Wednesday, July 21, 2021

NICKNAMES OF THE 1970's- BURT "HAPPY" HOOTON

On the blog today, we have a 1973 "nickname" card for former pitcher Burt Hooton, aka "Happy", who had himself a very nice 15-year Major League career:

 
Hooton was just coming off his first full season in the Big Leagues when this card would have seen the light of day, posting an excellent 2.80 earned run average over 33 appearances with three shutouts.
The highlight of course would be April 16th of 1972, making just his fourth start of his career, when he no-hit the Philadelphia Phillies 4-0 at Wrigley Field.
As I stated earlier, he would go on to have an excellent 15-year run, mainly with the Los Angeles Dodgers, which saw him be a part of three National League champion teams, as well as a World Championship in 1981.
His post-season resume was very good, finishing at 6-3 with an ERA at 3.17 over eleven starts, with 33 strikeouts and a complete game.
His final regular season numbers: 151 wins against 136 losses, a very nice 3.38 ERA and 1491 strikeouts in 480 appearances (377 of those starts), and 2652 innings pitched, with 29 shutouts and seven saves.