Time
to go and add former catcher Alan Ashby’s 1977 card to the long-running
“airbrushing through the 1970s” thread, with a closer look at the
original touched up image used:
Nice job of the airbrusher turning what was originally a shot of Ashby
in a Cleveland Indians uniform into a shot of him in a Blue Jays uni,
especially when one considers there really wasn’t much reference yet as
the team hadn’t played a single MLB game at the time this was created.
As for Ashby, after being traded to the Jays from the Cleveland Indians
in November of 1976, Ashby would go on to put in two seasons for the
expansion team before moving on to play for the Houston Astros for the
next eleven years. I never realized that his career to him all the way
to the doorsteps of the 1990 decade, finishing up with 22 games for the
Astros in 1989 after 17-years as a Major League catcher.
In those 17 seasons he batted .245 while playing in 1370 games,
collecting 1010 hits with 90 home runs and 513 runs batted in over 4123
official at-bats. After his baseball career ended as a player he hung
around the game as a coach in the Astros system as well as a broadcaster
for the Astros in both radio and television.