NEGATIVE SPOTLIGHT- 1974 NELSON BRILES "TRADED" CARD

I love coming across the original painted negatives Topps used on cards in the 1970’s, and this one is no different: Nelson Briles’ “traded” photo used in the 1974 sub-set:

After three very nice seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates between 1971 and 1973, Briles was traded over to the Kansas City Royals along with Fernando Gonzalez for Ed Kirkpatrick and Kurt Bevacqua in December.
He’d pitch there for a couple of years before moving on to the Texas Rangers in 1976 (which gave us an awesome airbrush job for him in that set!), before winding down his MLB career in 1978 with the Baltimore Orioles.
He pitched for 14-years in the big leagues, ending up at 129-112 with a nice 3.44 earned run average over 342 games and 2111.2 innings pitched, including two excellent seasons back-to-back in 1967 and 1968 when he posted win totals of 14 and 19 respectively with sub-3.00 E.R.A.’s, including a sparkling 2.43 in ‘67 as part of the World Champion squad that also had Bob Gibson anchoring the pitching staff.
I like how Topps used the GIANT “traded” banner to help in the airbrushing endeavors, only modifying what was needed to get the card done.

1976 PROJECT- A RE-DO FOR NELSON BRILES

Here’s a redone 1976 card for former pitcher Nelson Briles, at the request of “Reader Jim”, who wanted a card of the righty with the team he actually played for the year before, the Kansas City Royals:

Briles wrapped up his second season in K.C. With a 6-6 record over 24 games, 16 of the starts, with a 4.26 earned run average and 73 strikeouts in 112 innings of work.
On November 15th however, he was traded to the Texas Rangers for speedster Dave Nelson, and I have to remind everyone that Topps managed to produce one of the better airbrush jobs of the decade just in time to have an “accurate” card for the upcoming 1976 set:

Pretty damn good no?
Briles originally came up with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965 and had his best years there, leading the National League in winning percentage in 1967 after posting a 14-5 record, followed up by a 19-11 record in 1968, both with sub-3.00 ERA’s.
Over the course of his 14-year career he posted a 129-112 record, with a 3.44 ERA and 1163 strikeouts in 452 appearances and 2111.2 innings.

ANOTHER GREAT AIRBRUSHING JOB: 1976 NELSON BRILES

As I stated earlier, when I had my post on the great airbrushing job on the 1977 Doyle Alexander card, some of you wrote in and mentioned a few other great paint-jobs pre-Photoshop by Topps.

Here's one of the cards mentioned: 1976 Nelson Briles:

Man, you really have to appreciate the work that was done on this photo!

The shadowing on the chest area, the "Rangers" across the jersey and the cap. All great work!

Sure, if you carefully scan the image you can see the small imperfections. But overall a wonderful job by the Topps crew.

Briles was just about to start his short tenure with the Rangers, pitching about a year and a half after putting in two years with the Kansas City Royals.

His peak years were with the team he came up with, the St. Louis Cardinals.

In 1967 he posted a 14-5 record with the World Champs, leading the league in winning percentage with a nice .737 mark, along with a 2.43 earned run average, two shutouts and six saves in 49 games, 14 of which were starts.

The following year he went 19-11 with a 2.81 E.R.A., four shutouts and 141 strikeouts over the course of 33 games, all starts.

By the time he retired after the 1978 season he finished with a 129-112 record, with a 3.44 E.R.A., 17 shutouts and 1163 strikeouts over 452 games, of which 279 were starts.