Up on the blog today we take a closer look at the
image variations between former pitcher Jackie Brown's 1977 OPC and
Topps cards:
After two seasons with the
Cleveland Indians, Brown found himself North of the border with the
Montreal Expos, and the fine folks at OPC tried their best to show him
with his new team, giving us the airbrushed beauty you see here.
As
for Topps, since they hit the presses earlier than OPC, we're given the
nice posed shot of the righty in all that maroon Cleveland glory, which
is fine by me!
Brown pitched for seven years in the Majors,
originally coming up in 1970 with the Washington Senators, for whom he'd
pitch the first four and a half years of his career.
As
mentioned earlier he'd put in two years with the Indians before one
season in Montreal, where he'd go 9-12 over 42 appearances, tossing
185.2 innings with six complete games and a couple of shutouts,
finishing with an ERA of 4.51.
For his playing career he would
go 47-53 over 214 games, with a 4.18 ERA in 892.2 innings of work, with
eight shutouts and three saves along the way.
After his
playing days he would go into coaching, where he would put in time with
the Texas Rangers (1979-82), Chicago White Sox (1992-95), and Tampa Bay
Devil Rays (2002), while also holding the title of Minor League Pitching
Coordinator for various organizations before passing away at the age of
73 in 2017.
A baseball lifer through and through.