Tuesday, November 22, 2016

1976 PROJECT: A RE-DO FOR TOM PACIOREK

Here is a card that wasn’t missing from the 1976 Topps set, but one that “Reader Jim” requested I redesign to show the player as a member of the team he suited up for in 1975, Tom Paciorek:


While Paciorek found himself as a member of the Atlanta Braves in 1976, with Topps airbrushing him to show this change of scenery, we created a card that shows him as a Los Angeles Dodgers player, the team he came up with in 1970, and the team he appeared in 62 games for the previous year.
Paciorek batted .193 for the Dodgers that year, collecting 28 hits over 145 at-bats while playing the outfield as a spot starter and player off the bench.
After spending two-and-a-half years in Atlanta he moved on to the Seattle Mariners, where he actually began getting full-time work and found his stroke topping .300 a few times with a high of .326 in the strike-shortened 1981 campaign.
He would go on the play 18 years in the Major Leagues, making it all the way to 1987 with 27 appearances for the Texas Rangers before calling it a career.
All told he’d end up with a very nice .282 batting average with 1162 hits in 4121 at-bats over 1392 games, with an All-Star game nod in 1981.

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