NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1975 RAY KNIGHT

On the blog today we have a 1975 "not so missing" card for former third baseman Ray Knight, who made his MLB debut in 1974 with the Cincinnati Reds:

 

Knight came up as a September call-up at the age of 21, appearing in 14 games and hitting .182 over that time, collecting two hits in 11 at-bats.

He'd spend the next two years in the Minors, but in 1977 he made it all the way back, appearing in 80 games and hitting .261 with 24 hits and 92 at-bats.

The 1978 season was more of the same for him, playing in 83 games and hitting an even .200, before putting in an excellent 1979 campaign when he'd end up fifth in the National League MVP race, hitting .318 with 175 hits, 37 doubles and 79 RBIs.

He would make his first All-Star team in 1980, eventually ending up with a .264 average over 162 games, collecting 163 hits with a career-best 39 doubles in 618 at-bats.

After one more season in Cincinnati, he moved on to the Houston Astros, where he'd suit up for two and a half years before finding himself in Queens, NY as a New York Met, becoming a part of those rough and tumble 1986 World Champions, helping the team by hitting .298 while driving in 76 runs.

In 1987 he moved on to the Baltimore Orioles, where he had a solid season, playing in 150 games and hitting .256 with 14 homers and 65 RBIs, followed by what turned out to be his final year in the Majors, now with the Detroit Tigers in 1988, hitting .217 with 65 hits over 299 at-bats in 105 games.

All told he finished his playing career with a .271 batting average, collecting 1311 hits in 4829 at-bats, with 490 runs scored and 595 RBIs, making two All-Star teams.

GUEST WRITER "RAJ" WITH SOME GREAT EXAMPLES OF TOPPS & AIRBRUSHING IN 1979

I received a GREAT email recently from blog-reader "RAJ" with some excellent examples of Topps and their airbrushing choices which really left me wondering how many other examples like these exist throughout the 1970's.
I liked the email so much I thought it'd make a perfect post.
Some good stuff here! Thanks Robert!

"Here is a great example of how Topps would remove certain elements in the background of photos for their cards using airbrushing when it really didn’t seem to be all that necessary.  On the left we see Mike Lum batting against the Pirates in Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium during the 1978 season.  On the right is a photo take during that same game, with no Topps airbrushing applied to it.  I’m not sure what was gained by painstakingly removing the photographers and their tri-pods.  

I guess Topps was wanting a clean background for this card as well as the cards for Johnny Bench and Dave Concepcion (below):

However, they chose to leave photographers and their equipment in the cards for Ray Knight, Ken Griffey, and Joe Morgan although they certainly removed portions of a photographer who was wearing blue jeans and a red shirt because you can see remnants of him in the Griffey and Morgan cards: 

In the cards we also see some strange happenings in the crowd as it appears that there are flesh-colored arms (or limbs of some sort) next to and below the big fella in blue in the Lum card.  What could they have done THAT for?

Hope this was of interest to you.  It always fascinated me the airbrushing “hack jobs” that Topps pawned off on us with some of those horrific baseball hats as well as the terrible football helmets in the 70s.  Classic..."