I
love coming across the original images that were “touched up” by Topps
for their releases during the 1970’s. Here’s another, the image used for
former pitcher Bill Bonham’s 1978 card, reflecting his new team the
Cincinnati Reds:
Not a bad job here by the Topps artists! Once they saturated the image in production it really came out well.
Bonham spent the first seven seasons of his Big League career with the
Chicago Cubs, and though you may think leading the league with 22 losses
in 1974 is a terrible thing, you’d be surprised to see that besides the
losses, the campaign was perhaps his best season of his 10-year career!
He posted a 3.83 earned run average over 36 starts, with ten complete
games, two shutouts and 191 strikeouts over 242.2 innings pitched.
Obviously being a pitcher on a hard-luck team leaves you snake-bitten
(unless your name is Fergie Jenkins!), but Bonham did follow up that
year with a 13-15 season in 1975, though with an ERA almost a run higher
at 4.71.
He’d have a nice first year with the Reds, going 11-5 with a 3.53 ERA
over 23 appearances, all starts, and would go 9-7 and 2-1 over the last
two years of his career, finishing up with a record of 75-83 along with
an ERA of 4.01 over 300 appearances and 1487.1 innings between 1971 and
1980.