Monday, April 1, 2019

NICKNAMES OF THE 1970S: "DOWNTOWN" OLLIE BROWN

It’s about time I added “Downtown” Ollie Brown to the long-running “Nicknames of the 1970’s” thread, and I threw a bit of a twist by creating a 1973 edition while he was with the Oakland A’s:


Finding this image made me think it’d be fun to create the card while he was with Oakland, definitely not a team he’s closely associated with.
Nevertheless, here it is, in all that green and gold glory.
Brown had his best MLB seasons behind him at this point, when he was one of the first fan favorites for the expansion San Diego Padres from 1969 through 1972.
But his career wasn’t done yet as he would go on to play through the 1977 season, finishing up his 13-year Big League career with a .265 batting average along with 102 homers, 454 runs batted in and 964 hits over 1221 games between 1965 and 1977.
It’s amazing to realize that he retired at the age of only 33. For me it seemed like by the time he was with the Philadelphia Phillies at the end of his career he was pushing 40!