1977 BLUE JAYS REDONE- JIM MASON

Next up in my on-going “Expansion Do-Overs” for the 1977 Blue Jays and Mariners cards is former shortstop Jim Mason, who went from the 1976 World Series, where he hit a home run for the New York Yankees, to the newly formed Toronto Blue Jays, and had this ridiculous photo used on his card by Topps, where it looked like he was crying:

Re-dome with a smile

Seriously, is he crying?

Topps really had some killer images in that 1977 set: Darrel Chaney, John Lowenstein, and this gem, which I replaced with an image that actually shows Mason smiling.
Originally a member of the Washington Senators/Texas Rangers between 1971 and 1973, Mason played for the Yankees between 1974 and 1976, getting his only full-time role during his nine-year career in 1974, appearing in 152 games and batting .250 with 110 hits in 440 at-bats.
Until writing this blog entry, I never realized that between 1975 and 1979, the last five seasons of his career, Mason never reached the .200 mark in batting!
His averages are as follows: .152, .180, .187, .190 and .183.
So in all fairness, we could be talking about the “Mason-Line” instead of the “Mendoza-Line” all these years later!
Nevertheless, Mason would end up hitting .203 over his career, collecting 322 hits over 1584 at-bats in 634 games, finishing up with the Montreal Expos in 1979.