by the end of the 1976 season.
So here we have a unique 1977 White Sox card with a player sporting the red and white uniform that was already gone by the time the 1977 cards came out.
Nevertheless, Bradford appeared in 55 games during 1976, with 184 plate appearances and a .219 batting average based on his 35 hits over 160 official at-bats.
He closed out a respectable 11-year career which saw him suit up for the White Sox three separate times, the Cleveland Indians, The Cincinnati Reds and  St. Louis Cardinals.
He hit .226 for his career with 363 hits in 1605 at-bats, with 50 doubles, eight triples and 52 homers on top of his 224 runs scored and 175 runs batted in.