More on the criminal side of him later, but first let’s go over his 1978 season shall we?
You think a pitcher who appeared in 20 games with 107 innings pitched would actually get his own card, but instead Topps decided that wasn’t enough action to do so, so he ends up on a rookie card with two other guys.
How does that work?
He would go 4-8 with a 4.37 earned run average in that big league action, with 17 of those appearances being starts!
Call me crazy but that deserves a dedicated card, not a spot on a multi-player card.
He would pitch another two seasons with Seattle through 1980 before making a comeback of sorts in 1983 with the California Angels when he appeared in 16 games before calling it a career.
All told he finished with a 16-25 record over 129 games, 35 of which were starts along with a 5.11 ERA in 378.1 innings of work.
Afterwards, seems like Mr. McLaughlin ended up in Mexico producing bootleg athletic footwear like Adidas and Nike for some Korean business associates, finally getting nailed by the Feds, only to skip out on bail and evade capture to thgis very day.
Some think he’s in South America somewhere, while others say Europe.
Either way he’s been one step ahead of authorities for about 30 years now, so who knows if he’s even alive at this point.
Crazy.
