Today
we look at a great card, the 1977 Kurt Bevacqua, which is an airbrushed
image so Topps could show him, as all others in this thread, as members
of the new clubs in town, the Seattle Mariners (or Toronto Blue Jays):
Interesting thing is, Bevacqua would end up never playing an inning of
ball for the Mariners, getting released by the team before the season
even started after being purchased from the Milwaukee Brewers just a few
months earlier.
Nevertheless, Topps managed to get some “real” images of him in a
Mariners uni before he was let go, so I re-did the original, so here you
go:
Bevacqua managed to sigh with a new team less than a month after being
released by Seattle, the Texas Rangers, where he’d play for the next
couple of seasons before moving on to the San Diego Padres in 1979.
He’d be on the move once again in 1980, getting traded to the Pittsburgh
Pirates for, among others, the ever wonderfully-named Rick Lancellotti,
before making it back to the Padres in 1982.
Of course, that last stint in the Majors, with the Padres from 1982
through 1985 would give him his the most memorable moment in the Majors
(well unless you consider that sweet 1976 Topps bubble-blowing card the
peak of his career), when he hit a three-run home run in Game Two of the
1984 World Series against the eventual World Champion Detroit Tigers,
giving the Padres their only win in the series.
Overall, he’d end up playing 15-years in the Majors, mainly as a platoon
or part-time player, batting .236 over 970 games with 499 hits over
2117 at-bats for six teams.