FIXING AN ADMITTEDLY ALL-TIME CLASSIC: 1978 MIKE PAXTON

Today on the blog, I am finally "fixing" a card that I'm sure many of you would NOT want fixed, the classic 1978 card for former pitcher Mike Paxton, who had himself quite an airbrush job.

Here's what Topps had out there in the Spring of 1978:

And now here is my re-done card with real image:

Always loved the 1978 Mike Paxton card, which along with the Greg Minton card from the same set and the Mike Jones card from 1977, made for some strange imagery on Topps baseball cards.

While Topps did it’s thing to airbrush caps and uni’s in the 1970’s to portray guys on the correct team, this one went above and beyond!
Looking at it, I’m assuming it was either a Minor League color image, or a black and white image that was colorized.
Classic Topps from the era!
Paxton had himself a very nice rookie year for the Red Sox in 1977, going 10-5 with a 3.83 ERA over 29 appearances, 12 of them starts.
Of course, the ultimate irony is that Paxton didn’t even PLAY for the Red Sox in 1978, as he was part of the Dennis Eckersley deal in March of 1978, sending him to the Cleveland Indians, where he had another nice year that saw him post a record of 12-11 with a 3.86 ERA in 33 appearances, 27 of which were starts, with two shutouts and a save.
Sadly for him, he developed arm trouble the following season, seeing his ERA balloon to 5.92 while going 8-8 before managing to appear in only four games in 1980 before calling it a career.

 

THE GREAT 1978 CARD FOR MIKE PAXTON-AND THE IRONY INVOLVED

Always loved the 1978 Mike Paxton card, which along with the Greg Minton card from the same set and the Mike Jones card from 1977, made for some strange imagery on Topps baseball cards:

While Topps did it’s thing to airbrush caps and uni’s in the 1970’s to portray guys on the correct team, this one went above and beyond!
Looking at it, I’m assuming it was either a Minor League color image, or a black and white image that was colorized.
Classic Topps from the era!
Paxton had himself a very nice rookie year for the Red Sox in 1977, going 10-5 with a 3.83 ERA over 29 appearances, 12 of them starts.
Of course, the ultimate irony is that Paxton didn’t even PLAY for the Red Sox in 1978, as he was part of the Dennis Eckersley deal in March of 1978, sending him to the Cleveland Indians, where he had another nice year that saw him post a record of 12-11 with a 3.86 ERA in 33 appearances, 27 of which were starts, with two shutouts and a save.
Sadly for him, he developed arm trouble the following season, seeing his ERA balloon to 5.92 while going 8-8 before managing to appear in only four games in 1980 before calling it a career.

PLAYERS FROM THE CARTOON WORLD...

Remember the Seinfeld episode when Jerry is trying to explain to Kramer that he started "evening out" his chest hair, but then one thing lead to another and he ended up shaving his entire chest?
That's the kind of situation I recently thought of when I revisited the following three cards: 1978 Greg Minton, 1978 Mike Paxton and the 1977 Rick Jones. Three cards that confused me for YEARS because of the players' images depicted.
Take a look:

You see. I always imagined that the Topps guy that was supposed to airbrush these cards was originally only supposed to do a cap, maybe even some trim work on the uniforms, but then got carried away and ended up airbrushing EVERYTHING, leading to these odd looking, otherworldly "portraits".
The Minton card especially stuck in my mind because whomever airbrushed this card gave him a super-tan. Disturbing to say the least!
To top it all off, unlike the other two, Minton was already on the Giants roster as a player for a couple of years, so why the need for airbrushing? Granted, he wasn't a full-time player, but I figured there would be a number of photos for Topps to use by the time planning for the 1978 set around.
Well, it turns out all three players posed the same problem for Topps, leading to the "painting" look.
Apparently Topps didn't have color photos of these players, and instead of going out to shoot a couple poses to use, Topps went ahead and "colorized" the black and white images they already had on hand.
Seems strange that Topps: A- Would have such a limited photo catalog, especially for Minton, and B- Would rather tint black and white images instead of simply taking a few photos, or at the very least just ask the organizations for a few.
Perhaps things worked differently back then?
Definitely leads to a unique set of cards that stand out for looking so odd (like the 1951 Bowman Paul Richards card with the cartoon-ish portrait. Never did understand what happened there either).