yes, it's one of the cards from my set that could use some upgrading. anyway, there's nothing unusual, right? bunning as a phillie. that's what he was. yes, but not in 1969. after starting his career with detroit, and having some pretty good seasons for the tigers, bunning was dealt to the phillies. he pitched for philadelphia from 1964 through 1967, leading the league in strikeouts and finishing second in the cy young voting in his last year there.
after the 1967 season, the phils traded bunning to the pirates (right on time it turned out) as the future senator had a horrible 1968 season with his era and whip skyrocketing. he pitched about the same for the pirates in 1969, but the dodgers acquired bunning anyway, since they needed pitching (don drysdale retired 10 days before bunning was obtained). the dodgers released him after the 1969 season, and the phillies signed him right away.
topps pulled an archive photo of bunning in his phillie pinstripes and ran with it, depriving us of a card of bunning in a pirates uniform but a dodgers card header. i should note that his 1969 card features him, hatless of course, in a phillies jersey but listed as a pirate. the only jim bunning dodger card i know of is his 1990 target card, which i featured in this post. anyway, i went ahead and used the only photo i could find of bunning in a dodger uniform (from the always fantastic steve's baseball photography page) and created a 1970 topps card that should have been:
featuring the people behind the bullpen fence. i know, 1970 topps didn't have any real game photos, but scourers of the internet can't be choosers.
so, there you have it. the jim bunning card that should have been. almost 40 years in the making.
Very nice work!!! Beautiful card.
ReplyDeleteThanks - Never knew about Bunning making it over to LA.
ReplyDeleteGood Research and nice to see a HOF pitcher get a card with his last team.
I would disagree with that photo. It should have been a head or posed shot. Topps did not include "action" photos of individual player cards until 1971. Thurman Munson's card is the first regular Topps player card in action. It is worth more than his 1970 rookie card.
ReplyDeleteSorry about that I did not see your comment at the end
ReplyDeleteAwesome card.
ReplyDeleteI just recently ran across these comments about the "should have been" card of Bunning with the Dodgers. I have two negatives of Bunning with the Dodgers that I acquired from Topps. One is a bust shot and the other about a 2/3 torso shot. If Topps had made a card of him, I'm sure they would have chosen one of them.
ReplyDelete