Tuesday, December 26, 2023

OPC IMAGE VARIATIONS: 1977 DENNIS BLAIR

Here's a strange one for you all today, a closer look at the image variation on former Montreal Expos pitcher Dennis Blair's 1977 Topps and OPC cards:

OPC version

Topps version


Not much of a difference huh? Yet they went ahead and used pretty much the same image with a slightly different angle for his cards. Very odd for the effort.
Looks to be the same photo shoot, with one shot from a few steps to the left of the other, as you can see the light tower and scoreboard shift way in the background. Oh well!
As for Blair, he originally came up to the Big Leagues in 1974 as a 20-year-old, having a nice rookie year that saw him go 11-7 for the Expos, with a nice 3.27 earned run average over 22 appearances, all starts.
Over those 22 starts he threw 146 innings, completing four games with one of them a shutout, striking out 76 while walking 72 (ouch).
He'd pretty much pitch just as well the following year, with a lot less support, as evidenced by his 8-15 record with a 3.80 ERA over 30 appearances (27 starts), though he did walk 106 batters against his 82 strikeouts.
Sadly arm issues set in during the 1976 season, as he would appear in only five games, going 0-2 with a 4.02 ERA before spending the next four years in the Minors Leagues for various organizations.
In 1980 he would make a comeback to the Majors, now with the San Diego Padres, appearing in five games but with little success, going 0-1 with a 6.43 ERA over 14 innings of work, thus concluding a four-year Big League tenure that had him end up 19-25 over 62 games, with a 3.69 ERA in 339 innings, with 178 strikeouts and 192 walks allowed.

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