20 July 2009

who is the moon man, really?

it seems appropriate today to ask the question, given the 40th anniversary of neil armstrong's walk on the moon (and i won't forget you, buzz aldrin). here on his 2006 fleer greats of the game 'nickname greats' insert is jay johnstone, aka 'moon man'. except, i would bet dollars to donuts that isn't jay johnstone. johnstone joined the dodgers prior to the 1980 season, and played for them until part way into the 1982 season. he rejoined the club for the 1985 season, his last in the majors. this photo, to me, has a 1970s feel to it. early 1970s at that. besides, when johnstone was with the dodgers, he was a bit more...mussed, shall we say, as his 1981 topps card demonstrates.on a related note, i really like this insert set - it has some of the great nicknames - the penguin, the toy cannon, happy, the mad hungarian, etc. and includes autos. they're sticker autos i believe - otherwise moon man probably would have protested.

speaking of johnstone, i don't know who writes the copy for upper deck, but they need to do some fact checking. according to them, johnstone played in the 1976 nlcs for the dodgers (he was with the phillies - the dodgers finished behind the nl west and eventual world champion reds in 1976).
we can put a man on the moon, but we can't get baseball card photos or text right.

here's to you, upper deck!

3 comments:

night owl said...

I thought you were going with a Wally Moon post.

That's definitely not Jay Johnstone on that Greats of the Game card. I don't know who it is. Ken McMullen? Don't have time now to compare photos.

deal said...

good direction to go on "Moon Day". I meant to put together a Bill Spaceman Lee post together for today, but it didn't work out.

gcrl said...

i was thinking it looked like len matuszek - that would put it at a circa 1985 photo. but then i thought the photo looked older. who knows.