JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT, ANOTHER 1977 RE-DO FOR RICK JONES

Up on the blog today, we have my SECOND re-do for former pitcher Rick Jones' 1977 card. The first was just an actual photo of him as a Seattle Mariner to "fix" the original as-issued Topps card which was an odd (to say the least) COMPLETE airbrush job, which was originally a black-and-white photo.This one reflects the team for whom he actually played in 1976, the Boston Red Sox:

Jones appeared in 24 games for the Red Sox in 1976, putting in a nice performance as he posted a 5-3 record along with a 3.36 earned run average, starting 14 of those appearances. Once onto Seattle however, he didn’t fair so well, going 1-4 with a 5.10 ERA over ten appearances, all starts and 42,1 innings of work.
The following year he’d make only three appearances for Seattle, starting two games and going 0-2 before spending 1979 and 1980 in the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system, posting double-digit wins each year, yet leaving the game for good at the age of 25.Interesting to see his 1975 minor league season, as he posted a record of 20-7 with a 2.67 ERA and 177 strikeouts over 29 starts and 226 innings at the age of only 20. 

 

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1979 RICK JONES

Today on the blog we have a 1979 “not so missing” card for former Seattle Mariners pitcher Rick Jones, who saw the last bit of Major League action of his career during the 1978 season:

Jones appeared in only three games in 1978, going 0-2 with an earned run average of 5.84 in 12.1 innings pitched, though he did strike out 11 in that time.
That would end up being the end of his Major League tenure after parts of three season in the Big Leagues, originally up with the Boston Red Sox in 1976 when he did very well as a 21-year-old, going 5-3 with a nice 3.36 ERA over 24 appearances, 14 of them starts, and 104.1 innings pitched.
Sadly for him, he would end up being selected by the new Seattle organization as the 22nd pick in the 1976 expansion draft, going from a division power-house to a cellar-dwelling Mariners club.
He would end up going 1-4 for Seattle during their inaugural season of 1977, with an ERA at 5.10 over 10 appearances, all starts, and 42.1 innings of work.
All told, he’d finish his MLB career with a record of 6-9, with an ERA at 4.02 over 37 appearances and 159 innings pitched.

1977 MARINERS REDONE- RICK JONES

Here’s a card from the 1977 set that BEGS for a “re-do”, the oddly painted up Rick Jones card, which was originally a black and white image it seems.
Take a look at the Topps original out that Spring:

Now here's the re-done version I created for the blog:

Along with the 1978 Greg Minton and Mike Paxton cards, it’s a rarely seen tactic Topps used in the decade when it appears a color image wasn’t available (how, I will never know).
Jones appeared in 24 games for the Red Sox in 1976, putting in a nice performance as he posted a 5-3 record along with a 3.36 earned run average, starting 14 of those appearances.
Once onto Seattle however, he didn’t fair so well, going 1-4 with a 5.10 ERA over ten appearances, all starts and 42,1 innings of work.
The following year he’d make only three appearances for Seattle, starting two games and going 0-2 before spending 1979 and 1980 in the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system, posting double-digit wins each year, yet leaving the game for good at the age of 25.
Interesting to see his 1975 minor league season, as he posted a record of 20-7 with a 2.67 ERA and 177 strikeouts over 29 starts and 226 innings at the age of only 20.

WHEN EXPANSION GETS TOPPS SCRAMBLING: 1977 DAVE HILTON

While I do realize that baseball expansion in 1977 must have given Topps fits trying to produce Blue Jay and Mariner cards for the new set, it is entertaining to see what the final result was.
For example, earlier on this blog I profiled the 1977 Chuck Hartensein card (#416), who hadn't been included in a set since 1970, before Topps issued one for him as a Blue Jay seven years later. A case of a Major League cast-off getting second life because of expansion.
There's also that Rick Jones (#118) card as a Mariner, where Topps had to take a black and white image of him and airbrush the ENTIRE photo, giving us one of the stranger looking issues in the set. There just weren't any color photographs available for a player that was getting a job because of a new team roster to fill.
Then there's the case of Dave Hilton, profiled here (card #163).
Hilton was actually a #1 pick by the San Diego Padres in the January 1971 amateur draft after starring at Rice University in Texas.
He made the quick jump up to the big leagues in 1972 at the age of 21, and saw some sporadic playing time over the next couple of years, hitting a robust .214 in a 157 games.
In 1975 he only appeared in four games for the Padres, going 0-8. And that, ladies and gentlemen (I suspect ALL gentlemen here actually), was it for Mr. Hilton, as he never made it up to the big show again.
Of course no one would know it at the time, and the Blue Jays purchased Hilton, along with former #1 pick in the 1972 draft Dave Roberts and John Scott, from San Diego in October of 1976.
In 1977 Hilton would actually suit up for Toledo in Triple-A (Cleveland) before moving on to a few seasons in the Japanese League. He'd return to the States and play some more Minor League ball up until 1982, but never made it back up to the Majors.
So here we are left with a card of a player who hadn't appeared in the Majors for two years, and never would suit up for the team he was depicted on.
The nightmare of expansion rears it's ugly head again in the baseball card world.

"Swing and a miss" for Topps. Hilton never suited up for Toronto.

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).