Saturday, January 11, 2020

AIRBRUSHING THROUGH THE 1970s- 1977 ALAN ASHBY

Time to go and add former catcher Alan Ashby’s 1977 card to the long-running “airbrushing through the 1970s” thread, with a closer look at the original touched up image used:


Nice job of the airbrusher turning what was originally a shot of Ashby in a Cleveland Indians uniform into a shot of him in a Blue Jays uni, especially when one considers there really wasn’t much reference yet as the team hadn’t played a single MLB game at the time this was created.
As for Ashby, after being traded to the Jays from the Cleveland Indians in November of 1976, Ashby would go on to put in two seasons for the expansion team before moving on to play for the Houston Astros  for the next eleven years. I never realized that his career to him all the way to the doorsteps of the 1990 decade, finishing up with 22 games for the Astros in 1989 after 17-years as a Major League catcher.
In those 17 seasons he batted .245 while playing in 1370 games, collecting 1010 hits with 90 home runs and 513 runs batted in over 4123 official at-bats. After his baseball career ended as a player he hung around the game as a coach in the Astros system as well as a broadcaster for the Astros in both radio and television.