Wednesday, February 22, 2023

OPC IMAGE VARIATIONS: 1977 STEVE BRAUN

Today on the blog we take a look at Steve Braun and his 1977 image variation between his Topps and OPC cards, with both airbrushed images, this time with Topps coming out the winner in my opinion:

OPC version

Topps version
 
As I said, I'll take the Topps airbrush version on this one since the OPC one is a bit more "cartoonish".
Drafted away from the Minnesota Twins by the new Seattle Mariner franchise in the November, 1976 expansion draft, Braun would put in a season and a half with the team before being shipped off to the Kansas City Royals mid-way through the 1978 season.
Originally up with the Twins in 1971, he ended up putting in 15 years in the Majors, the first half as a starter and the rest as a guy off the bench, hitting a very respectable ,271 over that time, seeing a championship in 1982 as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals.
He'd finish with 989 hits in 3650 at-bats, with 52 homers and 388 runs batted in along with 466 runs scored in 1425 games between 1971 and 1985, the last game of his career being a pinch-hitting appearance in the 1985 World Series for St. Louis.
Not a bad way to go out!